5 ideas
| 13550 | To be always happy is to lack knowledge of one half of nature [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: To be always happy and to pass through life without any mental distress is to lack knowledge of one half of nature. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (On Providence [c.60], §4) | |
| A reaction: These kind of paradoxes plague virtue theory, and any theory which aims at an ideal. Heaven, for example, seems to have no problems to solve, which spells boredom. The fascination of corrupt people is their superior knowledge of the world. |
| 5996 | Critolaus redefined Aristotle's moral aim as fulfilment instead of happiness [Critolaus, by White,SA] |
| Full Idea: Critolaus reformulated Aristotelian theory by defining happiness as a 'fulfilment' (sumplêrôma) of psychic, physical, and external goods, where virtue vastly outweighs the rest. | |
| From: report of Critolaus (fragments/reports [c.170 BCE]) by Stephen A. White - Critolaus | |
| A reaction: The sounds more like an attempt at clarification than a real change of Peripatetic doctrine. Occasionally 'fulfilment' is offered as a translation for eudaimonia. Maybe we should just take up Critolaus' suggestion when we are discussing Aristotle. |
| 13549 | Nothing bad can happen to a good man [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: Nothing bad can happen to a good man. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (On Providence [c.60], §2) | |
| A reaction: This is a pithy summary of a well know ancient attitude - one that is rejected by Aristotle, but defended by Socrates. It depends what you mean by 'bad' - but that is a rather modern response. |
| 6005 | Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice [Hermarchus, by Sedley] |
| Full Idea: Hermarchus said that animal killing is justified by considerations of human safety and nourishment and by animals' inability to form contractual relations of justice with us. | |
| From: report of Hermarchus (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by David A. Sedley - Hermarchus | |
| A reaction: Could the last argument be used to justify torturing animals? Or could we eat a human who was too brain-damaged to form contracts? |
| 13548 | The ocean changes in volume in proportion to the attraction of the moon [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: The waves increase by degrees, approaching to the hour and day proportionately larger or smaller in volume as they are attracted by the star we call the moon, whose power controls the ocean's surge. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (On Providence [c.60], §1) | |
| A reaction: ....just in case anyone thought that Isaac Newton had invented gravity. |