11 ideas
| 4037 | Ockham's Razor is the principle that we need reasons to believe in entities [Mellor/Oliver] |
| Full Idea: Ockham's Razor is the principle that we need reasons to believe in entities. | |
| From: DH Mellor / A Oliver (Introduction to 'Properties' [1997], §9) | |
| A reaction: This presumably follows from an assumption that all beliefs need reasons, but is that the case? The Principle of Sufficient Reason precedes Ockham's Razor. |
| 4027 | Properties are respects in which particular objects may be alike or differ [Mellor/Oliver] |
| Full Idea: Properties are respects in which particular objects may be alike or differ. | |
| From: DH Mellor / A Oliver (Introduction to 'Properties' [1997], §1) | |
| A reaction: Note that this definition does not mention a causal role for properties. |
| 4029 | Nominalists ask why we should postulate properties at all [Mellor/Oliver] |
| Full Idea: Nominalists ask why we should postulate properties at all. | |
| From: DH Mellor / A Oliver (Introduction to 'Properties' [1997], §3) | |
| A reaction: Objects might be grasped without language, but events cannot be understood, and explanations of events seem inconceivable without properties (implying that they are essentially causal). |
| 2170 | Homer does not distinguish between soul and body [Homer, by Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Homer's descriptions of people did without a dualistic distinction between soul and body. | |
| From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Shame and Necessity II - p.23 |
| 4039 | Abstractions lack causes, effects and spatio-temporal locations [Mellor/Oliver] |
| Full Idea: Abstract entities (such as sets) are usually understood as lacking causes, effects, and spatio-temporal location. | |
| From: DH Mellor / A Oliver (Introduction to 'Properties' [1997], §10) | |
| A reaction: This seems to beg some questions. Has the ideal of 'honour' never caused anything? Young men dream of pure velocity. |
| 1757 | The Electra: she knows this man, but not that he is her brother [Eucleides, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: The 'Electra': Electra knows that Orestes is her brother, but not that this man is Orestes, so she knows and does not know her brother simultaneously. | |
| From: report of Eucleides (fragments/reports [c.410 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Eu.4 | |
| A reaction: Hence we distinguish 'know of', 'know that' and 'know how'. Hence Russell makes 'knowledge by acquaintance' fundamental, and descriptions come later. |
| 2171 | The 'will' doesn't exist; there is just conclusion, then action [Homer, by Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Homer left out another mental action lying between coming to a conclusion and acting on it; and he did well, since there is no such action, and the idea is the invention of bad philosophy. | |
| From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Shame and Necessity II - p.37 | |
| A reaction: This is a characteristically empiricist view, which is found in Hobbes. The 'will' seems to have a useful role in folk psychology. We can at least say that coming to a conclusion that I should act, and then actually acting, are not the same thing. |
| 21819 | Plato says the Good produces the Intellectual-Principle, which in turn produces the Soul [Homer, by Plotinus] |
| Full Idea: In Plato the order of generation is from the Good, the Intellectual-Principle; from the Intellectual-Principle, the Soul. | |
| From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE], 509b) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08 | |
| A reaction: The doctrine of Plotinus merely echoes Plato, in that case, except that the One replaces the Form of the Good. Does this mean that what is first in Plotinus is less morally significant, and more concerned with reason and being? |
| 3028 | The chief good is unity, sometimes seen as prudence, or God, or intellect [Eucleides] |
| Full Idea: The chief good is unity, which is known by several names, for at one time people call it prudence, at another time God, at another intellect, and so on. | |
| From: Eucleides (fragments/reports [c.410 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.9.2 | |
| A reaction: So the chief good is what unites and focuses our moral actions. Kant calls that 'the will'. |
| 11388 | Let there be one ruler [Homer] |
| Full Idea: The rule of many is not good; let there be one ruler. | |
| From: Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE], 2.204), quoted by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 8.9 | |
| A reaction: [Quoted by Aristotle at Metaphysics 1076a04] |
| 14829 | Homer so enjoys the company of the gods that he must have been deeply irreligious [Homer, by Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Homer is so at home among his gods, and takes such delight in them as a poet, that he surely must have been deeply irreligious. | |
| From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Human, All Too Human 125 | |
| A reaction: Blake made a similar remark about where the true allegiance of Milton lay in 'Paradise Lost'. |