8 ideas
| 468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
| Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice. | |
| From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 4581 | Virtues and vices are like secondary qualities in perception, found in observers, not objects [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Vice and virtue may be compared to sounds, colours, heat and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects but perceptions in the mind. | |
| From: David Hume (Letters [1739], to Hutcheson 1740) | |
| A reaction: Very revealing about the origin of the is/ought idea, but this is an assertion rather than an argument. Most Greeks treat value as a primary quality of things (e.g. life, harmony, beauty, health). |
| 4580 | All virtues benefit either the public, or the individual who possesses them [Hume] |
| Full Idea: I desire you to consider if there be any quality that is virtuous, without having a tendency either to the public good or to the good of the person who possesses it. | |
| From: David Hume (Letters [1739], to Hutcheson 1739) | |
| A reaction: Obviously this is generally true. How, though, does it benefit the individual to secretly preserve their integrity? I go round to visit a friend to repay a debt; I am told they have died; I quietly leave some money on the table and leave. Why? |
| 7506 | God made man in his own image [Anon (Tor)] |
| Full Idea: And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness. | |
| From: Anon (Tor) (01: Book of Genesis [c.750 BCE], 1.26) | |
| A reaction: Since we are obviously not identical in every way with God, we can presumably choose in which respects we think of ourselves as being like Him. Reason, understanding, beauty, goodness, consciousness? A troublesome verse, challenged by Darwin. |
| 16782 | The names of all the types of creature were given forever by Adam [Anon (Tor)] |
| Full Idea: Whatsoever Adam called any living creature, the same is its name. And Adam called all the beasts by their names, and all the fowls of the air, and all the cattle of the field. | |
| From: Anon (Tor) (01: Book of Genesis [c.750 BCE], 02:20) |
| 4579 | The idea of a final cause is very uncertain and unphilosophical [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Your sense of 'natural' is founded on final causes, which is a consideration that appears to me pretty uncertain and unphilosophical. | |
| From: David Hume (Letters [1739], to Hutcheson 1739) | |
| A reaction: This is the rejection of Aristotelian teleology by modern science. I agree that the notion of utterly ultimate final cause is worse than 'uncertain' - it is an impossible concept. Nevertheless, I prefer Aristotle to Hume. Nature can teach us lessons. |
| 20705 | That events could be uncaused is absurd; I only say intuition and demonstration don't show this [Hume] |
| Full Idea: I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause: I only maintained that our certainty of the falsehood of that proposition proceeded neither from intuition nor from demonstration, but from another source. | |
| From: David Hume (Letters [1739], 1754), quoted by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 5 'God' | |
| A reaction: Since the other source is habit, he is being a bit disingenuous. While rational intuition and demonstration give a fairly secure basis for the universality of causation, mere human habits of expectation give very feeble grounds. |
| 4013 | And God saw the light, that it was good [Anon (Tor)] |
| Full Idea: And God saw the light, that it was good. | |
| From: Anon (Tor) (01: Book of Genesis [c.750 BCE], 01.04) | |
| A reaction: The text seems to suggest that God did not decide that it was good, but that it conformed to a standard of goodness. |