28 ideas
| 2653 | If the parts of the universe are subject to the law of nature, the whole universe must also be subject to it [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: If the parts of the universe are subject to the law of nature, then the universe itself must be subject to this law. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.86) |
| 9837 | 0 is not a number, as it answers 'how many?' negatively [Husserl, by Dummett] |
| Full Idea: Husserl contends that 0 is not a number, on the grounds that 'nought' is a negative answer to the question 'how many?'. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Philosophy of Arithmetic [1894], p.144) by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics Ch.8 | |
| A reaction: I seem to be in a tiny minority in thinking that Husserl may have a good point. One apple is different from one orange, but no apples are the same as no oranges. That makes 0 a very peculiar number. See Idea 9838. |
| 9576 | Multiplicity in general is just one and one and one, etc. [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: Multiplicity in general is no more than something and something and something, etc.; ..or more briefly, one and one and one, etc. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Philosophy of Arithmetic [1894], p.85), quoted by Gottlob Frege - Review of Husserl's 'Phil of Arithmetic' | |
| A reaction: Frege goes on to attack this idea fairly convincingly. It seems obvious that it is hard to say that you have seventeen items, if the only numberical concept in your possession is 'one'. How would you distinguish 17 from 16? What makes the ones 'multiple'? |
| 17444 | Husserl said counting is more basic than Frege's one-one correspondence [Husserl, by Heck] |
| Full Idea: Husserl famously argued that one should not explain number in terms of equinumerosity (or one-one correspondence), but should explain equinumerosity in terms of sameness of number, which should be characterised in terms of counting. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Philosophy of Arithmetic [1894]) by Richard G. Heck - Cardinality, Counting and Equinumerosity 3 | |
| A reaction: [Heck admits he hasn't read the Husserl] I'm very sympathetic to Husserl, though nearly all modern thinking favours Frege. Counting connects numbers to their roots in the world. Mathematicians seem oblivious of such things. |
| 9575 | Husserl identifies a positive mental act of unification, and a negative mental act for differences [Husserl, by Frege] |
| Full Idea: Husserl identifies a 'unitary mental act' where several contents are connected or related to one another, and also a difference-relation where two contents are related to one another by a negative judgement. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Philosophy of Arithmetic [1894], p.73-74) by Gottlob Frege - Review of Husserl's 'Phil of Arithmetic' p.322 | |
| A reaction: Frege is setting this up ready for a fairly vicious attack. Where Hume has a faculty for spotting resemblances, it is not implausible that we should also be hard-wired to spot differences. 'You look different; have you changed your hair style?' |
| 2628 | Why would mind mix with matter if it didn't need it? [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: If the gods have no need of the sensible world, why mix up mind with water and water with mind, if mind can exist by itself without any need of matter? | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.24) | |
| A reaction: This question migrates into our puzzles about why a separate mental substance would be produced by evolution. If it is device physical systems use to promote themselves, mental substance is reduced to an inferior and dependent role. |
| 21214 | We clarify concepts (e.g. numbers) by determining their psychological origin [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol] |
| Full Idea: Husserl said that the clarification of any concept is made by determining its psychological origin. He is concerned with the psychological origins of the operation of calculating cardinal numbers. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Philosophy of Arithmetic [1894]) by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 2.2 | |
| A reaction: This may not be the same as the 'psychologism' that Frege so despised, because Husserl is offering a clarification, rather than the intrinsic nature of number concepts. It is not a theory of the origin of numbers. |
| 9819 | Psychologism blunders in focusing on concept-formation instead of delineating the concepts [Dummett on Husserl] |
| Full Idea: Husserl substitutes his account of the process of concept-formation for a delineation of the concept. It is above all in making this substitution that psychologism is objectionable (and Frege opposed it so vehemently). | |
| From: comment on Edmund Husserl (Philosophy of Arithmetic [1894]) by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: While this is a powerful point which is a modern orthodoxy, it hardly excludes a study of concept-formation from being of great interest for other reasons. It may not appeal to logicians, but it is crucial part of the metaphysics of nature. |
| 9851 | Husserl wanted to keep a shadowy remnant of abstracted objects, to correlate them [Dummett on Husserl] |
| Full Idea: Husserl saw that abstracted units, though featureless, must in some way retain their distinctness, some shadowy remnant of their objects. So he wanted to correlate like-numbered sets, not just register their identity, but then abstractionism fails. | |
| From: comment on Edmund Husserl (Philosophy of Arithmetic [1894]) by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics Ch.12 | |
| A reaction: Abstractionism is held to be between the devil and the deep blue sea, of depending on units which are identifiable, when they are defined as devoid of all individuality. We seem forced to say that the only distinction between them is countability. |
| 20814 | Eloquence educates, exhorts, comforts, distracts and unites us, and raises us from savagery [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: How wonderful is the power of eloquence! It enables us to learn and to teach. We use it to exhort and persuade, to comfort the unfortunate, to distract the timid and calm the passionate. It unites us in law and society, and raises us from savagery. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], 2.147) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Cicero would have been well aware of the doubts about rhetoric felt by Socrates (and possibly Plato). Cicero was probably the greatest Roman orator. |
| 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? |
| 2640 | We have the death penalty, but still have thousands of robbers [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: We have robbers by the thousand, although they have the penalty of death before their eyes. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.86) |
| 2652 | Some regard nature simply as an irrational force that imparts movement [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Some regard nature as an irrational force which merely imparts a mechanical motion to material bodies. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.81) |
| 2645 | Why shouldn't the gods fear their own destruction? [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Why should the gods not be apprehensive of their own possible dissolution? | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.114) |
| 2627 | I wonder whether loss of reverence for the gods would mean the end of all virtue [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: I do not know whether, if our reverence for the gods were lost, we should not also see the end of good faith, of human brotherhood, and even of justice itself, which is the keystone of all the virtues. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.3) |
| 2651 | God doesn't obey the laws of nature; they are subject to the law of God [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: God is not subject to obey the laws of nature. It is nature that is subject to the laws of God. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.77) |
| 2634 | It seems clear to me that we have an innate idea of the divine [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Let us take it as agreed that we have a preconception or "an innate idea" (as I have called it) or a prior knowledge of the divine. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.44) |
| 2636 | Many primitive people know nothing of the gods [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: There must be many wild and primitive peoples who have no idea of the gods at all. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.62) |
| 2647 | It is obvious from order that someone is in charge, as when we visit a gymnasium [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: If one comes into a gymnasium and sees everything properly arranged and carried on in order, one does not imagine these arrangements to be accidental, but infers that there is someone in command whose orders are obeyed. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.15) |
| 2655 | If the barbarians of Britain saw a complex machine, they would be baffled, but would know it was designed [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: If someone were to take the celestial globe of Posidonius and show it to the people of Britain, would a single one of those barbarians fail to see that it was the product of a conscious intelligence? | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.88) |
| 2656 | Chance is no more likely to create the world than spilling lots of letters is likely to create a famous poem [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: If someone thinks chance made the world, he should also think that if an infinite number of the letters of the alphabet were shaken together and poured out on the ground it would be possible for them to spell out the whole 'Annals' of Ennius. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.93) |
| 2650 | If a person cannot feel the power of God when looking at the stars, they are probably incapable of feeling [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: If any man cannot feel the power of God when he looks upon the stars, then I doubt whether he is capable of any feeling at all. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.55) |
| 2657 | If everything with regular movement and order is divine, then recurrent illnesses must be divine [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Are we to find a divinity in every regular movement and in everything which happens in a constant order? If so, we shall have to say that tertian and quartan agues are divine because their course and recurrence is absolutely uniform. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], III.24) |
| 2638 | Either the gods are identical, or one is more beautiful than another [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Are the gods all exactly the same? If not, then one must be more beautiful than another. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.80) |
| 2635 | The gods are happy, so virtuous, so rational, so must have human shape [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: We agree the gods are happy, and no happiness is possible without virtue: there is no virtue without reason: and reason is associated only with the human form: then it must follow that the gods themselves have human shape. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.48) |
| 2641 | Why believe in gods if you have never seen them? [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Did you ever actually see a god? Then why do you believe that gods exist? | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.88) |
| 2659 | The lists of good men who have suffered and bad men who have prospered are endless [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Time would fail me if I tried to list all the good men for whom things have turned out badly. So it would if I tried to mention all the wicked who have prospered. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], III.80) |
| 2658 | The gods blame men for having vices, but they could have given us enough reason to avoid them [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: You gods say that the fault lies in the vices of mankind. But you could have endowed men with reason in a form which would exclude all vice and crime. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], III.76) |