Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Categories, Classification, Cogn. Anthropology' and 'Cogitata et Visa'

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3 ideas

7. Existence / E. Categories / 2. Categorisation
Several words may label a category; one word can name several categories; some categories lack words [Ellen]
     Full Idea: Words are not always a good guide to the existence of categories: there may be several words which label the same categories (synonyms). and the same word can be used for quite different ideas. Some categories may exist without being labelled.
     From: Roy Ellen (Categories, Classification, Cogn. Anthropology [2006], I)
     A reaction: This is the sort of point which seems obvious to anyone outside philosophy, but which philosophers seem to find difficult to accept. Philosophers should pay much more attention to animals, and to illiterate peoples. Varieties of rice can lack labels.
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 1. Empiricism
Empiricists are collecting ants; rationalists are spinning spiders; and bees do both [Bacon]
     Full Idea: Empiricists are like ants; they collect and put to use; but rationalists, like spiders, spin threads out of themselves. (…and bees follow the middle way, of collecting material and transforming it).
     From: Francis Bacon (Cogitata et Visa [1607])
     A reaction: Nice (and so concisely expressed). Bees seem to be just more intelligent and energetic empiricists.
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
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?