3 ideas
| 8732 | It is spooky the way mathematics anticipates physics [Weinberg] |
| Full Idea: It is positively spooky how the physicist finds the mathematician has been there before him or her. | |
| From: Steven Weinberg (Lecture on Applicability of Mathematics [1986], p.725), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Thinking About Mathematics 2.3 | |
| A reaction: This suggests that mathematics might be the study of possibilities or hypotheticals, like mental rehearsals for physics. See Hellman's modal structuralism. Maybe mathematicians are reading the mind of God, but I doubt that. |
| 5960 | When the soul is intelligent and harmonious, it is part of god and derives from god [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: The soul, when it has partaken of intelligence and reason and concord, is not merely a work but also a part of god and has come to be not by his agency but both from him as source and out of his substance. | |
| From: Plutarch (67: Platonic Questions [c.85], II.1001) | |
| A reaction: A most intriguing shift of view from earlier concepts of the psuché. How did this come about? This man is a pagan. The history is in the evolution of Platonism. See 'The Middle Platonists' by John Dillon. Davidson is also very impressed by reason. |
| 7667 | There are two sides to men - the pleasantly social, and the violent and creative [Diderot, by Berlin] |
| Full Idea: Diderot is among the first to preach that there are two men: the artificial man, who belongs in society and seeks to please, and the violent, bold, criminal instinct of a man who wishes to break out (and, if controlled, is responsible for works of genius. | |
| From: report of Denis Diderot (works [1769], Ch.3) by Isaiah Berlin - The Roots of Romanticism | |
| A reaction: This has an obvious ancestor in Plato's picture (esp. in 'Phaedrus') of the two conflicting sides to the psuché, which seem to be reason and emotion. In Diderot, though, the suppressed man has virtues, which Plato would deny. |