8 ideas
| 19695 | The devil was wise as an angel, and lost no knowledge when he rebelled [Whitcomb] |
| Full Idea: The devil is evil but nonetheless wise; he was a wise angel, and through no loss of knowledge, but, rather, through some sort of affective restructuring tried and failed to take over the throne. | |
| From: Dennis Whitcomb (Wisdom [2011], 'Argument') | |
| A reaction: ['affective restructuring' indeed! philosophers- don't you love 'em?] To fail at something you try to do suggests a flaw in the wisdom. And the new regime the devil wished to introduce doesn't look like a wise regime. Not convinced. |
| 19690 | 'Grasping' a structure seems to be modal, because we must anticipate its behaviour [Grimm] |
| Full Idea: 'Graspng' a structure would seem to bring into play something like a modal sense or ability, not just to register how things are, but also to anticipate how certain elements of the system would behave. | |
| From: Stephen R. Grimm (Understanding [2011], 2) | |
| A reaction: In the case of the chronology of some historical events, talking of 'grasping' or 'understanding' seems wrong because the facts are static and invariant. That seems to support the present idea. But you might 'understand' a pattern if you can reproduce it. |
| 19691 | Unlike knowledge, you can achieve understanding through luck [Grimm] |
| Full Idea: It may be that understanding is compatible with luck, in a way that knowledge is not. | |
| From: Stephen R. Grimm (Understanding [2011], 3) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Kvanvig and Prichard] If so, then we cannot say that knowledge is a lesser type of understanding. If you ask a trusted person how a mechanism works, and they have a wild guess that is luckily right, you would then understand it. |
| 19692 | You may have 'weak' understanding, if by luck you can answer a set of 'why questions' [Grimm] |
| Full Idea: There may be a 'weak' sense of understanding, where all you need to do is to be able to answer 'why questions' successfully, where one might have come by this ability in a lucky way. | |
| From: Stephen R. Grimm (Understanding [2011], 3) | |
| A reaction: We can see this point (in Idea 19691), but the idea that one could come by true complex understanding of something by purely lucky means is a bit absurd. Surely you would get one or two why questions wrong? 100%, just by luck? |
| 23674 | If an attempted poisoning results in benefits, we still judge the agent a poisoner [Reid] |
| Full Idea: If a man should give to his neighbour a potion which he really believes will poison him, but which, in the event, proves salutary, and does much good; in moral estimation, he is a poisoner, and not a benefactor. | |
| From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Active Powers 3: Princs of action [1788], 5) | |
| A reaction: I take Reid to mean that morality concerns how we assess the agent, and not the results of his actions. Mill and Bentham concede that we judge people this way, but don't think morality mainly concerns judging people. |
| 23675 | We shouldn't do to others what would be a wrong to us in similar circumstances [Reid] |
| Full Idea: It is a first principle of morals, that we ought not to do to another what we should think wrong to be done to us in like circumstances. | |
| From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Active Powers 3: Princs of action [1788], 6) | |
| A reaction: This negative form of the rule is more plausible than the positive form, presumably because there is more consensus about what we all dislike than what we all prefer. But presents for people that they would like, not that you like. |
| 23672 | To be virtuous, we must care about duty [Reid] |
| Full Idea: A man cannot be virtuous, if he has no regard to duty. | |
| From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Active Powers 3: Princs of action [1788], 5) | |
| A reaction: Thus are Aristotle and Kant united in a simple sentence. Aristotle thinks that a virtuous person thereby sees what is the right thing to do, but I take 'duty' to imply a requirement which comes not from good character but from external society. |
| 23673 | Every worthy man has a principle of honour, and knows what is honourable [Reid] |
| Full Idea: I presume it will be granted, that, in every man of real worth, there is a principle of honour, a regard to what is honourable or dishonourable, very distinct from a regard to his interest. | |
| From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Active Powers 3: Princs of action [1788], 5) | |
| A reaction: Note that there is a 'principle' of honour in a person's character, and there are also actions which are intrinsically honourable or not. I fear that only the worthy are honourable, and only the honourable are worthy! |