52 ideas
| 5331 | You can't infer that because you have a hidden birth-mark, everybody else does [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: My knowing that I had a hidden birth-mark would not entitle me to infer with any great degree of confidence that the same was true of everybody else. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.E) | |
| A reaction: This is the notorious 'induction from a single case' which was used by Mill to prove that other minds exist. It is a very nice illustration of the weakness of arguments from analogy. Probably analogy on its own is useless, but is a key part of induction. |
| 458 | Nothing could come out of nothing, and existence could never completely cease [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: From what in no wise exists, it is impossible for anything to come into being; for Being to perish completely is incapable of fulfilment and unthinkable. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B012), quoted by Anon (Lyc) - On Melissus 975b1-4 | |
| A reaction: The first statement of a conservation law. Modern physics is wonderful, but hasn't offered a flicker of an answer to this puzzle. Quantum fluctuations are a mode of Being. |
| 5112 | Empedocles says things are at rest, unless love unites them, or hatred splits them [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles claims that things are alternately changing and at rest - that they are changing whenever love is creating a unity out of plurality, or hatred is creating plurality out of unity, and they are at rest in the times in between. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 250b26 | |
| A reaction: I suppose one must say that this an example of Ruskin's 'pathetic fallacy' - reading human emotions into the cosmos. Being constructive little creatures, we think goodness leads to construction. I'm afraid Empedocles is just wrong. |
| 2611 | It is currently held that quantifying over something implies belief in its existence [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: It is currently held that we are committed to a belief in the existence of anything over which we quantify. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], IX.C) | |
| A reaction: In a fairy tale we quantify over fairies, so some further criterion will obviously be needed. |
| 13209 | There is no coming-to-be of anything, but only mixing and separating [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles says there is no coming-to-be of anything, but only a mingling and a divorce of what has been mingled. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 314b08 | |
| A reaction: Aristotle comments that this prevents Empedocleans from distinguishing between superficial alteration and fundamental change of identity. Presumably, though, that wouldn't bother them. |
| 16520 | We see properties necessary for a kind (in the definition), but not for an individual [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: We can significantly ask what properties it is necessary for something to possess in order to be a thing of such and such a kind, since that asks what properties enter into the definition of the kind. But there is no such definition of the individual. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], 9.A.5) | |
| A reaction: [Quoted, not surprisingly, by Wiggins] Illuminating. If essence is just about necessary properties, I begin to see why the sortal might be favoured. I take it to concern explanatory mechanisms, and hence the individual. |
| 457 | Substance is not created or destroyed in mortals, but there is only mixing and exchange [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: There is no creation of substance in any one of mortal existence, nor any end in execrable death, but only mixing and exchange of what has been mixed. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B008), quoted by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes 1111f | |
| A reaction: also Aristotle 314b08 |
| 462 | One vision is produced by both eyes [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: One vision is produced by both eyes | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B088), quoted by Strabo - works 8.364.3 |
| 2613 | The theory of other minds has no rival [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: The theory that other people besides oneself have mental states is one that has no serious rival. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.E) | |
| A reaction: See 3463, where Searle says there is no such thing as our "theory" about other minds. In a science fiction situation (see 'Blade Runner'), this unrivalled theory could quickly unravel. It could even be a fact that you are the only humanoid with a mind. |
| 5328 | Originally I combined a mentalistic view of introspection with a behaviouristic view of other minds [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: In 1936 I combined a mentalistic analysis of the propositions in which one attributes experiences to oneself with a behaviouristic analysis of the propositions in which one attributes experiences to others. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.D) | |
| A reaction: He then criticises his view for inconsistency. Ryle preferred a behaviouristic account of introspection, but Ayer calls this 'ridiculous'. Ayer hunts for a compromise, but then settles for the right answer, which makes mentalism the 'best explanation'. |
| 5330 | Physicalism undercuts the other mind problem, by equating experience with 'public' brain events [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: The acceptance of physicalism undercuts the other minds problem by equating experiences with events in the brain, which are publicly observable. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.E) | |
| A reaction: It strikes me that if we could actually observe the operations of one another's brains, a great many of the problems of philosophy would never have appeared in the first place. Imagine a transparent skull and brain, with coloured waves moving through it. |
| 5325 | Is something an 'experience' because it relates to other experiences, or because it relates to a subject? [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: Is the character of being an item of experience one that can accrue to a quale through its relation to other qualia, or must it consist in a relation to a subject, which is conscious of these elements and distinct from them? | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.B) | |
| A reaction: When nicely put like this, it is hard to see how qualia could be experiences just because they relate to one another. It begs the question of what is causing the relationship. There seems to be a Cogito-like assumption of a thinker. |
| 5326 | Qualia must be united by a subject, because they lead to concepts and judgements [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: The ground for thinking that qualia are only experiences because they relate to a unifying subject is that they have to be identified, by being brought under concepts, and giving rise to judgements which usually go beyond them. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.B) | |
| A reaction: Thus one of Hume's greatest fans gives the clearest objection to Hume. It strikes me as a very powerful objection, better than anything Carruthers offers (1394,1395,1396). The conceptual element is very hard to disentangle from the qualia. |
| 5324 | Bodily identity and memory work together to establish personal identity [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: In general the two criteria of memory and bodily identity work together. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.B) | |
| A reaction: This seems better than any simplistic one-criterion approach. In life we use different criteria for our own identity, as when dreaming, or waking with a hangover, or wondering if we are dead after an accident. |
| 5322 | Self-consciousness is not basic, because experiences are not instrinsically marked with ownership [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: Self-consciousness is not a primitive datum, or in other words the observer's experiences are not intrinsically marked as his own. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.A) | |
| A reaction: This is a very Humean, ruthlessly empiricist view of the matter. Plenty of philosophers (existentialists, or Charles Taylor) would say that our experiences have our interests or values built into them. Why are they experiences, and not just events? |
| 5327 | Temporal gaps in the consciousness of a spirit could not be bridged by memories [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: If there were temporal gaps in the consciousness of disembodied spirits, the occurrences of memory-experiences would not be sufficient to bridge them. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.C) | |
| A reaction: Ayer is very sympathetic to the idea that the body is a key ingredient in personal identity. Without a body, there would be no criteria at all for the continuity of a spirit which lost consciousness for a while, since consciousness is all it is. |
| 22765 | Wisdom and thought are shared by all things [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: Wisdom and power of thought, know thou, are shared in by all things. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Logicians (two books) II.286 | |
| A reaction: Sextus quotes this, saying that it is 'still more paradoxical', and that it explicitly includes plants. This may mean that Empedocles was not including inanimate matter. |
| 5329 | Why shouldn't we say brain depends on mind? Better explanation! [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: If mind and brain exactly correspond we have as good ground for saying the brain depends on the mind as the other way round; if predominance is given to the brain, the reason is that it fits into a wider explanatory system. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.D) | |
| A reaction: A small but significant point. If an 'identity' theory is to be developed, then this step in the argument has to be justified. It is tempting here to move to the eliminativist view, because we no longer have to worry about a 'direction of priority'. |
| 1524 | For Empedocles thinking is almost identical to perception [Empedocles, by Theophrastus] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles assumes that thinking is either identical to or very similar to sense-perception. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], A86) by Theophrastus - On the Senses 9 | |
| A reaction: Not to be sniffed at. We can, of course, control our thinking (though we can't control the controller) and we contemplate abstractions, but that might be seen as a sort of perception. Vision is not as visual as we think. |
| 2610 | Talk of propositions is just shorthand for talking about equivalent sentences [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: Our talk of propositions should not be regarded as anything more than a concise way of talking about equivalent sentences. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], IX.C) | |
| A reaction: Wrong, though I can see why he says it. We struggle to express difficult propositions by offering several similar (but not equivalent) sentences. What is the criterion for deciding his 'equivalence'? |
| 3772 | The will, in the beginning, is entirely produced by desire [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The will, in the beginning, is entirely produced by desire. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: This is the sort of simplistic psychology that modern philosophers tend to avoid. Personally I am more Kantian. I will and desire that the answer to 3+2=? is 5, simply because it is true. Mill must realise we can will ourselves to desire something. |
| 3769 | With early training, any absurdity or evil may be given the power of conscience [Mill] |
| Full Idea: There is hardly anything so absurd or so mischievous that it may not, by means of early sanctions and influence, be made to act on the human mind with all the influence of conscience. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Like this! Think of all the people who have had weird upbringings, and end up feeling guilty about absurd things. Conscience just summarise upbringing and social conventions. |
| 552 | Empedocles said good and evil were the basic principles [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles was the first to give evil and good as principles. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 985a | |
| A reaction: Once you start to think that good and evil will only matter if they have causal powers, it is an easy step to the idea of a benevolent god, and a satanic anti-god. Otherwise the 'principles' could be ignored. |
| 3767 | Motive shows the worth of the agent, but not of the action [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The motive has nothing to do with the morality of the action, though much with the worth of the agent. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: I think it is an error to try to separate these too sharply. Morality can't be purely consequential, because it would make earthquakes immoral. Actions indicate the worth of agents. |
| 3771 | Virtues only have value because they achieve some further end [Mill] |
| Full Idea: Utilitarians believe that actions and dispositions are only virtuous because they promote another end than virtue. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.4) |
| 3768 | Orthodox morality is the only one which feels obligatory [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The customary morality, that which education and opinion have consecrated, is the only one which presents itself to the mind with the feeling of being in itself obligatory. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.3) |
| 3776 | Utilitarianism only works if everybody has a totally equal right to happiness [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The Greatest Happiness Principle is a mere form of empty words unless one person's happiness, supposed equal in degree, is counted for exactly as much as another's (Bentham's "everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one"). | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.5) |
| 7202 | The English believe in the task of annihilating evil for the victory of good [Nietzsche on Mill] |
| Full Idea: One continues to believe in good and evil: in such a way that one feels the victory of good and the annihilation of evil to be a task (- this is English; a typical case is that shallow-headed John Stuart Mill). | |
| From: comment on John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Writings from Late Notebooks 11[148]e | |
| A reaction: The poor old English try very hard to be clear, sensible, practical and realistic, and get branded as 'shallow' for their pains. Nietzsche was a deeper thinker than Mill, but I would prefer Mill to Heidegger any day. |
| 5935 | Mill's qualities of pleasure is an admission that there are other good states of mind than pleasure [Ross on Mill] |
| Full Idea: Mill's introduction of quality of pleasures into the hedonistic calculus is an unconscious departure from hedonism and a half-hearted admission that there are other qualities than pleasantness in virtue of which states of mind are good. | |
| From: comment on John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) by W. David Ross - The Right and the Good §VI | |
| A reaction: Mill argues that experienced people prefer some pleasures to others, but ducks the question of why they might prefer them. It can only be because they have some further desirable quality on top of the equal amount of pleasure. |
| 3764 | Actions are right if they promote pleasure, wrong if they promote pain [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The Greatest Happiness Principle holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) |
| 3766 | Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied [Mill] |
| Full Idea: Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) |
| 3763 | Ultimate goods such as pleasure can never be proved to be good [Mill] |
| Full Idea: What can be proved good must be so by being shown to be a means to something admitted to be good without proof. Music is good because it produces pleasure, but what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is good? | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.1) |
| 3765 | Only pleasure and freedom from pain are desirable as ends [Mill] |
| Full Idea: Pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) |
| 3770 | General happiness is only desirable because individuals desire their own happiness [Mill] |
| Full Idea: No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.4) |
| 6697 | Moral rules protecting human welfare are more vital than local maxims [Mill] |
| Full Idea: Moral rules which forbid mankind to hurt one another are more vital to human well-being than any maxims about some department of human affairs; ..though in particular cases a social duty is so important, as to overrule any general maxim of justice. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861]), quoted by Gordon Graham - Eight Theories of Ethics Ch.7 | |
| A reaction: The qualification is realistic, but raises the question of whether an 'act' calculation will always overrule any 'rule'. Maybe rule utilitirianism is just act utilitarianism, but ensuring that the calculations are long-term and extensive. (1871 edn) |
| 3774 | Rights are a matter of justice, not of benevolence [Mill] |
| Full Idea: Wherever there is a right, the case is one of justice, and not of the virtue of benevolence. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.5) |
| 3773 | No individual has the right to receive our benevolence [Mill] |
| Full Idea: No one has a moral right to our generosity or beneficence, because we are not morally bound to practise those virtues towards any given individual. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.5) |
| 3775 | A right is a valid claim to society's protection [Mill] |
| Full Idea: When we call anything a person's right, we mean that he has a valid claim on society to protect him in the possession of it. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.5) |
| 589 | 'Nature' is just a word invented by people [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: Nature is but a word of human framing. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B008), quoted by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1015a |
| 21823 | The principle of 'Friendship' in Empedocles is the One, and is bodiless [Empedocles, by Plotinus] |
| Full Idea: In Empedocles we have a dividing principle, 'Strife', set against 'Friendship' - which is the One and is to him bodiless, while the elements represent matter. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.09 | |
| A reaction: The first time I've seen the principle of Love in Empedocles identified with the One of Parmenides. Plotinus is a trustworthy reporter, I think, because he was well read, and had access to lost texts. |
| 6002 | Empedocles says bone is water, fire and earth in ratio 2:4:2 [Empedocles, by Inwood] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles used numerical ratios to explain different kinds of matter; for example, bone is two parts water, four parts fire, two parts earth; and blood is an equal blend of all four elements. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Brad Inwood - Empedocles | |
| A reaction: Why isn't the ration 1:2:1? This presumably shows the influence of Pythagoras (who had also been based in Italy, like Empedocles), as well as that of the earlier naturalistic philosophers. It was a very good theory, though wrong. |
| 13207 | Fire, Water, Air and Earth are elements, being simple as well as homoeomerous [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles says that Fire, Water, Air and Earth are four elements, and are thus 'simple' rather than flesh, bone and bodies which, like these, are 'homoeomeries'. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 314a26 | |
| A reaction: The translation is not quite clear. I take it that flesh and bone may look simple, because they are homoeomerous, but they are not really - but what is his evidence for that? Compare Idea 13208. |
| 459 | All change is unity through love or division through hate [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: These elements never cease their continuous exchange, sometimes uniting under the influence of Love, so that all become One, at other times again moving apart through the hostile force of Hate. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B017), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 158.1- |
| 13218 | The elements combine in coming-to-be, but how do the elements themselves come-to-be? [Aristotle on Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles says it is evident that all the other bodies down to the 'elements' have their coming-to-be and their passing-away: but it is not clear how the 'elements' themselves, severally in their aggregated masses, come-to-be and pass-away. | |
| From: comment on Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 325b20 | |
| A reaction: Presumably the elements are like axioms - and are just given. How do electrons and quarks come-to-be? |
| 13225 | Love and Strife only explain movement if their effects are distinctive [Aristotle on Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: It is not an adequate explanation to say that 'Love and Strife set things moving', unless the very nature of Love is a movement of this kind and the very nature of Strife a movement of that kind. | |
| From: comment on Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 333b23 | |
| A reaction: I take this to be of interest for showing Aristotle's quest for explanations, and his unwillingness to be fobbed off with anything superficial. I take a task of philosophy to be to push explanations further than others wish to go. |
| 460 | If the one Being ever diminishes it would no longer exist, and what could ever increase it? [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: Besides these elements, nothing else comes into being, nor does anything cease. For if they had been perishing continuously, they would Be no more; and what could increase the Whole? And whence could it have come? | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B017), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 158.1- |
| 2680 | Empedocles said that there are four material elements, and two further creative elements [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles holds that the corporeal elements are four, but that all the elements, including those which create motion, are six in number. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 314a16 |
| 5090 | Maybe bodies are designed by accident, and the creatures that don't work are destroyed [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Is it just an accident that teeth and other parts of the body seem to have some purpose, and creatures survive because they happen to be put together in a useful way? Everything else has been destroyed, as Empedocles says of his 'cow with human head'. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], 61) by Aristotle - Physics 198b29 | |
| A reaction: Good grief! Has no one ever noticed that Empedocles proposed the theory of evolution? It isn't quite natural selection, because we aren't told what does the 'destroying', but it is a little flash of genius that was quietly forgotten. |
| 461 | God is a pure, solitary, and eternal sphere [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: God is equal in all directions to himself and altogether eternal, a rounded Sphere enjoying a circular solitude. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B028), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.15.2 |
| 466 | God is pure mind permeating the universe [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: God is mind, holy and ineffable, and only mind, which darts through the whole cosmos with its swift thought. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B134), quoted by Ammonius - On 'De Interpretatione' 4.5.249.6 |
| 1719 | In Empedocles' theory God is ignorant because, unlike humans, he doesn't know one of the elements (strife) [Aristotle on Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: It is a consequence of Empedocles' view that God is the most unintelligent thing, for he alone is ignorant of one of the elements, namely strife, whereas mortal creatures are familiar with them all. | |
| From: comment on Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - De Anima 410b08 |
| 1522 | It is wretched not to want to think clearly about the gods [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: Wretched is he who cares not for clear thinking about the gods. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B132), quoted by Clement - Miscellanies 5.140.5.1 |