5 ideas
| 21405 | Cicero sees wisdom in terms of knowledge, but earlier Stoics saw it as moral [Cicero, by Long] |
| Full Idea: Cicero (drawing on Panaetius) treats wisdom as if its province were primarily a disinterested pursuit of knowledge. But earlier Stoics gave purely moral definitions of wisdom. | |
| From: report of M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.11-20) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 5 | |
| A reaction: I would have thought that after long discussion most ancient (and even modern) philosophers would conclude that it is both. The 'intellectualism' of Socrates hovers in the background, implying that healthy knowledge produces virtue. |
| 20871 | Unfortunately we choose a way of life before we are old enough to think clearly [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: At the beginning of adolescence when our deliberative capacities are weak we decide on the way of life that we find attractive. So one gets entangled in a definite manner and pattern of life before one is able to judge which one is best. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.117) | |
| A reaction: Hence it is important to have lots of means for bailing out of education courses, jobs, and even marriage. At least university postpones the key life choices till the early twenties. |
| 23367 | Even pointing a finger should only be done for a reason [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy says it is not right even to stretch out a finger without some reason. | |
| From: Epictetus (fragments/reports [c.57], 15) | |
| A reaction: The key point here is that philosophy concerns action, an idea on which Epictetus is very keen. He rather despise theory. This idea perfectly sums up the concept of the wholly rational life (which no rational person would actually want to live!). |
| 6031 | The essence of propriety is consistency [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: The whole essence of propriety is quite certainly consistency. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.110) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me the key intuition on which Kant built his deontological ethical theory. However, opponents say the consistency requires principles, and these are the enemies of truly good human behaviour, which involves Aristotle's 'particulars'. |
| 19436 | Bare or primary matter is passive; it is clothed or secondary matter which contains action [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The active principle is not attributed by me to bare or primary matter, which is merely passive ...but to clothed or secondary matter which in addition contains a primitive entelechy, or active principle. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Wagner [1710], 1710 §2) | |
| A reaction: Secondary matter contains monads. The puzzling question is what primary matter consists of. It is not atoms, because it is infinitely divisible, and it seems to be composed of corpuscles. But what is it made of? Just gunge? He says it is 'flux'. |