Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Presidential Address of Am. Math. Soc' and 'Episteme and Logos in later Plato'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined

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!).

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 2. Logos

17950	The logos enables us to track one particular among a network of objects [Nehamas]
	Full Idea: The logos (the definition) is a summary statement of the path within a network of objects that one will have to follow in order to locate a particular member of that network.
	From: Alexander Nehamas (Episteme and Logos in later Plato [1984], p.234)
	A reaction: I like this because it confirms that Plato (as well as Aristotle) was interested in the particulars rather than in the kinds (which I take to be general truths about particulars).

17951	A logos may be short, but it contains reference to the whole domain of the object [Nehamas]
	Full Idea: A thing's logos, apparently short as it may be, is implicitly a very rich statement since it ultimately involves familiarity with the whole domain to which that particular object belongs.
	From: Alexander Nehamas (Episteme and Logos in later Plato [1984], p.234)
	A reaction: He may be wrong that the logos is short, since Aristotle (Idea 12292) says a definition can contain many assertions.

5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 2. History of Logic

10247	We have no adequate logic at the moment, so mathematicians must create one [Veblen]
	Full Idea: Formal logic has to be taken over by mathematicians. The fact is that there does not exist an adequate logic at the present time, and unless the mathematicians create one, no one else is likely to do so.
	From: Oswald Veblen (Presidential Address of Am. Math. Soc [1924], 141), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics
	A reaction: This remark was made well after Frege, but before the advent of Gödel and Tarski. That implies that he was really thinking of meta-logic.