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All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Darwinian Metaphysics: Species and Essentialism' and 'works'

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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!).

14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / d. Explaining people

7082	Nature requires causal explanations, but society requires clarification by reasons and motives [Weber, by Critchley]
	Full Idea: Weber coined the distinction between explanation and clarification, saying that natural phenomena require causal explanation, while social phenomena require clarification by giving reasons or offering possible motives for how things are.
	From: report of Max Weber (works [1905]) by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro Ch.7
	A reaction: This is music to the ears of property dualists and other non-reductivists, but if you go midway in the hierarchy of animals (a mouse, say) the distinction blurs. Weber probably hadn't digested Darwin, whose big impact came around 1905.

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / b. Fact and value

22155	We are disenchanted because we rely on science, which ignores values [Weber, by Boulter]
	Full Idea: Weber contends that modern western civilisation is 'disenchanted' because our society's method of arriving at beliefs about the world, that is, the sciences, is unable to address questions of value.
	From: report of Max Weber (works [1905]) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 6
	A reaction: This idea, made explicit by Hume's empirical attitude to values, is obviously of major importance. For we Aristotelians values are a self-evident aspect of nature. Boulter says philosophy has added to the disenchantment. I agree.

27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 5. Species

17366	Virtually all modern views of speciation rest on relational rather than intrinsic features [Okasha]
	Full Idea: On all modern species concepts (except the phenetic), the property in virtue of which a particular organism belongs to one species rather than another is a relational rather than an intrinsic property of the organism.
	From: Samir Okasha (Darwinian Metaphysics: Species and Essentialism [2002], p.201), quoted by Michael Devitt - Resurrecting Biological Essentialism 4
	A reaction: I am in sympathy with Devitt's attack on this view, for the same reason that I take relational explanations of almost anything (such as the mind) to be inadequate. We need to know the intrinsic features that enable the relations.