7 ideas
| 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!). |
| 22752 | Reasoning is impossible without a preconception [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: It is not possible either to seek or to doubt without a preconception. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.22) | |
| A reaction: [Sextus quotes this from 'the sapient Epicurus'] I think this may be a message across the centuries to Hegel, who attempted this impossible feat. My picture of philosophy is a continual shift of the preconceptions, to explore thoroughly. |
| 20660 | At one level maths and nature are very similar, suggesting some deeper origin [Wolfram] |
| Full Idea: At some rather abstract level one can immediately recognise one basic similarity between nature and mathematics ...this suggests that the overall similarity between mathematics and nature must have a deeper origin. | |
| From: Stephen Wolfram (A New Kind of Science [2002], p.772), quoted by Peter Watson - Convergence 17 'Philosophy' | |
| A reaction: Personally I think mathematics has been derived by abstracting from the patterns in nature, and then further extrapolating from those abstractions. So the puzzle in nature is not the correspondence with mathematics, but the patterns. |
| 22754 | Saying the good is useful or choiceworth or happiness-creating is not the good, but a feature of it [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: Asserting that the good is 'the useful', or 'what is choiceworthy for its own sake', or 'that which contributes to happiness', does not teach us what good is but states its accidental property. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.35) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a pretty accurate statement of Moore's famous Open Question argument. I read it in an Aristotelian way - that that quest is always for the essential nature of the thing itself, not for its role or function or use. |
| 22755 | Like a warming fire, what is good by nature should be good for everyone [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: Just as fire which is warmth-giving by nature warms all men, and does not chill some of them, so what is good by nature ought to be good for all, and not good for some but not good for others. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.69) | |
| A reaction: This is going to confine the naturally good to the basics of life, which we all share. Is a love of chess a natural good? It seems to capture an aspect of human nature, without appealing to everyone. Sextus says nothing is good for everyone. |
| 22756 | If a desire is itself desirable, then we shouldn't desire it, as achieving it destroys it [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: If the desire for wealth or health is desirable, we ought not to purse wealth or health, lest by acquiring them we cease to desire them any longer. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.81) | |
| A reaction: He is investigating whether desires can be desirable, and if so which ones. Roots of this are in Plato's 'Gorgias' on drinking water. Similar to 'if compassion is the highest good then we need lots of suffering'. Desire must be a means, not an end. |
| 20659 | Space and its contents seem to be one stuff - so space is the only existing thing [Wolfram] |
| Full Idea: It seems plausible that both space and its contents should somehow be made of the same stuff - so that in a sense space becomes the only thing in the universe. | |
| From: Stephen Wolfram (A New Kind of Science [2002], p.474), quoted by Peter Watson - Convergence 17 'Philosophy' | |
| A reaction: I presume the concept of a 'field' is what makes this idea possible. |