5 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!). |
| 20752 | For man, being is not what he is, but what he is going to be [Ortega y Gassett] |
| Full Idea: Being consists not in what it is already, but in what it is not yet, a being that consists in not-yet-being. Everything else in the world is what it is….Man is the entity that makes himself….He has to determine what he is going to be. | |
| From: José Ortega y Gassett (Toward a Philosophy of History [1941], p.112,201-2), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 4 'Problem' | |
| A reaction: [p.112 and 201-2] This seems to be Ortega y Gasset's spin on Heidegger's concept, by adding a temporal dimension to it. |
| 21687 | It seems obvious to prefer the simpler of two theories, on grounds of beauty and convenience [Quine] |
| Full Idea: It is not to be wondered that theory makers seek simplicity. When two theories are equally defensible on other counts, certainly the simpler of the two is to be preferred on the score of both beauty and convenience. | |
| From: Willard Quine (On Simple Theories of a Complex World [1960], p.255) | |
| A reaction: A simple application of Ockham's Razor. Quine goes on to nicely deconstruct what is involved in simplicity, and identify a certain amount of dubious prejudice in the concept. |
| 21688 | There are four suspicious reasons why we prefer simpler theories [Quine] |
| Full Idea: We prefer simpler theories through wishful thinking, or a bias which slants the data, or a bias where the simpler hypothesis is more open to confirmation, or simpler hypotheses tolerating wider deviations in score-keeping. | |
| From: Willard Quine (On Simple Theories of a Complex World [1960], p.258) | |
| A reaction: [a compression of his summary of the paper] Quine is not dismissing our preference for simpler theories, but just very nicely inviting us to focus of aspects about which we should be cautious. |
| 20756 | Instead of having a nature, man only has a history [Ortega y Gassett] |
| Full Idea: Man lives in view of the past. Man, in a word, has no nature; what he has is history. Expressed differently: what nature is to things, history is to man. | |
| From: José Ortega y Gassett (Toward a Philosophy of History [1941], p.217), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 5 'Situated' | |
| A reaction: Makes explicit the existentialist denial of human nature. The foundation of ethics can only be total freedom, to choose both yourself and your actions. What is inescapable is the social and culture contexts. What is the role of the 'history'? |