Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Structure and Nature' and 'fragments/reports'

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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!).
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 7. Mathematical Structuralism / a. Structuralism
10242 I apply structuralism to concrete and abstract objects indiscriminately [Quine]
     Full Idea: My own line is a yet more sweeping structuralism (than David Lewis's account of classes), applying to concrete and abstract objects indiscriminately.
     From: Willard Quine (Structure and Nature [1992], p.6), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics 4.9
     A reaction: Shapiro calls this 'breathtaking', and retreats from it, but it is something like my own view, starting from Mill's pebbles and working up.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 6. Physicalism
10243 My ontology is quarks etc., classes of such things, classes of such classes etc. [Quine]
     Full Idea: My tentative ontology continues to consist of quarks and their compounds, also classes of such things, classes of such classes, and so on.
     From: Willard Quine (Structure and Nature [1992], p.9), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics 4.9
     A reaction: I would call this the Hierarchy of Abstraction (just coined it - what do you think?). Unlike Quine, I don't see why its ontology should include things called 'sets' in addition to the things that make them up.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / d. Weakness of will
22511 Some reasonings are stronger than we are [Philolaus]
     Full Idea: Some reasonings are stronger than we are.
     From: Philolaus (fragments/reports [c.425 BCE]), quoted by Aristotle - Eudemian Ethics 1225a33
     A reaction: This endorses the Aristotle view of akrasia (as opposed to the Socratic view). This isolated remark seems to imply that we are more clearly embodiments of will than of reason.