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All the ideas for 'works (fragments)', 'Analogy of Religion' and 'fragments/reports'

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9 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 1. Paradox
6007 If you know your father, but don't recognise your father veiled, you know and don't know the same person [Eubulides, by Dancy,R]
     Full Idea: The 'undetected' or 'veiled' paradox of Eubulides says: if you know your father, and don't know the veiled person before you, but that person is your father, you both know and don't know the same person.
     From: report of Eubulides (fragments/reports [c.390 BCE]) by R.M. Dancy - Megarian School
     A reaction: Essentially an uninteresting equivocation on two senses of "know", but this paradox comes into its own when we try to give an account of how linguistic reference works. Frege's distinction of sense and reference tried to sort it out (Idea 4976).
5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 6. Paradoxes in Language / a. The Liar paradox
6006 If you say truly that you are lying, you are lying [Eubulides, by Dancy,R]
     Full Idea: The liar paradox of Eubulides says 'if you state that you are lying, and state the truth, then you are lying'.
     From: report of Eubulides (fragments/reports [c.390 BCE]) by R.M. Dancy - Megarian School
     A reaction: (also Cic. Acad. 2.95) Don't say it, then. These kind of paradoxes of self-reference eventually lead to Russell's 'barber' paradox and his Theory of Types.
5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 6. Paradoxes in Language / b. The Heap paradox ('Sorites')
6008 Removing one grain doesn't destroy a heap, so a heap can't be destroyed [Eubulides, by Dancy,R]
     Full Idea: The 'sorites' paradox of Eubulides says: if you take one grain of sand from a heap (soros), what is left is still a heap; so no matter how many grains of sand you take one by one, the result is always a heap.
     From: report of Eubulides (fragments/reports [c.390 BCE]) by R.M. Dancy - Megarian School
     A reaction: (also Cic. Acad. 2.49) This is a very nice paradox, which goes to the heart of our bewilderment when we try to fully understand reality. It homes in on problems of identity, as best exemplified in the Ship of Theseus (Ideas 1212 + 1213).
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 9. Sameness
21315 A tree remains the same in the popular sense, but not in the strict philosophical sense [Butler]
     Full Idea: When a man swears to the same tree having stood for fifty years in the same place, he means ...not that the tree has been all that time the same in the strict philosophical sense of the word. ...In a loose and popular sense they are said to be the same.
     From: Joseph Butler (Analogy of Religion [1736], App.1)
     A reaction: A helpful distinction which we should hang on. Of course, by the standards of modern physics, nothing is strictly the same from one Planck time to the next. All is flux. So we either drop the word 'same' (for objects) or relax a bit.
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 4. Presupposition of Self
21317 Despite consciousness fluctuating, we are aware that it belongs to one person [Butler]
     Full Idea: Though the successive consciousnesses which we have of our own existence are not the same, yet they are consciousnesses of one and the same thing or object; of the same person, self, or living agent.
     From: Joseph Butler (Analogy of Religion [1736], App.1)
     A reaction: Butler's arguments seems to be that he appears to be the same person, so he is the same person. He is explicitly disagreeing with Locke.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / a. Memory is Self
21313 If consciousness of events makes our identity, then if we have forgotten them we didn't exist then [Butler]
     Full Idea: Though consciousness of what is past does ascertain our personal identity to ourselves, yet to say that it makes personal identity, or is necessary to our being the same persons is to say a person has not existed a single moment but what he can remember.
     From: Joseph Butler (Analogy of Religion [1736], App.1)
     A reaction: An over-cautious scepticism has crept in about the reliability of bodily identity. Now we can have photographs and CCTV to prove that we experienced events we have forgotten. Butler is right.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / c. Inadequacy of mental continuity
21314 Consciousness presupposes personal identity, so it cannot constitute it [Butler]
     Full Idea: One would think it really self-evident that consciousness of personal identity presupposes, and therefore cannot constitute, personal identity, any more than knowledge can presuppose truth, which it presupposes.
     From: Joseph Butler (Analogy of Religion [1736], App.1)
     A reaction: It rather begs the question to dogmatically assert that mere consciousness presupposes a self, especially after Hume's criticisms. That consciousness implies a subject to experience needs arguing for. Is it the best explanation?
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 5. Concerns of the Self
21318 If the self changes, we have no responsibilities, and no interest in past or future [Butler]
     Full Idea: If personality is a transient thing ...then it follows that it is a fallacy to charge ourselves with any thing we did, or to imagine our present selves interested in any thing which befell us yesterday, or what will befall us tomorrow.
     From: Joseph Butler (Analogy of Religion [1736], App.1)
     A reaction: We seem to care about the past and future of our children, without actually being our children. Can't my future self be my descendant, a close one, instead of me?
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues
6004 The cardinal virtues are theoretical (based on knowledge), and others are 'non-theoretical' [Hecato, by Dorandi]
     Full Idea: Hecato defined the cardinal virtues as 'theoretical', that is, based on knowledge, and to these he opposed those that are 'non-theoretical', for example, health, beauty, strength of spirit, and courage.
     From: report of Hecato (fragments/reports [c.70 BCE]) by Tiziano Dorandi - Hecato of Rhodes
     A reaction: Mostly these are Aristotle's external and non-external virtues, except that courage is here included among the former, implying, presumably, that it is more of a natural gift than an intellectual achievement.