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All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Letters to William Molyneux' and 'Has Philosophy Lost Contact with People?'

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5 ideas

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 3. Wisdom Deflated

9764	Inspiration and social improvement need wisdom, but not professional philosophy [Quine]
	Full Idea: Professional philosophers have no peculiar fitness for inspirational and edifying writing, or helping to get society on an even keel (though we should do what we can). Wisdom may fulfil these crying needs: 'sophia' yes, but 'philosophia' not necessarily.
	From: Willard Quine (Has Philosophy Lost Contact with People? [1979], p.193)
	A reaction: This rather startlingly says that philosophy is unlikely to lead to wisdom, which is rather odd when it is defined as love of that very thing. Does love of horticulture lead to good gardening. I can't agree. Philosophy is the best hope of 'sophia'.

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 6. Hopes for Philosophy

9763	For a good theory of the world, we must focus on our flabby foundational vocabulary [Quine]
	Full Idea: Our traditional introspective notions - of meaning, idea, concept, essence, all undisciplined and undefined - afford a hopelessly flabby and unmanageable foundation for a theory of the world. Control is gained by focusing on words.
	From: Willard Quine (Has Philosophy Lost Contact with People? [1979], p.192)
	A reaction: A very nice statement of the aim of modern language-centred philosophy, though the task offered appears to be that of an under-labourer, when the real target, even according to Quine, is supposed to be a 'theory of the world'.

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 13. Nominal Essence

12812	Things have real essences, but we categorise them according to the ideas we receive [Locke]
	Full Idea: This I do say, that there are real constitutions in things from whence simple ideas flow, which we observe combin'd in them. But we distinguish particular substances into sorts or genera not by real essences or constitutions, but by observed simple ideas.
	From: John Locke (Letters to William Molyneux [1692], 1693.01.20)
	A reaction: This is the clearest statement I can find of Locke's position on essences. He is totally committed to their reality, but strongly aware of the empirical constraints which keep us from direct knowledge of them. He would be amazed by modern discoveries.

19. Language / B. Reference / 1. Reference theories

1757	The Electra: she knows this man, but not that he is her brother [Eucleides, by Diog. Laertius]
	Full Idea: The 'Electra': Electra knows that Orestes is her brother, but not that this man is Orestes, so she knows and does not know her brother simultaneously.
	From: report of Eucleides (fragments/reports [c.410 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Eu.4
	A reaction: Hence we distinguish 'know of', 'know that' and 'know how'. Hence Russell makes 'knowledge by acquaintance' fundamental, and descriptions come later.

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / b. Types of good

3028	The chief good is unity, sometimes seen as prudence, or God, or intellect [Eucleides]
	Full Idea: The chief good is unity, which is known by several names, for at one time people call it prudence, at another time God, at another intellect, and so on.
	From: Eucleides (fragments/reports [c.410 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.9.2
	A reaction: So the chief good is what unites and focuses our moral actions. Kant calls that 'the will'.