4 ideas
| 7911 | Theory vanishes when one has obtained wisdom [Rahulabhadra] |
| Full Idea: As the drops of dew in contact/ With the sun's rays disappear,/ So all theorizings vanish,/ Once one has obtained wisdom. | |
| From: Rahulabhadra (Hymn to Perfect Wisdom [c.150], v 10) | |
| A reaction: I suspect that the western view is that wisdom is good theory. This sounds like the sort of thing Wittgenstein would have said. Remarks like this encourage people to skip study, with the illusion that they can go straight to wisdom. |
| 19347 | Substance needs independence, unity, and stability (for individuation); also it is a subject, for predicates [Perkins] |
| Full Idea: For individuation, substance needs three properties: independence, to separate it from other things; unity, to call it one thing, rather than an aggregate; and permanence or stability over time. Its other role is as subject for predicates. | |
| From: Franklin Perkins (Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed [2007], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: Perkins is describing the Aristotelian view, which is taken up by Leibniz. 'Substance' is not a controversial idea, if we see that it only means that the world is full of 'things'. It is an unusual philosopher wholly totally denies that. |
| 14798 | All communication is vague, and is outside the principle of non-contradiction [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The 'vague' might be defined as that to which the principle of contradiction does not apply. For it is false neither that an animal (in a vague sense) is male, nor that an animal is female. No communication between persons can be entirely non-vague. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Critical Common-Sensism [1905], I) | |
| A reaction: Note that he makes vagueness largely a matter of the way we talk, which is David Lewis's approach, and looks right to me. |
| 14797 | Vagueness is a neglected but important part of mathematical thought [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Logicians have too much neglected the study of vagueness, not suspecting the important part it plays in mathematical thought. It is the antithetical analogue of generality. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Critical Common-Sensism [1905], I) |