8 ideas
18902 | Correspondence theories can't tell you what truths correspond to [Davidson] |
Full Idea: The real objection to correspondence theories is that such theories fail to provide entities to which truth vehicles (as statements, sentence, or utterances) can be said to correspond. | |
From: Donald Davidson (The Structure and Content of Truth [1990], p.304), quoted by Fred Sommers - Intellectual Autobiography Notes 23 | |
A reaction: This is the remark which provoked Sommers to come out with Idea 18901, which strikes me as rather profound. |
411 | If we succeed in speaking the truth, we cannot know we have done it [Xenophanes] |
Full Idea: No man has seen certain truth, and no man will ever know about the gods and other things I mentioned; for if he succeeds in saying what is fully true, he himself is unaware of it; opinion is fixed by fate on all things. | |
From: Xenophanes (fragments/reports [c.530 BCE], B34), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Professors (six books) 7.49.4 |
412 | If God had not created honey, men would say figs are sweeter [Xenophanes] |
Full Idea: If God had not created yellow honey, men would say that figs were sweeter. | |
From: Xenophanes (fragments/reports [c.530 BCE], B38), quoted by Herodian - On Peculiar Speech 41.5 |
1556 | By nature people are close to one another, but culture drives them apart [Hippias] |
Full Idea: I regard you all as relatives - by nature, not by convention. By nature like is akin to like, but convention is a tyrant over humankind and often constrains people to act contrary to nature. | |
From: Hippias (fragments/reports [c.430 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Protagoras 337c8 |
1640 | The basic Eleatic belief was that all things are one [Xenophanes, by Plato] |
Full Idea: The Eleatic tribe, which had its beginnings from Xenophanes and still earlier, proceed on the grounds that all things so-called are one. | |
From: report of Xenophanes (fragments/reports [c.530 BCE]) by Plato - The Sophist 242d |
3055 | Xenophanes said the essence of God was spherical and utterly inhuman [Xenophanes, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Xenophanes taught that the essence of God was of a spherical form, in no respect resembling man. | |
From: report of Xenophanes (fragments/reports [c.530 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.2.3 |
408 | Ethiopian gods have black hair, and Thracian gods have red hair [Xenophanes] |
Full Idea: Ethiopians have gods with snub noses and black hair, Thracians have gods with grey eyes and red hair. | |
From: Xenophanes (fragments/reports [c.530 BCE], B16), quoted by Clement - Miscellanies 7.22.1 |
407 | Mortals believe gods are born, and have voices and clothes just like mortals [Xenophanes] |
Full Idea: Mortals believe the gods to be created by birth, and to have raiment, voice and body like mortals'. | |
From: Xenophanes (fragments/reports [c.530 BCE], B14), quoted by Clement - Miscellanies 5.109.2 |