Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Elucidation of some points in E.Schrder' and 'Virtue Theory and Abortion'

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3 ideas

4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 3. Types of Set / b. Empty (Null) Set
A class is an aggregate of objects; if you destroy them, you destroy the class; there is no empty class [Frege]
     Full Idea: A class consists of objects; it is an aggregate, a collective unity, of them; if so, it must vanish when these objects vanish. If we burn down all the trees of a wood, we thereby burn down the wood. Thus there can be no empty class.
     From: Gottlob Frege (Elucidation of some points in E.Schröder [1895], p.212), quoted by Oliver,A/Smiley,T - What are Sets and What are they For?
     A reaction: This rests on Cantor's view of a set as a collection, rather than on Dedekind, which allows null and singleton sets.
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 2. Knowledge as Convention
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
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 1. Virtue Theory / b. Basis of virtue
Eudaimonia first; virtue is a trait which promotes it; right acts are what virtues produce [Hursthouse, by Zagzebski]
     Full Idea: Hursthouse defines a virtue as a trait humans need to flourish or live well, ...so 'eudaimonia' is conceptually foundational, the concept of virtue is then derived, and the concept of a right act is derived from that.
     From: report of Rosalind Hursthouse (Virtue Theory and Abortion [1992], p.226) by Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski - Virtues of the Mind II.1
     A reaction: Zagzebski is mapping different types of virtue theory. The purest theories say that virtue is intrinsically good. The others seem to be instrumental, in varying degrees. Zagzebski makes good motivations prior.