121 ideas
| 2136 | Philosophers become as divine and orderly as possible, by studying divinity and order [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Because a philosopher's links are with a realm which is divine and orderly, he becomes as divine and orderly as is humanly possible. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 500d) | |
| A reaction: Can you be too orderly? Without order nothing of any interest (to gods or men) could ever happen. |
| 23767 | The winds of the discussion should decide its destination [Plato] |
| Full Idea: We must let our destination be decided by the winds of the discussion. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 394d) | |
| A reaction: Always loved that one. Had it on the wall of my teaching room. I take it that the aim is to follow reason, rather than the powerful rhetoric of some member of the group. The spirit of philosophy is to avoid prejudgement of your enquiry. |
| 23682 | It would be absurd to be precise about the small things, but only vague about the big things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It would be absurd to devote all our energies to securing the greatest possible precision and clarity in matters of little consequence, and not to demand the highest precision in the most important things of all. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 504e) | |
| A reaction: I offer this to modern analytic philosophers, who often strike me as having this priority the wrong way round. Their defence, of course, is that the important things depend on the things of little consequence - but they can lose the plot with big things. |
| 2151 | Dialectic is the only method of inquiry which uproots the things which it takes for granted [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Dialectic is the only field of inquiry whose quest for certainty causes it to uproot the things it takes for granted in the course of its journey. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 533c) |
| 2154 | The ability to take an overview is the distinguishing mark of a dialectician [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The ability to take an overview is the distinguishing mark of a dialectician. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 537c) |
| 4011 | For Plato, rationality is a vision of and love of a cosmic rational order [Plato, by Taylor,C] |
| Full Idea: In Plato's theory, to be rational is to have a vision of rational order, and to love this order. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 537d) by Charles Taylor - Sources of the Self §4.1 | |
| A reaction: There may be a worrying elitism in this, but it helps to pinpoint the sense in which 'all philosophers are Platonists'. |
| 2093 | You must never go against what you actually believe [Plato] |
| Full Idea: You must never go against what you actually believe. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 350e) |
| 2130 | People often merely practice eristic instead of dialectic, because they don't analyse the subject-matter [Plato] |
| Full Idea: People often think they are practising dialectic when they are practising eristic; this is because of their inability to conduct the enquiry by dividing the subject-matter into its various aspects. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 454a) |
| 2145 | In mathematics certain things have to be accepted without further explanation [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The practitioners of maths take certain things as basic, and feel no further need to explain them. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 510c) |
| 8726 | Geometry can lead the mind upwards to truth and philosophy [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Geometry can attract the mind towards truth. It can produce philosophical thought, in the sense that it can reverse the midguided downwards tendencies we currently have. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 527b) | |
| A reaction: Hence the Academy gate bore the inscription "Let no one enter here who is ignorant of geometry". He's not necessarily wrong. Something in early education must straighten out some of the kinks in the messy human mind. |
| 9863 | We aim for elevated discussion of pure numbers, not attaching them to physical objects [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Our discussion of numbers leads the soul forcibly upward and compels it to discuss the numbers themselves, never permitting anyone to propose for discussion numbers attached to visible or tangible bodies. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 525d) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as very important, because it shows that the platonist view of numbers places little or no importance on counting, inviting the question of whether they could be understood in complete ignorance of the process of counting. |
| 9864 | In pure numbers, all ones are equal, with no internal parts [Plato] |
| Full Idea: With those numbers that can be grasped only in thought, ..each one is equal to every other, without the least difference and containing no internal parts. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 526a) | |
| A reaction: [Two voices in the conversation are elided] Intriguing and tantalising. Does 13 have internal parts, in the platonist view? If so, is it more than the sum of its parts? Is Plato committed to numbers being built from indistinguishable abstract units/ |
| 8727 | Geometry is not an activity, but the study of unchanging knowledge [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Geometers talk as if they were actually doing something, and the point of their theorems is to have some effect (like 'squaring'). ...But the sole purpose is knowledge, of things which exist forever, not coming into existence and passing away. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 527a) | |
| A reaction: Modern Constructivism defends the view which Plato is attacking. The existence of real infinities can be doubted simply because we have not got enough time to construct them. |
| 9861 | The same thing is both one and an unlimited number at the same time [Plato] |
| Full Idea: We see the same thing to be both one and an unlimited number at the same time. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 525a) | |
| A reaction: Frege makes the same point, that a pair of boots is both two and one. The point is at its strongest in opposition to empirical accounts of arithmetic. However, Mill observes that pebbles can be both 5 and 3+2, without contradiction. |
| 9862 | To become rational, philosophers must rise from becoming into being [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers must rise up out of becoming and grasp being, if they are ever to become rational. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 525b) | |
| A reaction: I am never quite sure what 'being' means in such contexts, and it seems suffused with mysticism. In Plato's case, it is obviously related to what is unchanging, but why would something lack 'being', just because it underwent change? |
| 21818 | Being depends on the Good, which is not itself being, but superior to being [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Not only do the objects of knowledge owe their being known to the good, but their being is also due to it, although the good is not being, but superior to it in rank and power. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 509b) | |
| A reaction: I was surprised to find that in Plotinus the One is not being, because it is the source of being, and thus superior to being. Then a footnote sent me here, and I realise that Plato thought that the Form of the Good is superior to Being. |
| 2061 | The best things (gods, healthy bodies, good souls) are least liable to change [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The best things (such as a god, a healthy body, or a good soul) are least liable to alteration or change. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 380e) |
| 6402 | In 1927, Russell analysed force and matter in terms of events [Russell, by Grayling] |
| Full Idea: In his 'Analysis of Matter' (1927), Russell sought to analyse the chief concepts of physics, such as force and matter, in terms of events. | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (The Analysis of Matter [1927]) by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: My immediate reaction is that this is not very promising, simply because we can always ask why a particular event occurred, and this seems to point to a deeper level in the analysis. See Idea 4779, for example. |
| 6562 | Plato's reality has unchanging Parmenidean forms, and Heraclitean flux [Plato, by Fogelin] |
| Full Idea: For Plato, the intelligible world - the world of eternal and unchanging forms - is Parmenidean; the world of appearances - the world of flux we inhabit - is Heraclitean. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: Parmenides said reality is 'One'; Heraclitus said reality is 'flux'. This is a nice summary of Plato's view, and encapsulates two key influences on Plato, though the mathematical reality of Pythagoras should also be mentioned on the 'forms' side. |
| 6504 | For physicalists, the only relations are spatial, temporal and causal [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Spatial, temporal and causal relations are the only respectable candidates for relations for a physicalist. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], V.4) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be true, and is an absolutely crucial principle upon which any respectable physicalist account of the world must be built. It means that physicalists must attempt to explain all mental events in causal terms. |
| 6520 | If reality just has relational properties, what are its substantial ontological features? [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Some thinkers claim the physical world consists just of relational properties - generally of active powers or fields; ..but an ontology of mutual influences is not an ontology at all unless the possessors of the influence have more substantial features. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], IX.3) | |
| A reaction: I think this idea is one of the keys to wisdom. It is the same problem with functional explanations - you are left asking WHY this thing can have this particular function. Without the buck stopping at essences you are chasing your explanatory tail. |
| 2142 | The plurality of beautiful things must belong to a single class, because they have a single particular character [Plato] |
| Full Idea: All the things we refer to as pluralities (e.g. beautiful things) we also count as belonging to a single class by virtue of the fact that they have a single particular character. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 507b) |
| 5094 | Plato's Forms are said to have no location in space [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Plato claims that the Forms are not beyond the heavens, because they are not anywhere. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 203a09 | |
| A reaction: This is an important corrective to caricature accounts of Plato's Forms (encouraged, I'm afraid, by 'Phaedrus'), when critics talk about 'Platonic Heaven'. Forms are not part of space-time. I like the view that they are hypothetical truths. |
| 12043 | Forms are not universals, as they don't cover every general term [Plato, by Annas] |
| Full Idea: Despite a widely misinterpreted passage in the Republic, Plato does not think that there is a Form for every general term; Forms are not what came to be called universals. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Julia Annas - Ancient Philosophy: very short introduction Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: Hm. This is a bit of a blow to someone who has catalogued Platonic Forms under 'Universals'. See also Idea 12042, for what Annas thinks Plato may really have had in mind. |
| 2159 | Craftsmen making furniture refer to the form, but no one manufactures the form of furniture [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The manufacture of beds and tables involves the craftsman looking to the form and then making the furniture. The form itself is not manufactured by anyone. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 596b) |
| 17 | A Form applies to a set of particular things with the same name [Plato] |
| Full Idea: We always postulate a single form for each set of particular things, to which we apply the same name. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 596a) | |
| A reaction: This implies that the Forms have a great deal in common with the things, but also hints at the possibility of the Form being quite different from the particular things. |
| 12122 | Plato mistakenly thought forms were totally abstracted away from matter [Bacon on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato lost the real fruit of his opinion, by considering forms as absolutely abstracted from matter, and not confined and determined by matter. | |
| From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Francis Bacon - The Advancement of Learning II.VII.5 | |
| A reaction: This thought is roughly what got me interested in abstraction, on which you will find many ideas in this database. Research into Bacon's thought is hampered by that fact that the logicians have hijacked abstraction in recent philosophy. |
| 5574 | Plato's Forms not only do not come from the senses, but they are beyond possibility of sensing [Plato, by Kant] |
| Full Idea: In Plato's use of the expression 'idea' we can see that he understood by it something that not only could never be borrowed from the senses, but even goes beyond the concepts of the understanding, since nothing in experience could be congruent to it. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Immanuel Kant - Critique of Pure Reason B370 | |
| A reaction: This is why Kant is not a Platonist - because he thinks the limits of our world are the limits of our capacity for possible experience, and Platonic Forms exceed that limit. Personally I am with Plato. I'll never experience a quark either. |
| 14732 | A perceived physical object is events grouped around a centre [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The physical object, as inferred from perception, is a group of events arranged about a centre. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Analysis of Matter [1927], 23) | |
| A reaction: At least I like the active aspect of this definition. You then have to explain what an event is, without mentioning objects. You'd better no mention properties either, since they will probably depend on the dreaded objects. |
| 14733 | An object produces the same percepts with or without a substance, so that is irrelevant to science [Russell] |
| Full Idea: There may be a substance at the centre of an object, but is no reason to think so, since the group of events making up the object will produce exactly the same percepts; so the substance, if there is one, is an abstract possibility irrelevant to science. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Analysis of Matter [1927], 23) | |
| A reaction: All empiricists (as Russell is in this passage) seem to neglect inference to the best explanation. Things can be indirectly testable, and I would say that there are genuine general entities which are too close to abstraction to ever be testable. |
| 2133 | Knowledge must be of the permanent unchanging nature of things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Those who can see each thing in itself, in its permanent and unvarying nature, we'll say they have knowledge and are not merely entertaining beliefs. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 479e) |
| 6485 | When a red object is viewed, the air in between does not become red [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: When the form of red passes from an object to the eye, the air in between does not become red. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a crucial and basic fact which must be faced by any philosopher offering a theory of perception. I would have thought it instantly eliminated any sort of direct or naïve realism. The quale of red is created by my brain. |
| 6521 | Representative realists believe that laws of phenomena will apply to the physical world [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: One thing which is meant by saying that the phenomenal world represents or resembles the transcendental physical world is that the scientific laws devised to apply to the former, if correct, also apply (at least approximately) to the latter. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], IX.3) | |
| A reaction: This is not, of course, an argument, or a claim which can be easily substantiated, but it does seem to be a nice statement of a central article of faith for representative realists. The laws of the phenomenal world are the only ones we are going to get. |
| 6509 | Representative realists believe some properties of sense-data are shared by the objects themselves [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: A representative realist believes that at least some of the properties that are ostensively demonstrable in virtue of being exemplified in sense-data are of the same kind as some of those exemplified in physical objects. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], VII.5) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to pin down exactly what is being claimed here. Locke's primary qualities will obviously qualify, but could properties be 'exemplified' in sense-data without them actually being the same as those of the objects? |
| 6418 | Russell rejected phenomenalism because it couldn't account for causal relations [Russell, by Grayling] |
| Full Idea: Russell reverted to realism when he recognised that the notion of causality is problematic for phenomenalism; things in the world seem to affect one another causally in ways that are difficult to account for properly by mere reports of sense-experiences. | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (The Analysis of Matter [1927]) by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: This is very interesting, and doesn't seem to have been enough to make A.J. Ayer eschew phenomenalism (Idea 5170). Once your metaphysics becomes realist (like Russell), your account of perception and objects has to change too. |
| 6522 | Phenomenalism can be theistic (Berkeley), or sceptical (Hume), or analytic (20th century) [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: It is useful to identify three kinds of phenomenalism: theistic, sceptical and analytic; the first is represented by Berkeley, the second by Hume, and the third by most twentieth-century phenomenalists. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], IX.4) | |
| A reaction: In Britain the third group is usually represented by A.J.Ayer. My simple objection to all phenomenalists is that they are intellectual cowards because they won't venture to give an explanation of the phenomena which confront them. |
| 6502 | Can we reduce perception to acquisition of information, which is reduced to causation or disposition? [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Many modern physicalists first analyse perception as no more than the acquisition of beliefs or information through the senses, and then analyse belief and the possession of information in causal or dispositional terms. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], V.1) | |
| A reaction: (He mentions Armstrong, Dretske and Pitcher). A reduction to dispositions implies behaviourism. This all sounds more like an eliminativist strategy than a reductive one. I would start by saying that perception is only information after interpretation. |
| 6513 | Would someone who recovered their sight recognise felt shapes just by looking? [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Molyneux's Problem is whether someone who was born blind and acquired sight would be able to recognise, on sight, which shapes were which; that is, would they see which shape was the one that felt so-and-so? | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], VIII.7) | |
| A reaction: (Molyneux wrote a letter to John Locke about this). It is a good question, and much discussed in modern times. My estimation is that the person would recognise the shapes. We are partly synaesthetic, and see sharpness as well as feeling it. |
| 6512 | Secondary qualities have one sensory mode, but primary qualities can have more [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Primary qualities and secondary qualities are often distinguished on the grounds that secondaries are restricted to one sensory modality, but primaries can appear in more. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], VIII.7) | |
| A reaction: This distinction seems to me to be accurate and important. It is not just that the two types are phenomenally different - it is that the best explanation is that the secondaries depend on their one sense, but the primaries are independent. |
| 6497 | We say objects possess no intrinsic secondary qualities because physicists don't need them [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: The idea that objects do not possess secondary qualities intrinsically rests on the thought that they do not figure in the physicist's account of the world; ..as they are causally idle, no purpose is served by attributing them to objects. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], III.1) | |
| A reaction: On the whole I agree with this, but colours (for example) are not causally idle, as they seem to affect the behaviour of insects. They are properties which can only have a causal effect if there is a brain in their vicinity. Physicists ignore brains. |
| 6494 | If objects are not coloured, and neither are sense-contents, we are left saying that nothing is coloured [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: If there are good reasons for thinking that physical objects are not literally coloured, and one also refuses to attribute them to sense-contents, then one will have the bizarre theory (which has been recently adopted) that nothing is actually coloured. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], 1.7) | |
| A reaction: It seems to me that objects are not literally coloured, that the air in between does not become coloured, and that my brain doesn't turn a funny colour, so that only leaves colour as an 'interior' feature of certain brain states. That's how it is. |
| 6499 | Shape can be experienced in different ways, but colour and sound only one way [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Shape can be directly experienced by either touch or sight, which are subjectively different; but colour and sound can be directly experienced only through experiences which are subjectively like sight and hearing. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], III.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a key argument in support of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. It seems to me that the distinction may be challenged and questioned, but to deny it completely (as Berkeley and Hume do) is absurd. |
| 6500 | If secondary qualities match senses, would new senses create new qualities? [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: As secondary qualities are tailored to match senses, a proliferation of senses would lead to a proliferation of secondary qualities. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], III.1) | |
| A reaction: One might reply that if we experienced, say, magnetism, we would just be discerning a new fine grained primary quality, not adding something new to the ontological stock of properties in the world. It is a matter of HOW we experience the magnetism. |
| 6484 | Most moderate empiricists adopt Locke's representative theory of perception [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: The representative theory of perception is found in Locke, and is adopted by most moderate empiricists. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: This is, I think, my own position. Anything less than fairly robust realism strikes me as being a bit mad (despite Berkeley's endless assertions that he is preaching common sense), and direct realism seems obviously false. |
| 6508 | Sense-data leads to either representative realism or phenomenalism or idealism [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: The sense-datum theorist is either a representative realist or a phenomenalist (with which we can classify idealism for present purposes). | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], VII.5) | |
| A reaction: The only alternative to these two positions seems to be some sort of direct realism. I class myself as a representative realist, as this just seems (after a very little thought about colour blindness) to be common sense. I'm open to persuasion. |
| 6480 | Sense-data do not have any intrinsic intentionality [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: I understand sense-data as having no intrinsic intentionality; that is, though it may suggest, by habit, things beyond it, in itself it possesses only sensible qualities which do not refer beyond themselves. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, as the whole point of proposing sense-data was as something neutral between realism and anti-realism |
| 6482 | For idealists and phenomenalists sense-data are in objects; representative realists say they resemble objects [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: For idealists and phenomenalists sense-data are part of physical objects, for objects consist only of actual or actual and possible sense-data; representative realists say they just have an abstract and structural resemblance to objects. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: He puts Berkeley, Hume and Mill in the first group, and Locke in the second. Russell belongs in the second. The very fact that there can be two such different theories about the location of sense-data rather discredits the whole idea. |
| 6505 | Sense-data are rejected because they are a veil between us and reality, leading to scepticism [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Resistance to the sense-datum theory is inspired mainly by the fear that such data constitute a veil of perception which stands between the observer and the external world, threatening scepticism, or even solipsism. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], VII.1) | |
| A reaction: It is very intellectually dishonest to reject any theory because it leads to scepticism or relativism. This is a common failing among quite good professional philosophers. See Idea 241. |
| 6506 | 'Sense redly' sounds peculiar, but 'senses redly-squarely tablely' sounds far worse [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: 'Sense redly' sounds peculiar, but 'senses redly-squarely' or 'red-squarely' or 'senses redly-squarely-tablely' and other variants sound far worse. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], VII.5) | |
| A reaction: This is a comment on the adverbial theory, which is meant to replace representative theories based on sense-data. The problem is not that it sounds weird; it is that while plain red can be a mode of perception, being a table obviously can't. |
| 6507 | Adverbialism sees the contents of sense-experience as modes, not objects [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: The defining claim of adverbialism is that the contents of sense-experience are modes, not objects, of sensory activity. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], VII.5) | |
| A reaction: This seems quite a good account of simple 'modes' like colour, but not so good when you instantly perceive a house. It never seems wholly satisfactory to sidestep the question of 'what are you perceiving when you perceive red or square?' |
| 6511 | If there are only 'modes' of sensing, then an object can no more be red or square than it can be proud or lazy. [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: If only modes of sensing are ostensively available, ..then it is a category mistake to see any resemblance between what is available and properties of bodies; one could as sensibly say that a physical body is proud or lazy as that it is red or square. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], VII.5) | |
| A reaction: This is an objection to the 'adverbial' theory of perception. It looks to me like a devastating objection, if the theory is meant to cover primary qualities as well as secondary. Red could be a mode of perception, but not square, surely? |
| 2162 | If theory and practice conflict, the best part of the mind accepts theory, so the other part is of lower grade [Plato] |
| Full Idea: When appearance and measure conflict…it is the best part of the mind which accepts measurements and calculations, and the part which opposes them, therefore, must be a low-grade part of the mind. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 603a) |
| 2140 | True belief without knowledge is like blind people on the right road [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Don't people who have a correct belief but no knowledge strike you as exactly like blind people who happen to be taking the right road? | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 506c) | |
| A reaction: Good. I love the style of this. Most philosophical points can be made in one concise sentence, and it is only the industry of journals and academe that forces points to be extended so much. |
| 6515 | An explanation presupposes something that is improbable unless it is explained [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Any search for an explanation presupposes that there is something in need of an explanation - that is, something which is improbable unless explained. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], IX.3) | |
| A reaction: Elementary enough, but it underlines the human perspective of all explanations. I may need an explanation of baseball, where you don't. |
| 6517 | If all possibilities are equal, order seems (a priori) to need an explanation - or does it? [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: The fact that order requires an explanation seems to be an a priori principle; ..we assume all possibilities are equally likely, and so no striking regularities should emerge; the sceptic replies that a highly ordered sequence is as likely as any other. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], IX.3) | |
| A reaction: An independent notion of 'order' is required. If I write down '14356', and then throw 1 4 3 5 6 on a die, the match is the order; instrinsically 14356 is nothing special. If you threw the die a million times, a run of six sixes seems quite likely. |
| 2096 | Is the function of the mind management, authority and planning - or is it one's whole way of life? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Does the mind have a function - say, management, authority and planning? And isn't one's way of life a function of the mind? | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 353d) | |
| A reaction: Note that this is Plato, not some Darwinian materialist. This strikes me as the correct starting point - what does a mind appear to be for (with or without the help of Darwin)? Plato's proposals seem good (though we could cut 'authority'). |
| 6009 | Psychic conflict is clear if appetite is close to the body and reason fairly separate [Plato, by Modrak] |
| Full Idea: Plato makes psychic conflict intelligible by appeal to a conception of the soul such that the soul is closely connected to the body at the level of appetite and relatively separate from the body at the level of reason. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 339b) by Deborah K.W. Modrak - Classical theories of Mind | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure about this at the level of biology or ontology, but at the phenomenal level this is obviously right. Hunger makes consciousness feel like a physical event, but doing arithmetic doesn't seem remotely physical. |
| 6041 | There is a third element to the mind - spirit - lying between reason and appetite [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Is the third element of the mind a form of reason, so that there are only two elements to it, reason and appetite? There must be a third element, if spirit ('thumos') can be shown to be distinct - and you can see it in children when they are born. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 441a) | |
| A reaction: This is Plato's famous tripartite doctrine of the soul, though in other dialogues he says that there is only reason and appetite. The suspicion is that he fixed the soul having three parts, to match the three parts of his republic's social structure. |
| 2127 | The mind has parts, because we have inner conflicts [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If someone is thirsty but something is making the mind resist the pull of its thirst, isn't this bound to be a different part of the mind from the thirsty part? | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 439b) | |
| A reaction: For Descartes there is one mind pulled by appetite and the 'natural light'. For Hume they don't seem to be 'parts' of anything. For Fodor there is an integrated team of modules. I like Fodor, and good integration is virtue. |
| 1737 | The soul seems to have an infinity of parts [Aristotle on Plato] |
| Full Idea: There seem in a way to be an infinity of parts of the soul, and not only those that some have given, distinguishing the reasoning, spirited and desiderative parts, or with others the rational and irrational. | |
| From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 439b) by Aristotle - De Anima 432a25 | |
| A reaction: This seems a nice response to Plato's proposal that the psuché has two or three parts. He could have said that the soul was a unity, and has no parts, but the proposal of infinite parts seems much closer to the modern neurological view of the mind. |
| 6481 | If intentional states are intrinsically about other things, what are their own properties? [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Intentional states are mysterious things; if they are intrinsically about other things, what properties, if any, do they possess intrinsically? | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: A very nice question, which I suspect to be right at the heart of the tendency towards externalist accounts of the mind. Since you can only talk about the contents of the thoughts, you can't put forward a decent internalist account of what is going on. |
| 6503 | Physicalism cannot allow internal intentional objects, as brain states can't be 'about' anything [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: It is generally conceded by reductive physicalists that a state of the brain cannot be intrinsically about anything, for intentionality is not an intrinsic property of anything, so there can be no internal objects for a physicalist. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], V.4) | |
| A reaction: Perhaps it is best to say that 'aboutness' is not a property of physics. We may say that a brain state 'represents' something, because the something caused the brain state, but representations have to be recognised |
| 5945 | The 'Republic' is a great work of rhetorical theory [Lawson-Tancred on Plato] |
| Full Idea: The 'Republic' is the greatest single achievement of ancient rhetorical theory. | |
| From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Hugh Lawson-Tancred - Plato's Republic and Greek Enlightenment Ch.9 | |
| A reaction: A lovely inversion of our normal reading of Plato! Is the real aim of philosophy the making of good speeches? Is the great aim to display the true beauty of the human mind, as the Olympics display the beauty of the body? |
| 23316 | For Plato and Aristotle there is no will; there is only rational desire for what is seen as good [Plato, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: Neither Plato nor Aristotle has a notion of the will. …Willing is a form of desire which is specific to reason. If reason perceives something as good, it wills or desires it. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 577e) by Michael Frede - A Free Will 1 | |
| A reaction: [Frede cites 577e, Aris. 413c8, 1113a15-, 1136b6] How do they explain the apparent decisions of non-rational animals? No modern neuroscientist thinks there is a physical object called a person's 'will'. |
| 16 | We avoid evil either through a natural aversion, or because we have acquired knowledge [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Unless a man is born with a heaven-sent aversion to wrong-doing, or acquires the knowledge to refrain from it, he will never do right of his own free will. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 366c) | |
| A reaction: This is the territory explored so carefully by Aristotle (after he had read Republic!). It is hard to see what the knowledge could be, other than awareness of consequences. |
| 16565 | Without the surface decoration, poetry shows only appearances and nothing of what is real [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If you strip a poet's works of their musical colorings and take them by themselves, I think you know what they look like. …We say that a maker of an image - an imitator - knows nothing about that which is but only about its appearance. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 601a) | |
| A reaction: Knowing the appearances well is more than most people can manage, and aspirations to know the true reality may be an idle dream. Poets are, I presume, welcome in the Cave. |
| 2160 | Representation is two steps removed from the truth [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The province of representation is indeed two steps removed from the truth. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 602c) |
| 2163 | Artists should be excluded from a law-abiding community, because they destroy the rational mind [Plato] |
| Full Idea: We are right to refuse admission to artists in any community which is going to respect convention, because he destroys the rational mind and feeds the irrational - it is like destroying good citizens by giving ruffians power. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 605b) |
| 2135 | Truth is closely related to proportion [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Truth is closely related to proportion. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 486d) |
| 2141 | I suggest that we forget about trying to define goodness itself for the time being [Plato] |
| Full Idea: I suggest that we forget about trying to define goodness itself for the time being. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 506e) | |
| A reaction: This was a source of some humour in the ancient world (in the theatre). Goodness is like some distant glow, which can never be approached in order to learn of its source. |
| 1869 | The good cannot be expressed in words, but imprints itself upon the soul [Plato, by Celsus] |
| Full Idea: Plato points to the truth about the highest good when he says that it cannot be expressed in words, but rather comes from familiarity - like a flash from the blue, imprinting itself upon the soul. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Celsus - On the True Doctrine (Against Christians) VII | |
| A reaction: It is reasonable to be drawn to something inexpressible, such as an appealing piece of music, but not good philosophy to build a system around something so obscure. |
| 4115 | Plato found that he could only enforce rational moral justification by creating an authoritarian society [Williams,B on Plato] |
| Full Idea: For Plato, the problem of making the ethical into a force was the problem of making society embody rational justification, and that problem could only have an authoritarian solution. | |
| From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Ch. 2 | |
| A reaction: Plato's citizens were largely illiterate. We can be more carrot and less stick. |
| 4547 | Plato measured the degree of reality by the degree of value [Nietzsche on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato measured the degree of reality by the degree of value. | |
| From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 518d) by Friedrich Nietzsche - The Will to Power (notebooks) §572 | |
| A reaction: A most interesting comment. It epitomises the Nietzschean reading of Plato, in which the will to power leads the sense of value, which in turn creates the metaphysics. |
| 2094 | A thing's function is what it alone can do, or what it does better than other things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The function of anything is what it alone can do, or what it can do better than anything else. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 353a) | |
| A reaction: I take this concept to be the lynchpin of Aristotle's virtue ethics. Note that it arises earlier, in Plato. Perhaps he should say what it is 'meant to do'. |
| 2095 | If something has a function then it has a state of being good [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Anything which has been endowed with a function also has a state of being good. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 353b) | |
| A reaction: 'ought' from 'is'? |
| 2129 | Goodness is mental health, badness is mental sickness [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Goodness is a state of mental health, bloom and vitality; badness is a state of mental sickness, deformity and infirmity. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 444e) | |
| A reaction: A nice statement of the closeness of goodness to health for the Greeks. The key point is that health is a deeply natural concept, which bridges the fact-value divide. |
| 12 | If we were invisible, would the just man become like the unjust? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Glaucon: with a ring of invisibility 'the just man would differ in no way from the unjust'. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 360c) | |
| A reaction: I think a highly altruistic person would behave well with the ring, but I'm sure Glaucon would claim that these habits would wear off after a while. But I doubt that. |
| 2168 | Clever criminals do well at first, but not in the long run [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Clever criminals are exactly like those runners who do well on the way up the track, and then flag on the way back. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 613b) | |
| A reaction: Presumably there is some concept of natural justice lurking behind this comparison. Apart from the money, though, it is hard to imagine any professional criminal leading a flourishing life. |
| 2137 | The main aim is to understand goodness, which gives everything its value and advantage [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The most important thing to try to understand is the character of goodness, because this is where anything which is moral (or whatever) gets its value and advantages from. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 505a) | |
| A reaction: I think I'm with Aristotle on this. I understand a good lunch or a good person, but pure goodness just seems to be an empty placeholder. A vote in favour. |
| 2139 | Every person, and every activity, aims at the good [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The Good is something which everyone is after, and is the goal of all their activities. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 505d) | |
| A reaction: An obvious danger of tautology. If a blood crazed army is 'after' a massacre of some sort, that seems to qualify. What proportion is needed for 'everyone'? |
| 2143 | Good has the same role in the world of knowledge as the sun has in the physical world [Plato] |
| Full Idea: As goodness stands in the intelligible realm to intelligence and the things we know, so in the visible realm the sun stands to sight and the things we see. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 508c) | |
| A reaction: The claim seems to be that only goodness makes the world intelligible, but that strikes as closer to mysticism than to objective observation. |
| 2147 | The sight of goodness leads to all that is fine and true and right [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The sight of goodness shows that it is responsible for everything that is right and fine,…and it is the source and provider of truth and knowledge. It is necessary for intelligent conduct of private and public affairs. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 517c) | |
| A reaction: As so often with Plato, I am baffled by such a claim. I sometimes see things in the world which strike me as right or fine, but I cannot conceive of a separate 'sight of goodness'. |
| 4007 | For Plato we abandon honour and pleasure once we see the Good [Plato, by Taylor,C] |
| Full Idea: For Plato, once we see the Good, we cease to be fascinated by and absorbed in the search for honour and pleasure as we were before. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 505d) by Charles Taylor - Sources of the Self §3.2 | |
| A reaction: This is the quasi-religious aspect of the Good - that it is more like a vision than a reason |
| 2144 | Goodness makes truth and knowledge possible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is goodness which gives the things we know their truth and makes it possible for people to have knowledge. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 508e) | |
| A reaction: If we take truth to be the hallmark of successful thinking, then I have no idea what this means. I can't see how truth would disappear in an amoral cosmos. |
| 2164 | Bad is always destructive, where good preserves and benefits [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Badness always manifests in destruction and corruption, while goodness always manifests in preservation and benefit. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 608e) | |
| A reaction: Suspicions of tautology in this one. Can we have any concepts of good or bad which are not linked to desirable or undesirable outcomes? |
| 2138 | Pleasure is commonly thought to be the good, though the more ingenious prefer knowledge [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The usual view of goodness is that it is pleasure, while there's also a more ingenious view that it is knowledge. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 505b) | |
| A reaction: Pleasure clearly has an attraction for everyone (even puritans), and is thus a plausible natural candidate. Is this pure or instrumental knowledge? Hard to justify the former. |
| 2070 | Even people who think pleasure is the good admit that there are bad pleasures [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Those who define good as pleasure are clearly confused, and are compelled to admit that there are bad pleasures, so that the same thing is both good and bad. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 505c) | |
| A reaction: The issue is whether the pleasure can be disentangled from the action. 'It was a hideous murder, but at least the murderer enjoyed it'. Sounds wrong to me. |
| 2157 | Nice smells are intensive, have no preceding pain, and no bad after-effect [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Nice smells have no preceding feeling of pain, they are very intense, and they leave no distress when they are over. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 584b) | |
| A reaction: A nice example for extreme puritans to contemplate. Objections to enjoying nice smells seem almost inconceivable. Puritans will, I suppose, say 'slippery slope'. |
| 2134 | Philosophers are concerned with totally non-physical pleasures [Plato] |
| Full Idea: A person concerned with learning is concerned with purely mental pleasure, having nothing to do with pleasures reaching the mind through the body - assuming the person is a genuine philosopher. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 485d) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to find any argument which can demonstrate that mental pleasures are superior to physical ones. Mill notably failed to do it. |
| 2156 | There are three types of pleasure, for reason, for spirit and for appetite [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Each of the three mental categories (reason, spirit, appetite) has its own particular pleasure, so that there are three kinds of pleasure. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 580d) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure why the types of pleasure are distinguished by mental faculties, rather than by the variety of sources of the pleasure. |
| 2158 | Pleasure-seekers desperately seek illusory satisfaction, like filling a leaky vessel [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Pleasure-seekers desperately and violently seek satisfaction in unreal things for a part of themselves which is also unreal - a leaky vessel they're trying to fill. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 586b) | |
| A reaction: Plato dreams of some enduring 'satisfaction' which never fades. He should have attended more to Heraclitus, and less to Parmenides. |
| 2123 | Excessive pleasure deranges people, making the other virtues impossible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Self-discipline and excessive pleasure cannot go together, because pleasure deranges people just as much as distress. Excessive pleasure cannot partner any of the other virtues. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 402e) | |
| A reaction: This invites an examination of the word 'excessive', which seems too subjective. Aristotle says any good is improved by the addition of pleasure. Pleasure can certainly derange people. |
| 2166 | We should behave well even if invisible, for the health of the mind [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There's nothing better for the mind than morality, and a person ought to behave morally whether or not he owns Gyges' ring. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 612b) |
| 2097 | Isn't it better to have a reputation for goodness than to actually be good? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Unless I gain a reputation for morality, my actually being moral will do me no good, but an immoral person who has managed to get a reputation for morality is said to have a wonderful life. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 365b) |
| 19946 | Morality is a compromise, showing restraint, to avoid suffering wrong without compensation [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The origin and nature of morality is a compromise between the ideal of doing wrong without paying for it, and the worst situation, which is having wrong done to one while lacking the means of exacting compensation. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 359a) | |
| A reaction: This idea is from Glaucon, and is not endorsed by Socrates. Hobbes thought it was right, though he emphasised safety. Game theory makes this approach to moraliy much more plausible. |
| 5 | Justice is merely the interests of the stronger party [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Thrasymachus: Justice or right is simply what is in the interest of the stronger party. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 338c) | |
| A reaction: Not sure whether this is cynicism about the brutal realities of life, or cynicism about the very concept of justice. |
| 7 | Surely you don't return a borrowed weapon to a mad friend? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If one borrowed a weapon from a friend who subsequently went out of his mind and then asked for it back, surely one ought not to return it? | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 331c) | |
| A reaction: Only a Kantian would think of disagreeing with this obvious truth. There is no promise here, but an implicit moral commitment. Such things should always have an all-things-being-equal clause. |
| 8 | Is right just the interests of the powerful? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Thrasymachus: right is the interest of the established government. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 339a) | |
| A reaction: To believe this you would have to believe the powerful control not what is judged to be right, but also the ordinary language which expresses such judgements. Marxism explains that. |
| 15 | Sin first, then sacrifice to the gods from the proceeds [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The thing to do is to sin first and sacrifice afterwards from the proceeds. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 365e) | |
| A reaction: A bit like Graham Greene's Catholicism. One Greek view of the gods seems to be that they are quite myopic and naïve. |
| 5944 | For Plato, virtue is its own reward [Lawson-Tancred on Plato] |
| Full Idea: The 'Republic' is the first sustained philosophical defence of the idea that virtue is its own reward. | |
| From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], Ch.9) by Hugh Lawson-Tancred - Plato's Republic and Greek Enlightenment | |
| A reaction: Sceptics might say that at the heart of his claim is the idea that the virtuous life is the best means of achieving long-term pleasure (as opposed to short-sighted hedonism). What is it about people which could make virtue attractive to them? |
| 2155 | True goodness requires mental unity and harmony [Plato] |
| Full Idea: True goodness requires mental unity and harmony. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 554e) |
| 2126 | A good community necessarily has wisdom, courage, self-discipline and morality [Plato] |
| Full Idea: A good community has everything which is good, so it necessarily has wisdom, courage, self-discipline and morality. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 427e) |
| 23562 | If the parts of our soul do their correct work, we will be just people, and will act justly [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Each one of us in whom each part is doing its own work will himself be just and do his own. …So it is appropriate for the rational part to rule …and for the spirited part to obey. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 441d) | |
| A reaction: 'Do his own' must mean play his own part in society correctly, because his internal faculties are also correctly focused on their role. So balancing the three parts in persons and society is not just an analogy, but one leads to the other. See 443e. |
| 2092 | Simonides said morality is helping one's friends and harming one's enemies [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Simonides claims that morality is doing good to one's friends and harm to one's enemies. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 332d) |
| 19889 | People need society because the individual has too many needs [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Society originates because the individual is not self-sufficient, but has many needs which he cannot supply himself. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 369b) | |
| A reaction: Notice that Plato has the liberal individualist approach to problem, of starting with isolated individuals, and asking why they need to gang together. This is despite the dependency of children, and the proximity of extended families. |
| 19890 | All exchanges in a community are for mutual benefit [Plato] |
| Full Idea: In the community all mutual exchanges are made on the assumption that the parties to them stand to gain. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 369c) | |
| A reaction: The sole purpose of his society appears to be trading, either of goods or of services. The assumption is that if each individual were self-sufficient there would be no society, which strikes me as unlikely. Aristotle offers a better picture. |
| 10 | After a taste of mutual harm, men make a legal contract to avoid it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Once people experience committing wrong and suffering it, they see the disadvantages are unavoidable and the benefits unobtainable, ...so they enter into a contract, guaranteeing no permitting or receiving wrong, ...and they then make laws and decrees. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 359a) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the earliest statement of the social contract idea. Here it both sets up the state and creates morality. This is Glaucon speaking, and is NOT endorsed by Socrates. |
| 23561 | People doing their jobs properly is the fourth cardinal virtue for a city [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The power that consists in everyone's doing his own work rivals wisdom, moderation, and courage in its contribution to the virtue of the city. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 433d) | |
| A reaction: Making conscientious the fourth cardinal virtue. Well said! My maxim for the modern world is that nearly all human misery consists of either bad health or other people not doing their jobs properly. You know I'm right. |
| 2149 | Reluctant rulers make a better and more unified administration [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The less keen the would-be rulers of a community are to rule, the better and less divided the administration of that community are bound to be. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 520d) |
| 2132 | Only rule by philosophers of integrity can keep a community healthy [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Unless communities have philosophers as kings, or the people who are currently called kings and rulers practise philosophy with enough integrity, there can be no end to political troubles. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 473d) |
| 2131 | Is there anything better for a community than to produce excellent people? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Is anything better for a community than for it to engender women and men who are exceptionally good? | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 456e) |
| 2152 | Dialectic is the highest and most important part of the curriculum [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Dialectic occupies the highest position and forms, as it were, the copestone of the curriculum. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 534e) |
| 2148 | To gain knowledge, turn away from the world of change, and focus on true goodness [Plato] |
| Full Idea: To gain knowledge we must turn the mind away from the world of becoming, until it becomes capable of bearing the sight of real being and reality at its most bright, which we are saying is goodness. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 518c) |
| 2153 | Compulsory intellectual work never remains in the mind [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Compulsory intellectual work never remains in the mind. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 536e) |
| 6519 | Locke's solidity is not matter, because that is impenetrability and hardness combined [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Notoriously, Locke's filler for Descartes's geometrical matter, solidity, will not do, for that quality collapses on examination into a composite of the dispositional-cum-relational propery of impenetrability, and the secondary quality of hardness. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], IX.3) | |
| A reaction: I would have thought the problem was that 'matter is solidity' turns out on analysis to be a tautology. We have a handful of nearly synonymous words for matter and our experiences of it, but they boil down to some 'given' thing for which we lack words. |
| 21706 | At first matter is basic and known by sense-data; later Russell says matter is constructed [Russell, by Linsky,B] |
| Full Idea: In the beginning Russell's ontology included matter as basic, to be known, however, only by inference from sense-data. By the end he wanted to 'contruct' matter from sense-data. | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (The Analysis of Matter [1927]) by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 1 | |
| A reaction: [see also p.133] Russell always seems to have been a robust realist about the external world, but the later view seems a lot less realist than the earlier view. |
| 2630 | If Plato's God is immaterial, he will lack consciousness, wisdom, pleasure and movement, which are essential to him [Cicero on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato holds God to be without a body, immaterial; but this is an incomprehensible idea. Such a god would inevitably lack any consciousness, any wisdom and any pleasure (…or motion), all of which are bound up in our idea of God. | |
| From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.30 |
| 14 | If the gods are non-existent or indifferent, why bother to deceive them? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If there are no gods or if they care nothing for human affairs, why should we bother to deceive them? | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 365d) | |
| A reaction: There is incipient deism here, as well as atheism. |
| 2165 | Something is unlikely to be immortal if it is imperfectly made from diverse parts [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Something is unlikely to be immortal if it's a compound, formed imperfectly from diverse parts. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 611b) |
| 13 | Is the supreme reward for virtue to be drunk for eternity? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: (the poets think) 'the supreme reward of virtue was to be drunk for eternity'. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 363d) | |
| A reaction: A perceptive thought. Most people consider the best life to contain endless fun and physical pleasure, so a boozy bawdy holiday in the sunshine ticks all the boxes. |
| 2120 | God is responsible for the good things, but we must look elsewhere for the cause of the bad things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: God and God alone must be held responsible for the good things, but responsibility for bad things must be looked for elsewhere, and not attributed to God. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 379c) |