14 ideas
| 7893 | Our life is the creation of our mind [Anon (Dham)] |
| Full Idea: What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind. | |
| From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §1.1) | |
| A reaction: I may adopt this as a second epigraph for the database. This idea records the subjective view, which now comes up against evolutionary psychology. Maybe philosophy is opposed to science, because it is committed to exploring the subjective view? |
| 13857 | Truth-functional possibilities include the irrelevant, which is a mistake [Edgington] |
| Full Idea: How likely is a fair die landing on an even number to land six? My approach is, assume an even number, so three possibilities, one a six, so 'one third'; the truth-functional approach is it's true if it is not-even or six, so 'two-thirds'. | |
| From: Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 3) | |
| A reaction: The point is that in the truth-functional approach, if the die lands not-even, then the conditional comes out as true, when she says it should be irrelevant. She seems to be right about this. |
| 13853 | It is a mistake to think that conditionals are statements about how the world is [Edgington] |
| Full Idea: The mistake philosophers have made, in trying to understand the conditional, is to assume that its function is to make a statement about how the world is (or how other possible worlds are related to it), true or false, as the case may be. | |
| From: Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 1) | |
| A reaction: 'If pigs could fly we would never catch them' may not be about the world, but 'if you press this switch the light comes on' seems to be. Actually even the first one is about the world. I've an inkling that Edgington is wrong about this. Powers! |
| 13855 | A conditional does not have truth conditions [Edgington] |
| Full Idea: A conditional does not have truth conditions. | |
| From: Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 1) |
| 13859 | X believes 'if A, B' to the extent that A & B is more likely than A & ¬B [Edgington] |
| Full Idea: X believes that if A, B, to the extent that he judges that A & B is nearly as likely as A, or (roughly equivalently) to the extent that he judges A & B to be more likely than A & ¬B. | |
| From: Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 5) | |
| A reaction: This is a formal statement of her theory of conditionals. |
| 13854 | Conditionals express what would be the outcome, given some supposition [Edgington] |
| Full Idea: It is often necessary to suppose (or assume) that some epistemic possibility is true, and to consider what else would be the case, or would be likely to be the case, given this supposition. The conditional expresses the outcome of such thought processes. | |
| From: Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 1) | |
| A reaction: This is the basic Edgington view. It seems to involve an active thought process, and imagination, rather than being the static semantic relations offered by possible worlds analyses. True conditionals state relationships in the world. |
| 7898 | The world is just the illusion of an appearance [Anon (Dham)] |
| Full Idea: When a man considers this world as a bubble of froth, and as the illusion of an appearance, then the king of death has no power over him. | |
| From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §13.170) | |
| A reaction: Strictly, of course, this says you can 'consider' things this way. Perhaps we could substitute 'pretends', but the world's great religions don't go in for that sort of thing. Berkeley would be shocked to learn he was approaching Buddhism. |
| 18284 | Particulars can be verified or falsified, but general statements can only be falsified (conclusively) [Popper] |
| Full Idea: Whereas particular reality statements are in principle completely verifiable or falsifiable, things are different for general reality statements: they can indeed be conclusively falsified, they can acquire a negative truth value, but not a positive one. | |
| From: Karl Popper (Two Problems of Epistemology [1932], p.256), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 18 'Laws' | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a logician's approach to science, but I prefer to look at coherence, where very little is actually conclusive, and one tinkers with the theory instead. |
| 7894 | Hate is conquered by love [Anon (Dham)] |
| Full Idea: Hate is not conquered by hate: hate is conquered by love. This is the law eternal. | |
| From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §1.5) | |
| A reaction: [N.B. This thought was not invented by Jesus] The challenge to this view might be the tit-for-tat strategy of game theory, which says that hate is actually conquered by a combination of hate and love, judiciously applied. |
| 7899 | Even divine pleasure will not satisfy the wise, as it is insatiable, and leads to pain [Anon (Dham)] |
| Full Idea: Since a shower of gold coins could not satisfy craving desires and the end of all pleasure is pain, how could a wise man find satisfaction even in the pleasures of the gods? | |
| From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §14.186) | |
| A reaction: I'm never sure how so many ancient thinkers arrived at this implausible view. They seem to think that no one knows when to stop, and that every drink leads to hangover. What is actually wrong with moderate sensible pleasure? |
| 7896 | The foolish gradually fill with evil, like a slowly-filled water-jar [Anon (Dham)] |
| Full Idea: The falling of drops of water will in time fill a water-jar. Even so the foolish man becomes full of evil, although he gather it little by little. | |
| From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §9.121) | |
| A reaction: This coincides closely with Aristotle's view of moral education. Maybe a wise man can maintain one small vice. Not all slopes are slippery. |
| 7897 | The wise gradually fill with good, like a slowly-filled water-jar [Anon (Dham)] |
| Full Idea: The falling of drops of water will in time fill a water-jar. Even so the wise man becomes full of good, although he gather it little by little. | |
| From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §9.122) | |
| A reaction: Again, this is like Aristotle's proposal of how to educate people in virtue. In my experience, there is no guarantee that small acts of politeness and charity will eventually guarantee goodness of character. Thought is also needed. |
| 7895 | Don't befriend fools; either find superior friends, or travel alone [Anon (Dham)] |
| Full Idea: If on the great journey of life a man cannot find one who is better or at least as good as himself, let him joyfully travel alone: a fool cannot help him on his journey. | |
| From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §5.61) | |
| A reaction: This is a slightly disturbing aspect of Buddhism, possibly leading to contradiction. It urges friendship and love, but the finest people will have virtually no friends, and solitude is presented as a finer state than friendship. |
| 7900 | Speak the truth, yield not to anger, give what you can to him who asks [Anon (Dham)] |
| Full Idea: Speak the truth, yield not to anger, give what you can to him who asks: these three steps lead you to the gods | |
| From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §17.224) | |
| A reaction: I don't recall either the Old or New Testament, or the Koran, placing great emphasis on speaking the truth. The injunction to give is not so simple. Give to greedy children, to alcoholics, to criminals, to the rich, to fools, to yourself? |