Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn)', 'Medical Conceptions of Health pre-Renaissance' and 'Paradoxes: Form and Predication'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

4 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 4. Later European Philosophy / b. Seventeenth century philosophy
2945 Most philosophers start with reality and then examine knowledge; Descartes put the study of knowledge first [Lehrer]
     Full Idea: Some philosophers (e.g Plato) begin with an account of reality, and then appended an account of how we can know it, ..but Descartes turned the tables, insisting that we must first decide what we can know.
     From: Keith Lehrer (Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn) [2000], I p.2)
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 4. Conceptual Analysis
2946 You cannot demand an analysis of a concept without knowing the purpose of the analysis [Lehrer]
     Full Idea: An analysis is always relative to some objective. It makes no sense to simply demand an analysis of goodness, knowledge, beauty or truth, without some indication of the purpose of the analysis.
     From: Keith Lehrer (Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn) [2000], I p.7)
     A reaction: Your dismantling of a car will go better if you know what a car is for, but you can still take it apart in ignorance.
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 6. Plural Quantification
14235 Saying 'they can become a set' is a tautology, because reference to 'they' implies a collection [Cargile]
     Full Idea: If the rule is asserted 'Given any well-determined objects, they can be collected into a set by an application of the 'set of' operation', then on the usual account of 'they' this is a tautology. Collection comes automatically with this form of reference.
     From: James Cargile (Paradoxes: Form and Predication [1979], p.115), quoted by Oliver,A/Smiley,T - What are Sets and What are they For? Intro
     A reaction: Is this a problem? Given they are well-determined (presumably implying countable) there just is a set of them. That's what set theory is, I thought. Of course, the iterative view talks of 'constructing' the sets, but the construction looks unstoppable.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / d. Health
22237 The Greeks had a single word meaning both 'beautiful' and 'good' [Pormann]
     Full Idea: The later Greeks coined the term 'kalokagathia' for the fact of being both beautiful [kalos] and good [agathos], thus linking moral and physical health.
     From: Peter E. Pormann (Medical Conceptions of Health pre-Renaissance [2019], p.44)
     A reaction: In their literature good people are often handsome, and bad people ugly. Socrates was famous for being an exception.