64 ideas
| 23350 | A wise philosophers uses reason to cautiously judge each aspect of living [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: The sinews of a philosopher are desire that never fails in its achievement; aversion that never meets with what it would avoid; appropriate impulse; carefully considered purpose; and assent that is never precipitate. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.08.29) | |
| A reaction: This is a very individual view of wisdom and the philosopher, whereas wisdom is often thought to have a social role. Is it not important for a philosopher to at least offer advice? |
| 23355 | The task of philosophy is to establish standards, as occurs with weights and measures [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Things are judged and weighed, when we have the standards ready. This is the task of philosophy: to examine and establish the standards. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.11.24) | |
| A reaction: It is interesting that this gives philosophers a very specific social role, and also that it seems to identify epistemology as First Philosophy. Other disciplines, of course, establish their own standards without reference to philosophy. |
| 21394 | Philosophy is knowing each logos, how they fit together, and what follows from them [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: [Philosophical speculation] consists in knowing the elements of 'logos', what each of them is like, how they fit together, and what follows from them. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 4.08.14), quoted by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 4.1 | |
| A reaction: [Said to echo Zeno] If you substitute understanding for 'logos' (plausibly), I think this is exactly the view of philosophy I would subscribe to. We want to understand each aspect of life, and we want those understandings to cohere with one another. |
| 20876 | Philosophy investigates the causes of disagreements, and seeks a standard for settling them [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: The start of philosophy is perception of the mutual conflict among people, and a search for its cause, plus the rejection and distrust of mere opinion, an investigation to see if opinion is right, and the discovery of some canon, like scales for weighing. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.11.13) | |
| A reaction: So the number one aim of philosophy is epistemological, to find the criterion for true opinion. But it starts in real life, and would cease to trade if people would just agree. I think we should set the bar higher than that. |
| 17275 | Realist metaphysics concerns what is real; naive metaphysics concerns natures of things [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: We may broadly distinguish between two main branches of metaphysics: the 'realist' or 'critical' branch is concerned with what is real (tense, values, numbers); the 'naive' or 'pre-critical' branch concerns natures of things irrespective of reality. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.02) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] The 'natures' of things are presumably the essences. He cites 3D v 4D objects, and the status of fictional characters, as examples of the second type. Fine says ground is central to realist metaphysics. |
| 23344 | Reason itself must be compounded from some of our impressions [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: What is reason itself? Something compounded from impressions of a certain kind. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.20.05) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the only escape from the dead end attempts to rationally justify reason. Making reason a primitive absolute is crazy metaphysics. |
| 23343 | Because reason performs all analysis, we should analyse reason - but how? [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Since it is reason that analyses and completes all other things, reason itself should not be left unanalysed. But by what shall it be analysed? ..That is why philosophers put logic first, just as when measuring grain we first examine the measure. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.17.01) | |
| A reaction: The problem of the definitive metre rule in Paris. I say we have to test reason against the physical world, and the measure of reason is truth. Something has to be primitive, but reason is too vague for that role. Idea 23344 agrees with me! |
| 17282 | Truths need not always have their source in what exists [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: There is no reason in principle why the ultimate source of what is true should always lie in what exists. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.03) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the weak point of the truthmaker theory, since truths about non-existence are immediately in trouble. Saying reality makes things true is one thing, but picking out a specific bit of it for each truth is not so easy. |
| 17283 | If the truth-making relation is modal, then modal truths will be grounded in anything [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The truth-making relation is usually explicated in modal terms, ...but this lets in far too much. Any necessary truth will be grounded by anything. ...The fact that singleton Socrates exists will be a truth-maker for the proposition that Socrates exists. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.03) | |
| A reaction: If truth-makers are what has to 'exist' for something to be true, then maybe nothing must exist for a necessity to be true - in which case it has no truth maker. Or maybe 2 and 4 must 'exist' for 2+2=4? |
| 17286 | Logical consequence is verification by a possible world within a truth-set [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Under the possible worlds semantics for logical consequence, each sentence of a language is associated with a truth-set of possible worlds in which it is true, and then something is a consequence if one of these worlds verifies it. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.10) | |
| A reaction: [compressed, and translated into English; see Fine for more symbolic version; I'm more at home in English] |
| 17272 | 2+2=4 is necessary if it is snowing, but not true in virtue of the fact that it is snowing [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It is necessary that if it is snowing then 2+2=4, but the fact that 2+2=4 does not obtain in virtue of the fact that it is snowing. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.01) | |
| A reaction: Critics dislike 'in virtue of' (as vacuous), but I can't see how you can disagree with this obvervation of Fine's. You can hardly eliminate the word 'because' from English, or say p is because of some object. We demand the right to keep asking 'why?'! |
| 17276 | If you say one thing causes another, that leaves open that the 'other' has its own distinct reality [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It will not do to say that the physical is causally determinative of the mental, since that leaves open the possibility that the mental has a distinct reality over and above that of the physical. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.02) | |
| A reaction: The context is a defence of grounding, so that if we say the mind is 'grounded' in the brain, we are saying rather more than merely that it is caused by the brain. A ghost might be 'caused' by a bar of soap. Nice. |
| 17284 | An immediate ground is the next lower level, which gives the concept of a hierarchy [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It is the notion of 'immediate' ground that provides us with our sense of a ground-theoretic hierarchy. For any truth, we can take its immediate grounds to be at the next lower level. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.05 'Mediate') | |
| A reaction: Are the levels in the reality, the structure or the descriptions? I vote for the structure. I'm defending the idea that 'essence' picks out the bottom of a descriptive level. |
| 17285 | 'Strict' ground moves down the explanations, but 'weak' ground can move sideways [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: We might think of strict ground as moving us down in the explanatory hierarchy. ...Weak ground, on the other hand, may also move us sideways in the explanatory hierarchy. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.05 'Weak') | |
| A reaction: This seems to me rather illuminating. For example, is the covering law account of explanation a 'sideways' move in explanation. Are inductive generalities mere 'sideways' accounts. Both fail to dig deeper. |
| 17288 | We learn grounding from what is grounded, not what does the grounding [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It is the fact to be grounded that 'points' to its ground and not the grounds that point to what they ground. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.11) | |
| A reaction: What does the grounding may ground all sorts of other things, but what is grounded only has one 'full' (as opposed to 'partial', in Fine's terminology) ground. He says this leads to a 'top-down' approach to the study of grounds. |
| 17281 | If grounding is a relation it must be between entities of the same type, preferably between facts [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: In so far as ground is regarded as a relation it should be between entities of the same type, and the entities should probably be taken as worldly entities, such as facts, rather than as representational entities, such as propositions. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.02) | |
| A reaction: That's more like it (cf. Idea 17280). The consensus of this discussion seems to point to facts as the best relata, for all the vagueness of facts, and the big question of how fine-grained facts should be (and how dependent they are on descriptions). |
| 17280 | Ground is best understood as a sentence operator, rather than a relation between predicates [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Ground is perhaps best regarded as an operation (signified by an operator on sentences) rather than as a relation (signified by a predicate) | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.02) | |
| A reaction: Someone in this book (Koslicki?) says this is to avoid metaphysical puzzles over properties. I don't like the idea, because it makes grounding about sentences when it should be about reality. Fine is so twentieth century. Audi rests ground on properties. |
| 17290 | Only metaphysical grounding must be explained by essence [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: If the grounding relation is not metaphysical (such as normative or natural grounding), there is no need for there to be an explanation of its holding in terms of the essentialist nature of the items involved. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.11) | |
| A reaction: He accepts that some things have partial grounds in different areas of reality. |
| 17274 | Philosophical explanation is largely by ground (just as cause is used in science) [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: For philosophers interested in explanation - of what accounts for what - it is largely through the notion of ontological ground that such questions are to be pursued. Ground, if you like, stands to philosophy as cause stands to science. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.02) | |
| A reaction: Why does the ground have to be 'ontological'? It isn't the existence of the snow that makes me cold, but the fact that I am lying in it. Better to talk of 'factual' ground (or 'determinative' ground), and then causal grounds are a subset of those? |
| 17278 | We can only explain how a reduction is possible if we accept the concept of ground [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It is only by embracing the concept of a ground as a metaphysical form of explanation in its own right that one can adequately explain how a reduction of the reality of one thing to another should be understood. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.02) | |
| A reaction: I love that we are aiming to say 'how' a reduction should be understood, and not just 'that' it exists. I'm not sure about Fine's emphasis on explaining 'realities', when I think we are after more like structural relations or interconnected facts. |
| 17287 | Facts, such as redness and roundness of a ball, can be 'fused' into one fact [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Given any facts, there will be a fusion of those facts. Given the facts that the ball is red and that it is round, there is a fused fact that it is 'red and round'. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.10) | |
| A reaction: This is how we make 'units' for counting. Any type of thing which can be counted can be fused, such as the first five prime numbers, forming the 'first' group for some discussion. Any objects can be fused to make a unit - but is it thereby a 'unity'? |
| 17279 | Even a three-dimensionalist might identify temporal parts, in their thinking [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Even the three-dimensionalist might be willing to admit that material things have temporal parts. For given any persisting object, he might suppose that 'in thought' we could mark out its temporal segments or parts. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.02) | |
| A reaction: A big problem with temporal parts is how thin they are. Hawley says they are as fine-grained as time itself, but what if time has no grain? How thin can you 'think' a temporal part to be? Fine says imagined parts are grounded in things, not vice versa. |
| 17273 | Each basic modality has its 'own' explanatory relation [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: I am inclined to the view that ....each basic modality should be associated with its 'own' explanatory relation. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.01) | |
| A reaction: He suggests that 'grounding' connects the various explanatory relations of the different modalities. I like this a lot. Why assert any necessity without some concept of where the necessity arises, and hence where it is grounded? You've got to eat. |
| 17289 | Every necessary truth is grounded in the nature of something [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It might be held as a general thesis that every necessary truth is grounded in the nature of certain items. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.11) | |
| A reaction: [He cites his own 1994 for this] I'm not sure if I can embrace the 'every' in this. I would only say, more cautiously, that I can only make sense of necessity claims when I see their groundings - and I don't take a priori intuition as decent grounding. |
| 23359 | We can't believe apparent falsehoods, or deny apparent truths [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible to assent to an apparent falsehood, or to deny an apparent truth. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 3.07.15) | |
| A reaction: The way some philosophers write you would think that most beliefs just result from private whims or social fashion. That happens, of course, but most beliefs result from direct contact with reality. |
| 23356 | Self-evidence is most obvious when people who deny a proposition still have to use it [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: It is about the strongest proof one could offer of a proposition being evident, that even he who contradicts it finds himself having to make use of it. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.20.01) | |
| A reaction: Philosophers sometimes make fools of themselves by trying, by the use of elaborate sophistry, to demolish propositions which are self-evidently true. Don't be one of these philosophers! |
| 335 | Do the gods also hold different opinions about what is right and honourable? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Do the gods too hold different opinions about what is right, and similarly about what is honourable and dishonourable, good and bad? | |
| From: Plato (Euthyphro [c.398 BCE], 07e) |
| 17291 | We explain by identity (what it is), or by truth (how things are) [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: I think it should be recognised that there are two fundamentally different types of explanation; one is of identity, or of what something is; and the other is of truth, or of how things are. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.11) |
| 17271 | Is there metaphysical explanation (as well as causal), involving a constitutive form of determination? [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: In addition to scientific or causal explanation, there maybe a distinctive kind of metaphysical explanation, in which explanans and explanandum are connected, not through some causal mechanism, but through some constitutive form of determination. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I'm unclear why determination has to be 'constitutive', since I would take determination to be a family of concepts, with constitution being one of them, as when chess pieces determine a chess set. Skip 'metaphysical'; just have Determinative Explanation. |
| 23329 | We make progress when we improve and naturalise our choices, asserting their freedom [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Progress is when any of you turns to his own faculty of choice, working at it and perfecting it, so as to bring it fully into harmony with nature; elevated, free, unrestrained, unhindered, faithful, self-respecting. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.04.18) | |
| A reaction: [See also Disc.3.5.7] Rationality is the stoic concept of being in 'harmony with nature'. It appears (from reading Frede) that this may be the FIRST EVER reference to free will. Note the very rhetorical way in which it is presented. |
| 23342 | Freedom is acting by choice, with no constraint possible [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: He is free for whom all things happen in accordance with his choice, and whom no one can constrain. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.12.09) | |
| A reaction: Presumable this means that constraint is absolutely impossible, even by Zeus, and not just contingent possibility, when no one sees me raid the fridge. |
| 23330 | Freedom is making all things happen by choice, without constraint [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: He is free for whom all things happen in accordance with his choice, and whom no one can constrain. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.12.09) | |
| A reaction: The idea of 'free' will seems to have resulted from a wide extension of the idea of constraint, with global determinism lurking in the background. |
| 23332 | Zeus gave me a nature which is free (like himself) from all compulsion [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Zeus placed my good nature in my own power, and gave it to me as he has it himself, free from all hindrance, compulsion and restraint. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 3.03.10) | |
| A reaction: Although Frede traces the origin of free will to the centrality of choice in moral life (and hence to the elevation of its importance), this remark shows that there is a religious aspect to it. Zeus is supreme, and obviously has free will. |
| 23331 | Not even Zeus can control what I choose [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: You can fetter my leg, but not even Zeus himself can get the better of my choice. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.01.23) | |
| A reaction: This is the beginnings of the idea of free will. It is based on the accurate observation that the intrinsic privacy of a mind means that no external force can be assured of controlling its actions. Epictetus failed to think of internal forces. |
| 23338 | You can fetter my leg, but not even Zeus can control my power of choice [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: What are you saying, man? Fetter me? You will fetter my leg; but not even Zeus himself can get the better of my choice. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.01.23) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the beginning of the idea of 'absolute' freedom, which is conjured up to preserve perfect inegrity and complete responsibility. Obviously you can be prevented from doing what you choose, so this is not compatibilism. |
| 20875 | If we could foresee the future, we should collaborate with disease and death [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: The philosophers are right to say that if the honorable and good person knew what was going to happen, he would even collaborate with disease, death and lameness. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.10.05) | |
| A reaction: The 'philosophers' must be the earlier stoics, founders of his school. |
| 23347 | If I know I am fated to be ill, I should want to be ill [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: If I really knew that it was ordained for me to be ill at this moment, I would aspire to be so. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.06.10) | |
| A reaction: The rub, of course, is that it is presumably impossible to know what is fated. Book 2.7 is on divination. I don't see any good in a mortally ill person desiring, for that reason alone, to die. Rage against the dying of the light, I say. |
| 17277 | If mind supervenes on the physical, it may also explain the physical (and not vice versa) [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It is not enough to require that the mental should modally supervene on the physical, since that still leaves open the possibility that the physical is itself ultimately to be understood in terms of the mental. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.02) | |
| A reaction: See Horgan on supervenience. Supervenience is a question, not an answer. The first question is whether the supervenience is mutual, and if not, which 'direction' does it go in? |
| 23325 | Epictetus developed a notion of will as the source of our responsibility [Epictetus, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: The notion of will in Epictetus is clearly developed to pinpoint the source of our responsibility for our actions and to identify precisely what it is that makes them our own doings. | |
| From: report of Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56]) by Michael Frede - A Free Will 3 | |
| A reaction: So the key move is that responsibility needs a 'source', rather than being a generalisation about how our actions arise. The next step is demand an 'ultimate' source, and this leads to the idea that this new will is 'free'. This will can be good or bad. |
| 20873 | Tragedies are versified sufferings of people impressed by externals [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Tragedies are nothing but the sufferings of people who are impressed by externals, performed in the right sort of meter. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.04.26) | |
| A reaction: The externals are things like honour, position and wealth. Wonderfully dismissive! |
| 23364 | Homer wrote to show that the most blessed men can be ruined by poor judgement [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Did not Homer write to show us that the noblest, the strongest, the richest, the handsomest of men may nevertheless be the most unfortunate and wretched, if they do not hold the judgements that they ought to hold? | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 4.10.36) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be right. He clearly wrote about the greatest and most memorable events of recent times, but not just to record triumphs, because almost every hero (in the Iliad, at least) ends in disaster. |
| 23340 | We consist of animal bodies and god-like reason [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: We have these two elements mingled within us, a body in common with the animals, and reason and intelligence in common with the gods. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.03.03) | |
| A reaction: This is what I call Human Exceptionalism, but note that it doesn't invoke a Christian soul or spiritual aspect. This separation of reason goes back at least to Plato. High time we stopped thinking this way. Animals behave very sensibly. |
| 23358 | Every species produces exceptional beings, and we must just accept their nature [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: In every species nature produces some exceptional being, in oxen, in dogs, in bees, in horses. We do not say to them 'Who are you?' It will tell you 'I am like the purple in the robe. Do not expect me to be like the rest, or find fault with my nature'. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 3.01.23) | |
| A reaction: This idea began with Aristotle's 'great soul', and presumably culminates in Nietzsche, who fills in more detail. In the modern world such people are mostly nothing but trouble. |
| 23345 | Don't be frightened of pain or death; only be frightened of fearing them [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: It is not pain or death that is to be feared, but the fear of pain or death. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.01.13) | |
| A reaction: These two cases are quite different, I would say. I'm much more frightened of pain than I am of the fear of pain, and the opposite view seems absurd. About death, though, I think this is right. Mostly I'm with Spinoza: think about life, not death. |
| 23339 | I will die as becomes a person returning what he does not own [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: When the time comes, then I will die - as becomes a person who gives back what is not his own. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.01.32) | |
| A reaction: There is a tension between his demand that he have full control of his choices, and this humility that says his actual life is not his own. The things which can't be controlled, though, are 'indifferents' so life and death are indifferent. |
| 23357 | Knowledge of what is good leads to love; only the wise, who distinguish good from evil, can love [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Whoever has knowledge of good things would know how to love them; and how could he who cannot distinguish good things from evil still have to power to love? It follows that the wise man alone has the power to love. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.22.03) | |
| A reaction: A rather heartwarming remark, but hard to assess for its truth. Evil people are unable to love? Not even love a cat, or their favourite car? We would never call someone wise if they lacked love. |
| 23363 | The evil for everything is what is contrary to its nature [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Where is the paradox if we say that what is evil for everything is what is contrary to its nature? | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 4.01.125) | |
| A reaction: A very Greek view. For humans, it must rely on the belief that human nature is essentially good. If I am sometimes grumpy and annoying, why is that not part of my nature? |
| 23328 | The essences of good and evil are in dispositions to choose [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: The essence of the good is a certain disposition of our choice, and essence of evil likewise. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.29.01) | |
| A reaction: This is the origin of Kant's famous view, that the only true good is a good will. This is the alternative to good character or good states of affairs as the good. It points towards the modern more legalistic view of morality, as concerning actions. |
| 23362 | All human ills result from failure to apply preconceptions to particular cases [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: The cause of all human ills is that people are incapable of applying their general preconceptions to particular cases. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 4.01.42) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure whether 'preconceptions' is meant pejoratively (as unthinking, and opposed to true principles). This sounds like modern particularism (e.g. Jonathan Dancy) to the letter. |
| 23353 | We have a natural sense of honour [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: What faculty do you mean? - Have we not a natural sense of honour? - We have. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.10.22) | |
| A reaction: This seems unlikely, given the lower status that honour now has with us, compared to two hundred years ago. But there may be a natural sense of status, and of humiliation and shame. |
| 23354 | If someone harms themselves in harming me, then I harm myself by returning the harm [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Since he has harmed himself by wronging me, shall not I harm myself by harming him? | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.10.26) | |
| A reaction: I am very keen on this idea. See Hamlet's remarks to Polonius about 'honour and dignity'. The best strategy for achieving moral excellence is to focus on our own characters, rather than how to act, and to respond to others. |
| 23324 | In the Discourses choice [prohairesis] defines our character and behaviour [Epictetus, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: In Epictetus's 'Discourses' the notion of choice [prohairesis] plays perhaps the central role. It is our prohairesis which defines us a person, as the sort of person we are; it is our prohairesis which determines how we behave. | |
| From: report of Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56]) by Michael Frede - A Free Will 3 | |
| A reaction: Frede is charting the gradual move in Greek philosophy from action by desire, reason and habit to action by the will (which then turns out to be 'free'). Character started as dispositions and ended as choices. |
| 23361 | Health is only a good when it is used well [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Is health a good and sickness an evil? No. Health is good when used well, and bad when used ill. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 3.20.04) | |
| A reaction: Although I like the idea that health is a natural value, which bridges the gap from facts to values (as a successful function), there is no denying that the health of very evil people is not something the rest of us hope for. |
| 23346 | A person is as naturally a part of a city as a foot is part of the body [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Just as the foot in detachment is no longer a foot, so you in detachment are not longer a man. For what is a man? A part of a city, first. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.05.26) | |
| A reaction: It is, of course, not true that a detached foot ceases to be a foot (and an isolated human is still a human). This an extreme version of the Aristotelian idea that we are essentially social. It is, though, the sort of view favoured by totalitarianism. |
| 23351 | We are citizens of the universe, and principal parts of it [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: You are a citizen of the universe, and a part of it; and no subservient, but a principal part of it. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.10.03) | |
| A reaction: He got this view from Diogenes of Sinope, one of his heroes. What community you are a part of seems to be a choice as much as a fact. Am I British or a European? |
| 20874 | A citizen is committed to ignore private advantage, and seek communal good [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: The commitment of the citizen is to have no private advantage, not to deliberate about anything as though one were a separate part. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.10.04) | |
| A reaction: This is the modern problem of whether democratic voters are choosing for themselves or for the community. I think we should make an active effort at every election to persuade voters to aim for the communal good. Cf Rawls. |
| 23352 | A citizen should only consider what is good for the whole society [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: The calling of a citizen is to consider nothing in terms of personal advantage, never to deliberate on anything as though detached from the whole, but be like our hand or foot. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.10.04) | |
| A reaction: Fat chance of that in an aggressively capitalist society. I've always voted for what I thought was the common good, and was shocked to gradually realise that many people only vote for what promotes their own interests. Heigh ho. |
| 22604 | Punishing a criminal for moral ignorance is the same as punishing someone for being blind [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: You should ask 'Ought not this man to be put to death, who is deceived in things of the greatest importance, and is blinded in distinguishing good from evil?' …You then see how inhuman it is, and the same as 'Ought not this blind man to be put to death?' | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.18.6-7) | |
| A reaction: This is the doctrine of Socrates, that evil is ignorance (and weakness of will [akrasia] is impossible). Epictetus wants us to reason with the man, but what should be do if reasoning fails and he persists in his crimes? |
| 23349 | Asses are born to carry human burdens, not as ends in themselves [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: An ass is surely not born as an end in itself? No, but because we had need of a back that is able to carry burdens. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.08.07) | |
| A reaction: This is the absurd human exceptionalism which plagues our thinking. It would be somewhat true of animals which are specifically bred for human work, such as large cart horses. |
| 23341 | God created humans as spectators and interpreters of God's works [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: God has introduced man into the world as a spectator of himself and of his works: and not only as a spectator of them, but an interpreter of them as well. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.06.19) | |
| A reaction: This idea (which strikes me as bizarre) was picked up directly by the Christians. I can't imagine every Johnson wanting to creating their own Boswell. If you think we are divinely created, you have to propose some motive for it, I suppose. |
| 23348 | Both god and the good bring benefits, so their true nature seems to be the same [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: God brings benefits; but the good also brings benefit. It would seem, then, that where the true nature of god is, there too is the true nature of good. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.08.01) | |
| A reaction: An enthymeme, missing the premise that there can only be one source of benefit (which sounds unlikely). Does god bring anything other than benefits? And does the good? I think this is an idea from later platonism. |
| 337 | It seems that the gods love things because they are pious, rather than making them pious by loving them [Plato] |
| Full Idea: So things are loved by the gods because they are pious, and not pious because they are loved? It seems so. | |
| From: Plato (Euthyphro [c.398 BCE], 10e) | |
| A reaction: Socrates' answer to the Euthyphro Question (see Idea 336). The form of piety precedes the gods. |
| 336 | Is what is pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because they love it? (the 'Euthyphro Question') [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Is what is pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because they love it? | |
| From: Plato (Euthyphro [c.398 BCE], 10a) | |
| A reaction: The famous Euthyphro Question, the key question about the supposed religious basis of morality. The answer of Socrates is Idea 337. |
| 23360 | Each of the four elements in you is entirely scattered after death [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Whatever was in you of fire, departs into fire; what was of earth, into earth; what of air, into air; what of water, into water. There is no Hades, nor Acheron. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 3.13.15) | |
| A reaction: This sort of remark may explain why so few of the great Stoic texts (such as those of Chrysippus) survived the Christian era. |