17 ideas
| 19740 | A very hungry man cannot choose between equidistant piles of food [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The man who, though exceedingly hungry and thirsty, and both equally, yet being equidistant from food and drink, is therefore bound to stay where he is. | |
| From: Aristotle (On the Heavens [c.336 BCE], 296b33) | |
| A reaction: This is, of course, Buridan's famous Ass, but this quotation has the advantage of precedence, and also of being expressed in an original quotation (which does not exist for Buridan). |
| 10528 | Definitions concern how we should speak, not how things are [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Our concern in giving a definition is not to say how things are by to say how we wish to speak | |
| From: Kit Fine (Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction' [2005], p.310) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like an acceptable piece of wisdom which arises out of analytical and linguistic philosophy. It puts a damper on the Socratic dream of using definition of reveal the nature of reality. |
| 16005 | I recognise knowledge, but it is the truth by which I can live and die that really matters [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: The thing is to find a truth which is true for me - the idea for which I can live and die. I still recognise an imperative of knowledge, but it must be taken up into my life, which I now recognise as the most important thing. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Letter to Peter Wilhelm Lund [1835], J-1A) | |
| A reaction: A quintessentially existential idea. Note that he still considers objective knowledge to be quite important, but how we act and relate to those ideas is what really matters for us human beings. [SY] |
| 10529 | If Hume's Principle can define numbers, we needn't worry about its truth [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Neo-Fregeans have thought that Hume's Principle, and the like, might be definitive of number and therefore not subject to the usual epistemological worries over its truth. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction' [2005], p.310) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the underlying dream of logicism - that arithmetic is actually brought into existence by definitions, rather than by truths derived from elsewhere. But we must be able to count physical objects, as well as just counting numbers. |
| 10530 | Hume's Principle is either adequate for number but fails to define properly, or vice versa [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The fundamental difficulty facing the neo-Fregean is to either adopt the predicative reading of Hume's Principle, defining numbers, but inadequate, or the impredicative reading, which is adequate, but not really a definition. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction' [2005], p.312) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure I understand this, but the general drift is the difficulty of building a system which has been brought into existence just by definition. |
| 10527 | An abstraction principle should not 'inflate', producing more abstractions than objects [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: If an abstraction principle is going to be acceptable, then it should not 'inflate', i.e. it should not result in there being more abstracts than there are objects. By this mark Hume's Principle will be acceptable, but Frege's Law V will not. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction' [2005], p.307) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be motivated by my own intuition that abstract concepts had better be rooted in the world, or they are not worth the paper they are written on. The underlying idea this sort of abstraction is that it is 'shared' between objects. |
| 398 | Each thing that has a function is for the sake of that function [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Each thing that has a function is for the sake of that function. | |
| From: Aristotle (On the Heavens [c.336 BCE], 286a08) | |
| A reaction: This is the central idea of Aristotle's Ethics. Did it originate with Plato, or Socrates, the young pupil Aristotle? I suspect the strong influence of Aristotle on later Plato. A major idea. Functions link the facts to life. |
| 394 | An unworn sandal is in vain, but nothing in nature is in vain [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We say of a sandal which is not worn that it is in vain; God and nature, however, do nothing in vain. | |
| From: Aristotle (On the Heavens [c.336 BCE], 271a33) |
| 396 | There has to be some goal, and not just movement to infinity [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There has to be some goal, and not just movement to infinity. | |
| From: Aristotle (On the Heavens [c.336 BCE], 277a26) |
| 16102 | Aether moves in circles and is imperishable; the four elements perish, and move in straight lines [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle, aether and the four sublunary elements obey different physical laws. Aether moves naturally in a circle and, unlike its lower counterparts, is not a source of perishability. The four sublunary elements move naturally in straight lines. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (On the Heavens [c.336 BCE]) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: I think it is anachronistic for Gill to talk of 'obeying' and 'laws'. She should have said that they have different 'natures'. We can be amused by Greek errors, until we stare hard at the problems they were trying to solve. |
| 17463 | An element is what bodies are analysed into, and won't itself divide into something else [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: An element is a body into which other bodies may be analyzed, present in them potentially or in actuality (which of these is still disputable), and not itself divisible into bodies different in form. That is what all men mean by element. | |
| From: Aristotle (On the Heavens [c.336 BCE], 302a05), quoted by Weisberg/Needham/Hendry - Philosophy of Chemistry 1.1 | |
| A reaction: This is the classic definition of an element, which endured for a long time, and has been replaced by an 'actual components' view. Obviously analysis nowadays goes well beyond the atoms. |
| 399 | If the more you raise some earth the faster it moves, why does the whole earth not move? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If you raise some earth and release it, it moves and won't stay put, and the more you raise it the faster it moves, so why does the whole earth not move? | |
| From: Aristotle (On the Heavens [c.336 BCE], 294a12) |
| 20918 | Void is a kind of place, so it can't explain place [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is absurd to explain place by the void, as though this latter were not itself some kind of place. | |
| From: Aristotle (On the Heavens [c.336 BCE], 309b24) | |
| A reaction: Presumably this is aimed at Democritus. |
| 403 | The earth must be round and of limited size, because moving north or south makes different stars visible [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Clearly the earth is round and not of great size, because when we move north or south we find that very different stars are visible. | |
| From: Aristotle (On the Heavens [c.336 BCE], 297b30) |
| 402 | The Earth must be spherical, because it casts a convex shadow on the moon [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A lunar eclipse always has a convex dividing line, so, if it is eclipsed by the interposition of the earth, the circumference of the earth, being spherical, is responsible for the shape. | |
| From: Aristotle (On the Heavens [c.336 BCE], 297b29) |
| 1498 | Everyone agrees that the world had a beginning, but thinkers disagree over whether it will end [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: All thinkers agree that the world had a beginning, but some claim that, having come into existence, it is everlasting. | |
| From: Aristotle (On the Heavens [c.336 BCE], 279b12) |
| 395 | It seems possible that there exists a limited number of other worlds apart from this one [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: One might indeed be puzzled whether, just as the world about us exists, nothing prevents there being others as well, certainly more than one, though not an unlimited number | |
| From: Aristotle (On the Heavens [c.336 BCE], 274a26) |