21 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? |
| 14193 | 'Substance theorists' take modal properties as primitive, without structure, just falling under a sortal [Paul,LA] |
| Full Idea: Some deep essentialists resist the need to explain the structure under de re modal properties, taking them as primitive. One version (which we can call 'substance theory') takes them to fall under a sortal concept, with no further explanation. | |
| From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §1) | |
| A reaction: A very helpful identification of what Wiggins stands for, and why I disagree with him. The whole point of essences is to provide a notion that fits in with sciences, which means they must have an explanatory role, which needs structures. |
| 14195 | If an object's sort determines its properties, we need to ask what determines its sort [Paul,LA] |
| Full Idea: If the substance essentialist holds that the sort an object belongs to determines its de re modal properties (rather than the other way round), then he needs to give an (ontological, not conceptual) explanation of what determines an object's sort. | |
| From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §1) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 14193 for 'substance essentialism'. I find it quite incredible that anyone could think that a thing's sort could determine its properties, rather than the other way round. Even if sortals are conventional, they are not arbitrary. |
| 14196 | Substance essentialism says an object is multiple, as falling under various different sortals [Paul,LA] |
| Full Idea: The explanation of material constitution given by substance essentialism is that there are multiple objects. A person is essentially human-shaped (falling under the human sort), while their hunk of tissue is accidentally human-shaped (as tissue). | |
| From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §1) | |
| A reaction: At this point sortal essentialism begins to look crazy. Persons are dubious examples (with sneaky dualism involved). A bronze statue is essentially harder to dent than a clay one, because of its bronze. If you remake it of clay, it isn't the same statue. |
| 14198 | Absolutely unrestricted qualitative composition would allow things with incompatible properties [Paul,LA] |
| Full Idea: Absolutely unrestricted qualitative composition would imply that objects with incompatible properties and objects such as winged pigs or golden mountains were actual. | |
| From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §5) | |
| A reaction: Note that this is 'qualitative' composition, and not composition of parts. The objection seems to rule out unrestricted qualitative composition, since you could hardly combine squareness with roundness. |
| 14190 | Deep essentialist objects have intrinsic properties that fix their nature; the shallow version makes it contextual [Paul,LA] |
| Full Idea: Essentialism says that objects have their properties essentially. 'Deep' essentialists take the (nontrivial) essential properties of an object to determine its nature. 'Shallow' essentialists substitute context-dependent truths for the independent ones. | |
| From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], Intro) | |
| A reaction: If the deep essence determines a things nature, we should not need to say 'nontrivial'. This is my bete noire, the confusion of essential properties with necessary ones, where necessary properties (or predicates, at least) can indeed be trivial. |
| 14191 | Deep essentialists say essences constrain how things could change; modal profiles fix natures [Paul,LA] |
| Full Idea: The deep essentialist holds that most objects have essential properties such that there are many ways they could not be, or many changes through which they could not persist. Objects' modal profiles characterize their natures. | |
| From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This is the view I like, especially the last bit. If your modal profile doesn't determine your nature, then what does? Think of how you sum up a person at a funeral. Your modal profile is determined by dispositions and powers. |
| 14192 | Essentialism must deal with charges of arbitrariness, and failure to reduce de re modality [Paul,LA] |
| Full Idea: Two objections to deep essentialism are that it falters when faced with a skeptical objection concerning arbitrariness, and the need for a reductive account of de re modality. | |
| From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], Intro) | |
| A reaction: An immediate response to the second objection might be to say that modal facts about things are not reducible. The charge of arbitrariness (i.e. total arbitrariness, not just a bit of uncertainty) is the main thing a theory of essences must deal with. |
| 14197 | An object's modal properties don't determine its possibilities [Paul,LA] |
| Full Idea: I reject the view that an object's de re modal properties determine its relations to possibilia. | |
| From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §3) | |
| A reaction: You'll have to read Paul to see why, but I flat disagree with her on this. The whole point of accepting such properties is to determine the modal profile of the thing, and hence see how it can fit into and behave in the world. |
| 14189 | 'Modal realists' believe in many concrete worlds, 'actualists' in just this world, 'ersatzists' in abstract other worlds [Paul,LA] |
| Full Idea: A 'modal realist' believes that there are many concrete worlds, while the 'actualist' believes in only one concrete world, the actual world. The 'ersatzist' is an actualist who takes nonactual possible worlds and their contents to be abstracta. | |
| From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], Intro) | |
| A reaction: My view is something like that modal realism is wrong, and actualism is right, and possible worlds (if they really are that useful) are convenient abstract fictions, constructed (if we have any sense) out of the real possibilities in the actual 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. |
| 1554 | Contradiction is impossible, since only one side of the argument refers to the true facts [Prodicus, by Didymus the Blind] |
| Full Idea: Prodicus insists that contradiction is impossible, since if two people are contradicting each other, they cannot both be speaking of the same fact. Only the one who is speaking the truth is speaking of facts as they are; the other does not speak facts. | |
| From: report of Prodicus (fragments/reports [c.423 BCE]) by Didymus the Blind - Commentary on Ecclesiastes (frags) | |
| A reaction: cf. Kant's 100 thalers example |
| 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. |
| 1555 | People used to think anything helpful to life was a god, as the Egyptians think the Nile a god [Prodicus] |
| Full Idea: In the old days people regarded the sun, the moon, rivers, springs, and everything else which is helpful for life as gods, because we are helped by them, just as the Egyptians regard the Nile as a god. | |
| From: Prodicus (fragments/reports [c.423 BCE], B05), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Professors (six books) 9.18 |
| 535 | The gods are just personified human benefits [Prodicus] |
| Full Idea: Things from which benefits to human life have been derived have come to be considered deities, such as Demeter and Dionysus. | |
| From: Prodicus (fragments/reports [c.423 BCE], B5), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 1543 | He denied the existence of the gods, saying they are just exaltations of things useful for life [Prodicus] |
| Full Idea: He says that the gods worshipped by men neither exist nor have knowledge, but that the ancients exalted crops and everything else which is useful for life. | |
| From: Prodicus (fragments/reports [c.423 BCE]), quoted by Anon (Herc) - fragments 1428 19.12 |
| 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? |