Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Ethics and Language' and 'The History of Animals'

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5 ideas

10. Modality / A. Necessity / 8. Transcendental Necessity
490 Everything happens by reason and necessity [Leucippus]
     Full Idea: Nothing happens at random; everything happens out of reason and by necessity.
     From: Leucippus (fragments/reports [c.435 BCE], B002), quoted by (who?) - where?
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / k. Explanations by essence
15119 Aristotelian explanation by essence may need to draw on knowledge of other essences [Aristotle, by Koslicki]
     Full Idea: From Aristotle's biology we learn that a successful scientific explanation of the necessary (but non-essential) features of one type of phenomenon (e.g. camels) my require appeal to facts about the essences of other types of phenomena (stomachs).
     From: report of Aristotle (The History of Animals [c.344 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - Essence, Necessity and Explanation 13.4
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / h. Expressivism
23689 Moral words have an inherited power from expressing attitudes in emotional situations [Stevenson,CL]
     Full Idea: A term is moral because of the power that the word acquires, on account of its history in emotional situations, to evoke or directly express attitudes, as distinct from describing or designating them.
     From: Charles Leslie Stevenson (Ethics and Language [1944], p.33), quoted by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought 1 'Ayer'
     A reaction: Invites the question of what the words meant before they acquired this patina of historical usage. If 'good' orginally meant 'hurray!', its repeated usage doesn't seem to change that. If it was descriptive, why would that change with time?
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 2. Life
23302 Plants have far less life than animals, but more life than other corporeal entities [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: The genus of plants, whilst it is devoid of life compared with an animal, is endowed with life as compared with other corporeal entities. In the sea there are certain objects which one would be at a loss to determine whether they be animal or vegetable.
     From: Aristotle (The History of Animals [c.344 BCE], 588b09)
     A reaction: It seems that Aristotle takes life to come in degrees, assessed by the amount of physical vitality observed. This seems to make lambs more alive than sheep, which isn't very plausible. This is part of his 'gradualist' view of nature.
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
23301 There is a gradual proceeding from the inanimate to animals, with no clear borderlines [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Nature proceeds little by little from things lifeless to animal life so that it is impossible to determine the exact line of demarcation, nor on which side an intermediate form should lie. ...In plants there is a continuous ascent towards the animal.
     From: Aristotle (The History of Animals [c.344 BCE], 588b04)
     A reaction: This in itself should have alerted medieval Christians to the problematic nature of the idea that animal species were divinely created.