3 ideas
1212 | Replacing timbers on Theseus' ship was the classic illustration of the problem of growth and change [Plutarch] |
Full Idea: At intervals they removed old timbers from the preserved ship and replaced them with sound ones, so the ship became a classic illustration for the philosophers of the disputed question of growth and change, some saying it was the same, others different. | |
From: Plutarch (Life of Theseus [c.85], 23) |
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? |
20765 | Man is a brave naked will, separate from a background of values and realities [Murdoch] |
Full Idea: Existentialists no longer see man against a background of values, of realities, which transcend him. We picture man as a brave naked will. | |
From: Iris Murdoch (Against Dryness: a polemical sketch [1983], p.46), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 7 'Subjectivism' | |
A reaction: It is one thing to deny the values, and another to deny the realities. This piece is a 'polemic', and reads more like an exhortation than a truth. Many of us are, at best, cowardly naked wills. |