Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Through the Looking Glass', 'fragments/reports' and 'The Iliad'

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7 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / e. Being and nothing
I only wish I had such eyes as to see Nobody! It's as much as I can do to see real people. [Carroll,L]
     Full Idea: "I see nobody on the road," said Alice. - "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked. ..."To be able to see Nobody! ...Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people."
     From: Lewis Carroll (C.Dodgson) (Through the Looking Glass [1886], p.189), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7
     A reaction: [Moore quotes this, inevitably, in a chapter on Hegel] This may be a better candidate for the birth of philosophy of language than Frege's Groundwork.
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 8. Dualism of Mind Critique
Homer does not distinguish between soul and body [Homer, by Williams,B]
     Full Idea: Homer's descriptions of people did without a dualistic distinction between soul and body.
     From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Shame and Necessity II - p.23
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / a. Will to Act
The 'will' doesn't exist; there is just conclusion, then action [Homer, by Williams,B]
     Full Idea: Homer left out another mental action lying between coming to a conclusion and acting on it; and he did well, since there is no such action, and the idea is the invention of bad philosophy.
     From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Shame and Necessity II - p.37
     A reaction: This is a characteristically empiricist view, which is found in Hobbes. The 'will' seems to have a useful role in folk psychology. We can at least say that coming to a conclusion that I should act, and then actually acting, are not the same thing.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / a. Form of the Good
Plato says the Good produces the Intellectual-Principle, which in turn produces the Soul [Homer, by Plotinus]
     Full Idea: In Plato the order of generation is from the Good, the Intellectual-Principle; from the Intellectual-Principle, the Soul.
     From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE], 509b) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08
     A reaction: The doctrine of Plotinus merely echoes Plato, in that case, except that the One replaces the Form of the Good. Does this mean that what is first in Plotinus is less morally significant, and more concerned with reason and being?
24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 2. Leaders / a. Autocracy
Let there be one ruler [Homer]
     Full Idea: The rule of many is not good; let there be one ruler.
     From: Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE], 2.204), quoted by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 8.9
     A reaction: [Quoted by Aristotle at Metaphysics 1076a04]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / c. Ultimate substances
For Anaximenes nature is air, which takes different forms by rarefaction and condensation [Anaximenes, by Simplicius]
     Full Idea: Unlike Anaximander, Anaximenes' underlying nature is not boundless, but specific, since he says that it is air, and claims that it is thanks to rarefaction and condensation that it manifests in different forms in different things.
     From: report of Anaximenes (fragments/reports [c.546 BCE], A5) by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.24.26-
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
Homer so enjoys the company of the gods that he must have been deeply irreligious [Homer, by Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: Homer is so at home among his gods, and takes such delight in them as a poet, that he surely must have been deeply irreligious.
     From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Human, All Too Human 125
     A reaction: Blake made a similar remark about where the true allegiance of Milton lay in 'Paradise Lost'.