10 ideas
| 1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
| Full Idea: Thales was the first thinker in the west to believe that the arché (the basis of things) was intelligible. | |
| From: comment on Thales (fragments/reports [c.585 BCE]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.138 |
| 18946 | Unreflectively, we all assume there are nonexistents, and we can refer to them [Reimer] |
| Full Idea: As speakers of the language, we unreflectively assume that there are nonexistents, and that reference to them is possible. | |
| From: Marga Reimer (The Problem of Empty Names [2001], p.499), quoted by Sarah Sawyer - Empty Names 4 | |
| A reaction: Sarah Swoyer quotes this as a good solution to the problem of empty names, and I like it. It introduces a two-tier picture of our understanding of the world, as 'unreflective' and 'reflective', but that seems good. We accept numbers 'unreflectively'. |
| 11989 | For Russell, expressions dependent on contingent circumstances must be eliminated [Kaplan] |
| Full Idea: It is a tenet of Russell's theory that all expressions, and especially definite descriptions, whose denotation is dependent upon contingent circumstances must be eliminated. | |
| From: David Kaplan (How to Russell a Frege-Church [1975], II) |
| 3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Necessity is the strongest of things, for it rules everything. | |
| From: report of Thales (fragments/reports [c.585 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 01.2.9 |
| 11990 | 'Haecceitism' says that sameness or difference of individuals is independent of appearances [Kaplan] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine that we can ask whether this is the same individual in another possible world, and that a common 'thisness' may underlie extreme dissimilarity, or distinct thisnesses may underlie great resemblance, I call 'Haecceitism'. | |
| From: David Kaplan (How to Russell a Frege-Church [1975], IV) | |
| A reaction: Penelope Mackie emphasises that this doctrine, that each thing is somehow individuated, is not the same as believing in actual haecceities, specific properties which achieve the individuating. |
| 9668 | 'Haecceitism' is common thisness under dissimilarity, or distinct thisnesses under resemblance [Kaplan] |
| Full Idea: That a common 'thisness' may underlie extreme dissimilarity or distinct thisnesses may underlie great resemblance I call 'haecceitism'. (I prefer the pronunciation Hex'-ee-i-tis-m). | |
| From: David Kaplan (How to Russell a Frege-Church [1975], IV) | |
| A reaction: [odd pronunciation, if 'haec' is pronounced haeek] The view seems to be very unpopular (e.g. with Lewis, Bird and Mumford). But there is an intuitive sense of whether or not two things are identical when they seem dissimilar. |
| 11991 | If quantification into modal contexts is legitimate, that seems to imply some form of haecceitism [Kaplan] |
| Full Idea: If one regards the usual form of quantification into modal and other intensional contexts - modality de re - as legitimate (without special explanations), then one seems committed to some form of haecceitism. | |
| From: David Kaplan (How to Russell a Frege-Church [1975], IV) | |
| A reaction: That is, modal reference requires fixed identities, irrespective of possible changes in properties. Why could one not refer to objects just as bundles of properties, with some sort of rules about when it ceased to be that particular bundle (keep 60%?)? |
| 1494 | Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Thales says water is the first principle (which is why he declared the earth is on water); perhaps he concluded this from seeing that all food is moist. | |
| From: report of Thales (fragments/reports [c.585 BCE], A12) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 983b12 |
| 1713 | Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Thales seems, from what is recorded of him, to have supposed that the soul is something productive of movement, if he really said that the magnet has soul because it produces movement in iron. | |
| From: report of Thales (fragments/reports [c.585 BCE]) by Aristotle - De Anima 405a20 |
| 1742 | Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: When asked whether a man who did wrong could escape the notice of the gods, Thales is said to have replied: 'No, not even if he thinks wrong.' | |
| From: report of Thales (fragments/reports [c.585 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 01.Th.9 |