42 ideas
| 326 | For relaxation one can consider the world of change, instead of eternal things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If, for relaxation, one gives up discussing eternal things, it is pleasant to consider likely accounts of the world of change. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 59c) | |
| A reaction: To understand this, examine Plato's example of the Line at 'Republic' 509d. |
| 315 | Philosophy is the supreme gift of the gods to mortals [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is the greatest gift the gods have ever given or ever will give to mortals. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 47b) | |
| A reaction: I wonder why they gave it to us? |
| 22820 | Early Romantics sought a plurality of systems, in a quest for freedom [Hösle] |
| Full Idea: It was an early Romantic idea that there is necessarily a plurality of systems in which individuality is expressed; for a complete system would destroy freedom. | |
| From: Vittorio Hösle (A Short History of German Philosophy [2013], 7) | |
| A reaction: I'm not clear why you are free because you are locked into system that differs from that of other people. True freedom seems to be either no system, or continually remaking one's own system. Why is such freedom valuable? Freedom v truth? |
| 306 | Nothing can come to be without a cause [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Nothing can come to be without a cause. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 28a) |
| 11115 | 'All horses' either picks out the horses, or the things which are horses [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: Two ways to see 'all horses are animals' are as picking out all the horses (so that it is a 'horse-quantifier'), ..or as ranging over lots of things in addition to horses, with 'horses' then restricting the things to those that satisfy 'is a horse'. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 2) | |
| A reaction: Jubien says this gives you two different metaphysical views, of a world of horses etc., or a world of things which 'are horses'. I vote for the first one, as the second seems to invoke an implausible categorical property ('being a horse'). Cf Idea 11116. |
| 324 | Before the existence of the world there must have been being, space and becoming [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There were, before the world came into existence, being, space, and becoming, three distinct realities. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 52d) |
| 20364 | The apprehensions of reason remain unchanging, but reasonless sensation shows mere becoming [Plato] |
| Full Idea: That which is apprehended by intelligence and reason is always in the same state, but that which is conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason is always in a process of becoming and perishing, and never really is. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 28a) | |
| A reaction: Lots of problems with this, of which I take the main one to be the idea that sensation is 'without reason', as if there were a sharp dichotomy in our ways of evaluating reality. Laws of nature seem to be laws of change, not of stasis. |
| 12042 | Plato's Forms were seen as part of physics, rather than of metaphysics [Plato, by Annas] |
| Full Idea: In the ancient world Plato's Theory of Forms was mostly seen as one aspect of Plato's 'physics' or theory of the world (rather than as 'metaphysics'). | |
| From: report of Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE]) by Julia Annas - Ancient Philosophy: very short introduction Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: This is how I also see the theory, but then I am inclined to see religion as a rather startling branch of speculative physics. Annas cites 'Timaeus' as the key text for this. |
| 307 | Something will always be well-made if the maker keeps in mind the eternal underlying pattern [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Whenever the maker of anything keeps his eye on the eternally unchanging and uses it as his pattern for the form and function of his product the result must be good. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 28b) |
| 318 | In addition to the underlying unchanging model and a changing copy of it, there must also be a foundation of all change [Plato] |
| Full Idea: In addition to an eternal unchanging model and a visible and changing copy of reality, there must be a third part, the receptacle and nurse of all becoming and change. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 49b) | |
| A reaction: cf Aristotle's criticism in Metaphysics |
| 321 | For knowledge and true opinion to be different there must be Forms; otherwise we are just stuck with sensations [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If intelligence and true opinion are different, then the forms must exist, but if they are the same, then what our senses perceive must be the most certain reality. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 51d) |
| 317 | The universe is basically an intelligible and unchanging model, and a visible and changing copy of it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Our basic description of the universe contained an intelligible and unchanging model, and a visible and changing copy of it. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 48e) |
| 11116 | Being a physical object is our most fundamental category [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: Being a physical object (as opposed to being a horse or a statue) really is our most fundamental category for dealing with the external world. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 2) | |
| A reaction: This raises the interesting question of why any categories should be considered to be more 'fundamental' than others. I can only think that we perceive something to be an object fractionally before we (usually) manage to identify it. |
| 11117 | Haecceities implausibly have no qualities [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: Properties of 'being such and such specific entity' are often called 'haecceities', but this term carries the connotation of non-qualitativeness which I don't favour. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 2) | |
| A reaction: The way he defines it makes it sound as if it was a category, but I take it to be more like a bare individual essence. If it has not qualities then it has no causal powers, so there could be no evidence for its existence. |
| 11119 | De re necessity is just de dicto necessity about object-essences [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: I suggest that the de re is to be analyzed in terms of the de dicto. ...We have a case of modality de re when (and only when) the appropriate property in the de dicto formulation is an object-essence. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 5) |
| 11118 | Modal propositions transcend the concrete, but not the actual [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: Where modal propositions may once have seemed to transcend the actual, they now seem only to transcend the concrete. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 4) | |
| A reaction: This is because Jubien has defended a form of platonism. Personally I take modal propositions to be perceptible in the concrete world, by recognising the processes involved, not the mere static stuff. |
| 11108 | Your properties, not some other world, decide your possibilities [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: The possibility of your having been a playwright has nothing to do with how people are on other planets, whether in our own or in some other realm. It is only to do with you and the relevant property. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 1) | |
| A reaction: I'm inclined to think that this simple point is conclusive disproof of possible worlds as an explanation of modality (apart from Jubien's other nice points). What we need to understand are modal properties, not other worlds. |
| 11111 | Modal truths are facts about parts of this world, not about remote maximal entities [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: Typical modal truths are just facts about our world, and generally facts about very small parts of it, not facts about some infinitude of complex, maximal entities. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 1) | |
| A reaction: I think we should embrace this simple fact immediately, and drop all this nonsense about possible worlds, even if they are useful for the semantics of modal logic. |
| 11105 | We have no idea how many 'possible worlds' there might be [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: As soon as we start talking about 'possible world', we beg the question of their relevance to our prior notion of possibility. For all we know, there are just two such realms, or twenty-seven, or uncountably many, or even set-many. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 1) |
| 11107 | If there are no other possible worlds, do we then exist necessarily? [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: Suppose there happen to be no other concrete realms. Would we happily accept the consequence that we exist necessarily? | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 1) |
| 11106 | If all possible worlds just happened to include stars, their existence would be necessary [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: If all of the possible worlds happened to include stars, how plausible is it to think that if this is how things really are, then we've just been wrong to regard the existence of stars as contingent? | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 1) |
| 11112 | Possible worlds just give parallel contingencies, with no explanation at all of necessity [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: In the world theory, what passes for 'necessity' is just a bunch of parallel 'contingencies'. The theory provides no basis for understanding why these contingencies repeat unremittingly across the board (while others do not). | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 1) |
| 11109 | If other worlds exist, then they are scattered parts of the actual world [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: Any other realms that happened to exist would just be scattered parts of the actual world, not entire worlds at all. It would just happen that physical reality was fragmented in this remarkable but modally inconsequential way. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 1) | |
| A reaction: This is aimed explicitly at Lewis's modal realism, and strikes me as correct. Jubien's key point here is that they are irrelevant to modality, just as foreign countries are irrelevant to the modality of this one. |
| 11113 | Worlds don't explain necessity; we use necessity to decide on possible worlds [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: The suspicion is that the necessity doesn't arise from how worlds are, but rather that the worlds are taken to be as they are in order to capture the intuitive necessity. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 1) | |
| A reaction: It has always seemed to me rather glaring that you need a prior notion of 'possible' before you can start to talk about 'possible worlds', but I have always been too timid to disagree with the combination of Saul Kripke and David Lewis. Thank you, Jubien! |
| 11110 | We mustn't confuse a similar person with the same person [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: If someone similar to Humphrey won the election, that nicely establishes the possibility of someone's winning who is similar to Humphrey. But we mustn't confuse this possibility with the intuitively different possibility of Humphrey himself winning. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 1) |
| 334 | Only bird-brained people think astronomy is entirely a matter of evidence [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Birds are empty-headed men who grew feathers instead of hair, because they were interested in astronomy but thought it was entirely a matter of physical evidence. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 91d) |
| 5962 | Plato says the soul is ordered by number [Plato, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Plato regards the substance of soul not as number but as being ordered by number. | |
| From: report of Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE]) by Plutarch - 68: Generation of the soul in 'Timaeus' 1023 | |
| A reaction: This remark points towards Plato's esoteric doctrines, which are some sort of mathematical metaphysics. The idea that order and numbers are in some way connected is one of the most powerful in western civilization, with undeniable appeal. |
| 330 | No one wants to be bad, but bad men result from physical and educational failures, which they do not want or choose [Plato] |
| Full Idea: No one wishes to be bad, but a bad man is bad because of some flaw in his physical makeup and failure in his education, neither of which he likes or chooses. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 86e) |
| 316 | Music has harmony like the soul, and serves to reorder disharmony within us [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Music has harmonic motions like the orbits of the soul, and is not for irrational pleasure, but to reduce to order any disharmony in the revolutions within us. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 47d) |
| 332 | One should exercise both the mind and the body, to avoid imbalance [Plato] |
| Full Idea: One should preserve a balance and avoid exercising the mind or body without the other; mathematicians should exercise physically, and athletes mentally. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 88c) | |
| A reaction: Excellent, and very modern. Use it or lose it. It suggests that Plato had a fairly holistic view of a human being, and saw mind and body as closely integrated. |
| 328 | Everything that takes place naturally is pleasant [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Everything that takes place naturally is pleasant. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 81e) | |
| A reaction: Not many people would agree with this. I recently watched a sparrowhawk eat a pigeon in my garden. This is the source of the stoic formula of living according to nature. |
| 322 | Intelligence is the result of rational teaching; true opinion can result from irrational persuasion [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Intelligence is produced by teaching, involves truth and reason, and cannot be moved; true opinion involves persuasion, is irrational and can be moved. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 51e) |
| 331 | Bad governments prevent discussion, and discourage the study of virtue [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Under a bad government discussion, both public and private, is bad, and no courses of study are available to cure faults of character. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 87b) |
| 22819 | In the 18th century history came to be seen as progressive, rather than cyclical [Hösle] |
| Full Idea: The turning point in the history of the philosophy of history occurs in the eighteenth century, when the ancient cyclical model of Vico is superseded by the idea of progress. | |
| From: Vittorio Hösle (A Short History of German Philosophy [2013], 6) | |
| A reaction: He says that Hegel merely inherited this progressive view, rather than creating it. I'm not sure how widely held the cyclical view was. I don't recognise it in Shakespeare. Science and technology must have suggested progress. |
| 310 | The creator of the cosmos had no envy, and so wanted things to be as like himself as possible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: This changing cosmos was made because its maker is good, and therefore lacks envy; he therefore wished all things to be as like himself as possible. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 29e) |
| 311 | The cosmos must be unique, because it resembles the creator, who is unique [Plato] |
| Full Idea: So that our universe can resemble the perfect living creature in being unique, the universe was, is and will continue to be its maker's only creation. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 31c) |
| 325 | We must consider the four basic shapes as too small to see, only becoming visible in large numbers [Plato] |
| Full Idea: We must think of the individual units of all four basic shapes as being far too small to be visible, and only becoming visible when massed together in large numbers. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 56c) |
| 327 | There are two types of cause, the necessary and the divine [Plato] |
| Full Idea: We must distinguish two types of cause, the necessary and the divine. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 68e) |
| 314 | Heavenly movements gave us the idea of time, and caused us to inquire about the heavens [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Days, months, years and solstices have caused the invention of number, given us the notion of time, and caused us to inquire into the nature of the universe. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 47a) |
| 312 | Time came into existence with the heavens, so that there will be a time when they can be dissolved [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Time came into being with the heavens, so that they should be dissolved together if ever they are dissolved. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 38c) |
| 309 | Clearly the world is good, so its maker must have been concerned with the eternal, not with change [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If the world is beautiful and its maker good, he had an eye on the eternal; if not, on that which is subject to change; clearly the world is the fairest of things, and he the best of causes, so it is eternal. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 29a) |
| 308 | If the cosmos is an object of perception then it must be continually changing [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The cosmos is visible, tangible and corporeal, and therefore perceptible by the senses; therefore it is an object of opinion and sensation, and therefore change and coming into being. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 28d) |