Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'teachings', 'The Problem of Knowledge' and 'On Duties ('De Officiis')'

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10 ideas

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 1. Nature of Wisdom
Cicero sees wisdom in terms of knowledge, but earlier Stoics saw it as moral [Cicero, by Long]
     Full Idea: Cicero (drawing on Panaetius) treats wisdom as if its province were primarily a disinterested pursuit of knowledge. But earlier Stoics gave purely moral definitions of wisdom.
     From: report of M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.11-20) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 5
     A reaction: I would have thought that after long discussion most ancient (and even modern) philosophers would conclude that it is both. The 'intellectualism' of Socrates hovers in the background, implying that healthy knowledge produces virtue.
1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 2. Wise People
Unfortunately we choose a way of life before we are old enough to think clearly [Cicero]
     Full Idea: At the beginning of adolescence when our deliberative capacities are weak we decide on the way of life that we find attractive. So one gets entangled in a definite manner and pattern of life before one is able to judge which one is best.
     From: M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.117)
     A reaction: Hence it is important to have lots of means for bailing out of education courses, jobs, and even marriage. At least university postpones the key life choices till the early twenties.
2. Reason / F. Fallacies / 1. Fallacy
Induction assumes some uniformity in nature, or that in some respects the future is like the past [Ayer]
     Full Idea: In all inductive reasoning we make the assumption that there is a measure of uniformity in nature; or, roughly speaking, that the future will, in the appropriate respects, resemble the past.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.viii)
     A reaction: I would say that nature is 'stable'. Nature changes, so a global assumption of total uniformity is daft. Do we need some global uniformity assumptions, if the induction involved is local? I would say yes. Are all inductions conditional on this?
11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 5. Cogito Critique
Knowing I exist reveals nothing at all about my nature [Ayer]
     Full Idea: To know that one exists is not to know anything about oneself any more than knowing that 'this' exists is knowing anything about 'this'.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.iii)
     A reaction: Descartes proceeds to define himself as a 'thinking thing', inferring that thinking is his essence. Ayer casts nice doubt on that.
To say 'I am not thinking' must be false, but it might have been true, so it isn't self-contradictory [Ayer]
     Full Idea: To say 'I am not thinking' is self-stultifying since if it is said intelligently it must be false: but it is not self-contradictory. The proof that it is not self-contradictory is that it might have been false.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.iii)
     A reaction: If it doesn't imply a contradiction, then it is not a necessary truth, which is what it is normally taken to be. Is 'This is a sentence' necessarily true? It might not have been one, if the rules of English syntax changed recently.
'I know I exist' has no counterevidence, so it may be meaningless [Ayer]
     Full Idea: If there is no experience at all of finding out that one is not conscious, or that one does not exist, ..it is tempting to say that sentences like 'I exist', 'I am conscious', 'I know that I exist' do not express genuine propositions.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.iii)
     A reaction: This is, of course, an application of the somewhat discredited verification principle, but the fact that strictly speaking the principle has been sort of refuted does not mean that we should not take it seriously, and be influenced by it.
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 6. Falsification
We only discard a hypothesis after one failure if it appears likely to keep on failing [Ayer]
     Full Idea: Why should a hypothesis which has failed the test be discarded unless this shows it to be unreliable; that is, having failed once it is likely to fail again? There is no contradiction in a hypothesis that was falsified being more likely to pass in future.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.viii)
     A reaction: People may become more likely to pass a test after they have failed at the first attempt. Birds which fail to fly at the first attempt usually achieve total mastery of it. There are different types of hypothesis here.
14. Science / C. Induction / 2. Aims of Induction
Induction passes from particular facts to other particulars, or to general laws, non-deductively [Ayer]
     Full Idea: Inductive reasoning covers all cases in which we pass from a particular statement of fact, or set of them, to a factual conclusion which they do not formally entail. The inference may be to a general law, or by analogy to another particular instance.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.viii)
     A reaction: My preferred definition is 'learning from experience' - which I take to be the most rational behaviour you could possibly imagine. I don't think a definition should be couched in terms of 'objects' or 'particulars'.
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 3. Universalisability
The essence of propriety is consistency [Cicero]
     Full Idea: The whole essence of propriety is quite certainly consistency.
     From: M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.110)
     A reaction: This seems to me the key intuition on which Kant built his deontological ethical theory. However, opponents say the consistency requires principles, and these are the enemies of truly good human behaviour, which involves Aristotle's 'particulars'.
29. Religion / C. Spiritual Disciplines / 3. Buddhism
Nagarjuna and others pronounced the world of experience to be an illusion [Nagarjuna, by Armstrong,K]
     Full Idea: Many later Buddhists (after Nagarjuna, c.120 CE) developed a belief that everything we experience is an illusion: in the West we would call them idealists.
     From: report of Nagarjuna (teachings [c.120]) by Karen Armstrong - A History of God Ch.3
     A reaction: This is just one step beyond Plato (who at least hung onto the immediate world as an inferior reality), and is presumably intended to motivate meditators to break out of the misery of existence into a higher realm. Personally I am against it.