5 ideas
| 21386 | We should accept as explanations all the plausible ways in which something could come about [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: The phases of the Moon could happen in all the ways [at least four] which the phenomena in our experience suggest for the explanation of this kind of thing - as long as one is not so enamoured of unique explanations as to groundlessly reject the others. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Pythocles [c.292 BCE], 94) | |
| A reaction: Very interesting, for IBE. While you want to embrace the 'best', it is irrational to reject all of the other candidates, simply because you want a single explanation, if there are no good grounds for the rejection. |
| 23692 | Good and bad are a matter of actions, not of internal dispositions [Foot] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers insist that dispositions, motives and other 'internal' elements are the primary determinants of moral goodness and badness. I have never been a 'virtue ethicist' is this sense. For me it is what is done that stands in this position. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Rationality and Goodness [2004], p.2), quoted by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought 4 'Virtue' | |
| A reaction: [She mentions Hursthouse, Slote, Swanton] I'm quite struck by this. Aristotle insists that morality concerns actions. It doesn't seem that a person could be a saint by having wonderful dispositions, but doing nothing. Paraplegics? |
| 7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
| Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
| From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
| A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate'). |
| 14051 | A cosmos is a collection of stars and an earth, with some sort of boundary, movement and shape [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: A cosmos is a circumscribed portion of the heavens containing stars and an earth; it is separated from the unlimited, with a boundary which is rare or dense; it is revolving or stationary; it is round or triangular, or some shape. All these are possible. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Pythocles [c.292 BCE], 88) | |
| A reaction: Notice that there seem to exist the 'heavens' which extend beyond the cosmos. See Idea 14036, saying that there are many other cosmoi in the heavens. |
| 1828 | God does not intervene in heavenly movements, but is beyond all action and perfectly happy [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Let us beware of making the Deity interpose in heavenly movements, for that being we ought to suppose exempt from all occupation and perfectly happy. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Pythocles [c.292 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.25 |