Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Letters to Samuel Masson' and 'Episteme and Logos in later Plato'

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4 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 2. Logos

17950	The logos enables us to track one particular among a network of objects [Nehamas]
	Full Idea: The logos (the definition) is a summary statement of the path within a network of objects that one will have to follow in order to locate a particular member of that network.
	From: Alexander Nehamas (Episteme and Logos in later Plato [1984], p.234)
	A reaction: I like this because it confirms that Plato (as well as Aristotle) was interested in the particulars rather than in the kinds (which I take to be general truths about particulars).

17951	A logos may be short, but it contains reference to the whole domain of the object [Nehamas]
	Full Idea: A thing's logos, apparently short as it may be, is implicitly a very rich statement since it ultimately involves familiarity with the whole domain to which that particular object belongs.
	From: Alexander Nehamas (Episteme and Logos in later Plato [1984], p.234)
	A reaction: He may be wrong that the logos is short, since Aristotle (Idea 12292) says a definition can contain many assertions.

6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 5. The Infinite / d. Actual infinite

13190	I don't admit infinite numbers, and consider infinitesimals to be useful fictions [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Notwithstanding my infinitesimal calculus, I do not admit any real infinite numbers, even though I confess that the multitude of things surpasses any finite number, or rather any number. ..I consider infinitesimal quantities to be useful fictions.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Masson [1716], 1716)
	A reaction: With the phrase 'useful fictions' we seem to have jumped straight into Harty Field. I'm with Leibniz on this one. The history of mathematics is a series of ingenious inventions, whenever they seem to make further exciting proofs possible.

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues

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').