14238
|
A class is an aggregate of objects; if you destroy them, you destroy the class; there is no empty class [Frege]
|
|
Full Idea:
A class consists of objects; it is an aggregate, a collective unity, of them; if so, it must vanish when these objects vanish. If we burn down all the trees of a wood, we thereby burn down the wood. Thus there can be no empty class.
|
|
From:
Gottlob Frege (Elucidation of some points in E.Schröder [1895], p.212), quoted by Oliver,A/Smiley,T - What are Sets and What are they For?
|
|
A reaction:
This rests on Cantor's view of a set as a collection, rather than on Dedekind, which allows null and singleton sets.
|
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').
|
7824
|
If suicide is lawful, but assisting suicide is unlawful, powerless people are denied their rights [Grayling]
|
|
Full Idea:
An anomaly created by England's 1961 Suicide Act is that it is lawful to take one's own life, but unlawful to help anyone else to do it. This means anyone unable to commit suicide without help is denied one of their fundamental rights.
|
|
From:
A.C. Grayling (What is Good? [2003], Ch.8)
|
|
A reaction:
There is a difference, not really captured either by law or by reason, between tolerating an activity, and encouraging and helping it. I think the test question is "this activity is legal, but would you want your child to do it?"
|
7819
|
Religion gives answers, comforts, creates social order, and panders to superstition [Grayling]
|
|
Full Idea:
The four standard explanations given for religion are that it provides answer, that it gives comfort, that it makes for social order, and that it rests on mere superstition.
|
|
From:
A.C. Grayling (What is Good? [2003], Ch.4)
|
|
A reaction:
All four of these could be correct, though the first and fourth would be incompatible if religion gives correct answers. Why religion begins might be not the same as the reason why it continues.
|