3 ideas
| 3663 | How can you contemplate Platonic entities without causal transactions with them? [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Platonism has the attendant problem of how we can succeed in thinking about and referring to entities we can have no causal transactions with. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Phil of Mathematics: why nothing works [1979], Modalism) |
| 22591 | We know perfection when we see what is imperfect [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: We know of perfection as we look upon what is imperfect. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals [1992], 13) | |
| A reaction: This is in the context of a discussion of the ontological argument for God's existence, but I seize on it as a nice expression of the idealisation capacity of our minds. The alternative is that perfection is innate idea, since we aren't seeing it. |
| 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'). |