Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'works' and 'Episteme and Logos in later Plato'

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5 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.

14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 1. Scientific Theory

22363	You have only begun to do real science when you can express it in numbers [Kelvin]
	Full Idea: When you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.
	From: Lord Kelvin (Wm Thomson) (works [1881]), quoted by Reiss,J/Spreger,J - Scientific Objectivity 4.1
	A reaction: [Popular Lectures 1 p.73] Clearly the writer is a physicist! Astronomers discover objects, geologists discover structures, biologists reveal mechanisms.

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').

27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 2. Thermodynamics / a. Energy

20644	Energy has progressed from a mere formula, to a principle pervading all nature [Kelvin]
	Full Idea: The name 'energy', first used by Thomas Young, has come into use after it was raised from a mere formula of mathematical dynamics to become a principle pervading all nature, and guiding every field of science.
	From: Lord Kelvin (Wm Thomson) (works [1881]), quoted by Peter Watson - Convergence 01 'Principle'
	A reaction: [bit compressed] As far as I can see energy behaves exactly as if it were a substance, like water conserved in rainfalls, and yet it isn't a stuff, and seems to result from a process of abstraction. I take it to be one of the biggest mysteries in physics.