7 ideas
10710 | We accept substance, to avoid infinite backwards chains of meaning [Wittgenstein, by Potter] |
Full Idea: Wittgenstein is the most renowned modern proponent of substance, and argued that sense must be determinate ...and that any conceptual scheme which genuinely represents a world cannot contain infinite backward chains of meaning. | |
From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (works [1935]) by Michael Potter - Set Theory and Its Philosophy 03.3 | |
A reaction: This is a key idea for explaining the somewhat surprising revival of the notion of substance in modern times, when it appeared to have been buried by atomism in the seventeenth century. The new argument is a semantic one. |
2170 | Homer does not distinguish between soul and body [Homer, by Williams,B] |
Full Idea: Homer's descriptions of people did without a dualistic distinction between soul and body. | |
From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Shame and Necessity II - p.23 |
2171 | The 'will' doesn't exist; there is just conclusion, then action [Homer, by Williams,B] |
Full Idea: Homer left out another mental action lying between coming to a conclusion and acting on it; and he did well, since there is no such action, and the idea is the invention of bad philosophy. | |
From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Shame and Necessity II - p.37 | |
A reaction: This is a characteristically empiricist view, which is found in Hobbes. The 'will' seems to have a useful role in folk psychology. We can at least say that coming to a conclusion that I should act, and then actually acting, are not the same thing. |
21819 | Plato says the Good produces the Intellectual-Principle, which in turn produces the Soul [Homer, by Plotinus] |
Full Idea: In Plato the order of generation is from the Good, the Intellectual-Principle; from the Intellectual-Principle, the Soul. | |
From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE], 509b) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08 | |
A reaction: The doctrine of Plotinus merely echoes Plato, in that case, except that the One replaces the Form of the Good. Does this mean that what is first in Plotinus is less morally significant, and more concerned with reason and being? |
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'). |
11388 | Let there be one ruler [Homer] |
Full Idea: The rule of many is not good; let there be one ruler. | |
From: Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE], 2.204), quoted by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 8.9 | |
A reaction: [Quoted by Aristotle at Metaphysics 1076a04] |
14829 | Homer so enjoys the company of the gods that he must have been deeply irreligious [Homer, by Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Homer is so at home among his gods, and takes such delight in them as a poet, that he surely must have been deeply irreligious. | |
From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Human, All Too Human 125 | |
A reaction: Blake made a similar remark about where the true allegiance of Milton lay in 'Paradise Lost'. |