32 ideas
| 7490 | Because of Darwin, wisdom as a definite attainable state has faded [Watson] |
| Full Idea: As well as killing the need for God, Darwin's legacy transformed the idea of wisdom, as some definite attainable state, however far off. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.31) | |
| A reaction: Where does this leave philosophy, if it is still (as I like to think) the love of wisdom? The best we can hope for is wisdom as a special sort of journey - touring, rather than arriving. |
| 7461 | The three key ideas are the soul, Europe, and the experiment [Watson] |
| Full Idea: The three key ideas that I have settled on in the history of ideas are: the soul, Europe, and the experiment. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Intro) | |
| A reaction: The soul is a nice choice (rather than God). 'Europe' seems rather vast and indeterminate to count as a key idea. |
| 7464 | The big idea: imitation, the soul, experiments, God, heliocentric universe, evolution? [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Candidates for the most important idea in human history are: mimetic thinking (imitation), the soul, the experiment, the One True God, the heliocentric universe, and evolution. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.03) | |
| A reaction: From this list I would choose the heliocentric universe, because it so dramatically downgraded the importance of our species (effectively we went from everything to nothing). We still haven't recovered from the shock. |
| 7465 | Babylonian thinking used analogy, rather than deduction or induction [Watson] |
| Full Idea: In Babylon thought seems to have worked mainly by analogy, rather than by the deductive or inductive processes we use in the modern world. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.04) | |
| A reaction: Analogy seems to be closely related to induction, if it is comparing instances of something. Given their developments in maths and astronomy, they can't have been complete strangers to the 'modern' way of thought. |
| 14239 | The empty set is usually derived from Separation, but it also seems to need Infinity [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: The empty set is usually derived via Zermelo's axiom of separation. But the axiom of separation is conditional: it requires the existence of a set in order to generate others as subsets of it. The original set has to come from the axiom of infinity. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: They charge that this leads to circularity, as Infinity depends on the empty set. |
| 14240 | The empty set is something, not nothing! [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: Some authors need to be told loud and clear: if there is an empty set, it is something, not nothing. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: I'm inclined to think of a null set as a pair of brackets, so maybe that puts it into a metalanguage. |
| 14241 | We don't need the empty set to express non-existence, as there are other ways to do that [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: The empty set is said to be useful to express non-existence, but saying 'there are no Us', or ¬∃xUx are no less concise, and certainly less roundabout. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 1.2) |
| 14242 | Maybe we can treat the empty set symbol as just meaning an empty term [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: Suppose we introduce Ω not as a term standing for a supposed empty set, but as a paradigm of an empty term, not standing for anything. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: This proposal, which they go on to explore, seems to mean that Ω (i.e. the traditional empty set symbol) is no longer part of set theory but is part of semantics. |
| 14243 | The unit set may be needed to express intersections that leave a single member [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: Thomason says with no unit sets we couldn't call {1,2}∩{2,3} a set - but so what? Why shouldn't the intersection be the number 2? However, we then have to distinguish three different cases of intersection (common subset or member, or disjoint). | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 2.2) |
| 14234 | If you only refer to objects one at a time, you need sets in order to refer to a plurality [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: A 'singularist', who refers to objects one at a time, must resort to the language of sets in order to replace plural reference to members ('Henry VIII's wives') by singular reference to a set ('the set of Henry VIII's wives'). | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], Intro) | |
| A reaction: A simple and illuminating point about the motivation for plural reference. Null sets and singletons give me the creeps, so I would personally prefer to avoid set theory when dealing with ontology. |
| 14237 | We can use plural language to refer to the set theory domain, to avoid calling it a 'set' [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: Plurals earn their keep in set theory, to answer Skolem's remark that 'in order to treat of 'sets', we must begin with 'domains' that are constituted in a certain way'. We can speak in the plural of 'the objects', not a 'domain' of objects. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], Intro) | |
| A reaction: [Skolem 1922:291 in van Heijenoort] Zermelo has said that the domain cannot be a set, because every set belongs to it. |
| 14245 | Logical truths are true no matter what exists - but predicate calculus insists that something exists [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: Logical truths should be true no matter what exists, so true even if nothing exists. The classical predicate calculus, however, makes it logically true that something exists. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 5.1) |
| 7466 | Mesopotamian numbers applied to specific things, and then became abstract [Watson] |
| Full Idea: To begin with, in Mesopotamia, counting systems applied to specific commodities (so the symbol for 'three sheep' applied only to sheep, and 'three cows' applied only to cows), but later words for abstract qualities emerged. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.04) | |
| A reaction: It seems from this that we actually have a record of the discovery of true numbers. Delightful. I think the best way to describe what happened is that they began to spot patterns. |
| 14246 | If mathematics purely concerned mathematical objects, there would be no applied mathematics [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: If mathematics was purely concerned with mathematical objects, there would be no room for applied mathematics. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: Love it! Of course, they are using 'objects' in the rather Fregean sense of genuine abstract entities. I don't see why fictionalism shouldn't allow maths to be wholly 'pure', although we have invented fictions which actually have application. |
| 14247 | Sets might either represent the numbers, or be the numbers, or replace the numbers [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: Identifying numbers with sets may mean one of three quite different things: 1) the sets represent the numbers, or ii) they are the numbers, or iii) they replace the numbers. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: Option one sounds the most plausible to me. I will take numbers to be patterns embedded in nature, and sets are one way of presenting them in shorthand form, in order to bring out what is repeated. |
| 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'). |
| 7477 | Modern democracy is actually elective oligarchy [Watson] |
| Full Idea: What we regard as democracy in the twenty-first century is actually elective oligarchy. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.06) | |
| A reaction: Even dictatorships want to be called 'democracies'. The modern system is a bit of a concession to Plato, and he would probably have preferred it to his system, because at least the rulers tend to be more educated than the direct assembly. |
| 7478 | Greek philosophers invented the concept of 'nature' as their special subject [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Greek philosophers may have invented the concept of 'nature' to underline their superiority over poets and religious leaders. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.06) | |
| A reaction: Brilliant. They certainly wrote a lot of books entitled 'Peri Physis' (Concerning Nature), and it was the target of their expertise. A highly significant development, along with their rational methods. Presumably Socrates extends nature to include ethics. |
| 7462 | DNA mutation suggests humans and chimpanzees diverged 6.6 million years ago [Watson] |
| Full Idea: The basic mutation rate in DNA is 0.71 percent per million years. Working back from the present difference between human and chimpanzee DNA, we arrive at 6.6 million years ago for their divergence. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.01) | |
| A reaction: This database is committed to evolution (a reminder that even databases have commitments), and so facts of this kind are included, even though they are not strictly philosophical. All complaints should be inwardly digested and forgotten. |
| 7470 | During the rise of civilizations, the main gods changed from female to male [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Around the time of the rise of the first great civilizations, the main gods changed sex, as the Great Goddess, or a raft of smaller goddesses, were demoted and male gods took their place. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: Why? War, perhaps? |
| 7474 | Hinduism has no founder, or prophet, or creed, or ecclesiastical structure [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Traditional Hinduism has been described as more a way of living than a way of thought; it has no founder, no prophet, no creed and no ecclesiastical structure. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: This contrast strikingly with all later religions, which felt they had to follow the Jews in becoming a 'religion of the book', with a sacred text, and hence a special status for the author(s) of that text. |
| 7479 | Modern Judaism became stabilised in 200 CE [Watson] |
| Full Idea: The Judaism we know today didn't become stabilized until roughly 200 CE. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.07) | |
| A reaction: By that stage it would have been subject to the influences of Christianity, ancient Greek philosophy, and neo-Platonism. |
| 7481 | The Israelites may have asserted the uniqueness of Yahweh to justify land claims [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Archaeology offers datable figures that seem to support the idea that the Israelites of the 'second exile' period converted Yahweh into a special, single God to justify their claims to the land. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.07) | |
| A reaction: The implications for middle eastern politics of this wicked observation are beyond the remit of a philosophy database. |
| 7480 | Monotheism was a uniquely Israelite creation within the Middle East [Watson] |
| Full Idea: No one questions the fact that monotheism was a uniquely Israelite creation within the Middle East. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.07) | |
| A reaction: I take the Middle East to exclude Greece, where they were developing similar ideas. Who knows? |
| 7471 | The Gathas (hymns) of Zoroastrianism date from about 1000 BCE [Watson] |
| Full Idea: The Gathas, the liturgical hymns that make up the 'Avesta', the Zoroastrian canon, are very similar in language to the oldest Sanskrit of Hinduism, so they are not much younger than 1200 BCE. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: This implies a big expansion of religion before the well-known expansion of the sixth century BCE. |
| 7473 | Zoroaster conceived the afterlife, judgement, heaven and hell, and the devil [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Life after death, resurrection, judgement, heaven and paradise, were all Zoroastrian firsts, as were hell and the devil. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: He appears to be the first 'prophet'. |
| 7484 | Jesus never intended to start a new religion [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Jesus never intended to start a new religion. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.08) | |
| A reaction: An intriguing fact, which makes you wonder whether any of the prophets ever had such an intention. |
| 7483 | Paul's early writings mention few striking episodes from Jesus' life [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Paul's writings - letters mainly - predate the gospels and yet make no mention of many of the more striking episodes that make up Jesus' life. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.07) | |
| A reaction: This is not proof of anything, but it seems very significant if we are trying to get at the facts about Jesus. |
| 7475 | Confucius revered the spiritual world, but not the supernatural, or a personal god, or the afterlife [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Confucius was deeply religious in a traditional sense, showing reverence towards heaven and an omnipresent spiritual world, but he was cool towards the supernatural, and does not seem to have believed in either a personal god or an afterlife. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: The implication is that the spiritual world was very remote from us, and beyond communication. Sounds like deism. |
| 7476 | Taoism aims at freedom from the world, the body, the mind, and nature [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Underlying Taoism is a search for freedom - from the world, from the body, from the mind, from nature. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: Of all the world's religions, I think Taoism is the most ridiculouly misconceived. |
| 7463 | The three basic ingredients of religion are: the soul, seers or priests, and ritual [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Anthropologist distinguish three requirements for religion: a non-physical soul which can survive death; individuals who can receive supernatural inspiration; and rituals which can cause changes in the present world. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.01) | |
| A reaction: The latter two, of course, also imply belief in supernatural powers. |
| 7468 | In ancient Athens the souls of the dead are received by the 'upper air' [Watson] |
| Full Idea: An official Athenian war monument of 432 BCE says the souls of the dead will be received by the aither (the 'upper air'), though their bodies remain on earth. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: Intriguing. Did they think anything happened when they got there? There are also ideas about Hades, and the Isles of the Blessed floating around. |