31 ideas
162 | Can we understand an individual soul without knowing the soul in general? [Plato] |
Full Idea: Do you think it possible to form an adequate conception of the nature of an individual soul without considering the nature of soul in general? | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 270c) | |
A reaction: Do animals understand anything (as opposed to simply being aware of things)? |
160 | The highest ability in man is the ability to discuss unity and plurality in the nature of things [Plato] |
Full Idea: When I believe that I have found in anyone the ability to discuss unity and plurality as they exist in the nature of things, I follow his footsteps as if he was a god. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 266b) | |
A reaction: This sounds like the problem of identity, which is at the heart of modern metaphysics. |
166 | A speaker should be able to divide a subject, right down to the limits of divisibility [Plato] |
Full Idea: A speaker must be able to define a subject generically, and then to divide it into its various specific kinds until he reaches the limits of divisibility. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 277b) |
7953 | Reasoning needs to cut nature accurately at the joints [Plato] |
Full Idea: In our reasoning we need a clear view of the ability to divide a genus into species, observing the natural joints, not mangling any of the parts, like an unskilful butcher. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 265d) | |
A reaction: In modern times this Platonic idea has become the standard metaphor for realism. I endorse it. I think nature has joints, and we should hunt for them. There are natural sets. The joints may exist in abstract concepts, as well as in objects. |
16121 | I revere anyone who can discern a single thing that encompasses many things [Plato] |
Full Idea: If I believe that someone is capable of discerning a single thing that is also by nature capable of encompassing many, I follow 'straight behind, in his footsteps, as if he were a god'. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 266b) | |
A reaction: [Plato quote Odyssey 2.406] This is the sort of simple but profound general observation which only the early philosophers bothered to make, and no one comments on now. Encompassing many under one is the very essence of thinking. |
153 | It takes a person to understand, by using universals, and by using reason to create a unity out of sense-impressions [Plato] |
Full Idea: It takes a man to understand by the use of universals, and to collect out of the multiplicity of sense-impressions a unity arrived at by a process of reason. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 249b) |
154 | We would have an overpowering love of knowledge if we had a pure idea of it - as with the other Forms [Plato] |
Full Idea: What overpowering love knowledge would inspire if it could bring a clear image of itself before our sight, and the same may be said of the other forms. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 250d) | |
A reaction: the motivation in Plato's theory |
12149 | Indexicals are a problem for beliefs being just subject-proposition relations [Perry] |
Full Idea: The essential indexical is a problem for the view that belief is a relation between subjects and propositions conceived as bearers of truth and falsity. | |
From: John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979], 'Intro') | |
A reaction: My immediate reaction would be that it depends on how you conceive of 'propositions'. If they are objective, you have a problem. I take them to be subjective events in brains, and the indexical meaning to be evident within the proposition. |
151 | True knowledge is of the reality behind sense experience [Plato] |
Full Idea: True knowledge is concerned with the abode of true reality, without colour or shape, intangible but utterly real, apprehensible only to the intellect. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 247c) |
165 | If the apparent facts strongly conflict with probability, it is in everyone's interests to suppress the facts [Plato] |
Full Idea: There are some occasions when both prosecution and defence should positively suppress the facts in favour of probability, if the facts are improbable. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 272e) |
9296 | The soul is self-motion [Plato] |
Full Idea: Self-motion is of the very nature of the soul. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 245e) | |
A reaction: This culminates a length discussion of the soul. He gives an implausible argument that the soul is immortal, because it could never cease its self-motion. Why are we so unimpressed by motion, when the Greeks were amazed by it? |
23997 | Plato saw emotions and appetites as wild horses, in need of taming [Plato, by Goldie] |
Full Idea: Plato had a conception of the emotions and our bodily appetites as being like wild horses, to be harnassed and controlled by reason. | |
From: report of Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE]) by Peter Goldie - The Emotions 4 'Education' | |
A reaction: This seems to make Plato the patriarch of puritanism. See Symposium, as well as Phaedrus. But bringing up children can often seem like taming wild beasts. |
12151 | If we replace 'I' in sentences about me, they are different beliefs and explanations of behaviour [Perry] |
Full Idea: If I leave a trail of sugar, and realise 'that I am making a mess', ...when we replace the word 'I' with other designations of me, we no longer have an explanation of my behaviour, or an attribution of the same belief, so it is an 'essential indexical'. | |
From: John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979], 'Intro') | |
A reaction: [compressed] A famous observation of Perry's, which leads him to challenge traditional accounts of belief and of propositions. I don't think I see a problem, if we have a thoroughly non-linguistic account of essentially unambiguous propositions. |
18412 | Indexicals individuate certain belief states, helping in explanation and prediction [Perry] |
Full Idea: We use sentences with indexicals or relativized propositions to individuate belief states, for the purposes of classifying believers in ways useful for explanation and prediction. | |
From: John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979], 'Obvious') | |
A reaction: He goes on to apparently connect this with some sort of moral integrity involved in 'owning up' to the fact that the person in question is you (who has spilled the sugar etc.). |
12150 | Indexicals reveal big problems with the traditional idea of a proposition [Perry] |
Full Idea: The problem of the essential indexical reveals that something is badly wrong with the traditional doctrine of propositions. | |
From: John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979], 'Prob') | |
A reaction: See the reaction to 12149. The traditional view of propositions, or at least Russell's view, seems to be that they are same as facts, which strikes me as daft. I take propositions to be brain events, probably expressed in mentalese. |
5946 | 'Phaedrus' pioneers the notion of philosophical rhetoric [Lawson-Tancred on Plato] |
Full Idea: The purpose of the 'Phaedrus' is to pioneer the notion of philosophical rhetoric. | |
From: comment on Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], Ch.10) by Hugh Lawson-Tancred - Plato's Republic and Greek Enlightenment | |
A reaction: This is a wonderfully challenging view of what Plato was up to. One might connect it with Rorty's claim that philosophy should move away from epistemology and analysis, towards hermeneutics, which sounds to me like rhetoric. 'Phaedrus' is beautiful. |
158 | An excellent speech seems to imply a knowledge of the truth in the mind of the speaker [Plato] |
Full Idea: If a speech is to be classed as excellent, does that not presuppose knowledge of the truth about the subject of the speech in the mind of the speaker. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 259e) | |
A reaction: I like the thought that Plato's main interest was rhetoric, but with the view that the only good rhetoric is truth-speaking. It would be hard to admire a speech if you disagreed with it. |
159 | Only a good philosopher can be a good speaker [Plato] |
Full Idea: Unless a man becomes an adequate philosopher he will never be an adequate speaker on any subject. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 261a) | |
A reaction: Depends. Hitler showed little sign of clear philosophical thinking, but the addition of lights and uniforms seemed to sweep reasonably intelligent people along with him. |
155 | Beauty is the clearest and most lovely of the Forms [Plato] |
Full Idea: Only beauty has the privilege of being the most clearly discerned and the most lovely of the forms. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 250e) | |
A reaction: the motivation in Plato's theory |
143 | The two ruling human principles are the natural desire for pleasure, and an acquired love of virtue [Plato] |
Full Idea: In each one of us there are two ruling and impelling principles: a desire for pleasure, which is innate, and an acquired conviction which causes us to aim at excellence. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 237d) | |
A reaction: This division is too neat and simple. An obsession with pleasure I would take to be acquired. If you set out to do something, I think there is an innate desire to do it well. |
157 | Most pleasure is release from pain, and is therefore not worthwhile [Plato] |
Full Idea: Life is not worth living for pleasures whose enjoyment entirely depends on previous sensation of pain, like almost all physical pleasures. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 258e) | |
A reaction: Eating exotic food which is hard to obtain? (Pay someone to obtain it). Rock climbing. Training for sport. |
144 | Reason impels us towards excellence, which teaches us self-control [Plato] |
Full Idea: The conviction which impels us towards excellence is rational, and the power by which it masters us we call self-control. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 237e) |
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'). |
156 | Bad people are never really friends with one another [Plato] |
Full Idea: It is not ordained that bad men should be friends with one another. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 255b) |
15203 | Tense is essential for thought and action [Perry, by Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Tense plays a crucial role in thought and action. | |
From: report of John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979]) by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 3 a | |
A reaction: This is important, because much of our metaphysics is dominated by a detached 'scientific' description of reality, which is given a rather passive character. If processes take centre stage, which they should, then our own processes are part of it. |
15204 | Actual tensed sentences cannot be tenseless, because they can cite their own context [Perry, by Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: In the new tenseless theory, no tensed token sentence can be equivalent to a tenseless token, because the former, unlike the latter, draws attention to the context in which it is tokened. | |
From: report of John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979]) by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 3 a | |
A reaction: So the problem about indexicals was worrying fans of the tenseless B-series view of time (and so it should). I'm inclined to translate sentences containing indexicals into their actual propositions, which tend to avoid them. 'Time/person of utterance'. |
148 | If the prime origin is destroyed, it will not come into being again out of anything [Plato] |
Full Idea: If the prime origin is destroyed, it will not come into being again out of anything. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 245d) | |
A reaction: This is the essence of Aquinas's Third Way of proving God's existence. |
152 | The mind of God is fully satisfied and happy with a vision of reality and truth [Plato] |
Full Idea: The mind of a god, sustained by pure intelligence and knowledge, is satisfied with the vision of reality, and nourished and made happy by the vision of truth. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 247d) |
150 | We cannot conceive of God, so we have to think of Him as an immortal version of ourselves [Plato] |
Full Idea: Because we have never seen or formed an adequate idea of a god, we picture him to ourselves as a being of the same kind as ourselves but immortal. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 246d) |
149 | There isn't a single reason for positing the existence of immortal beings [Plato] |
Full Idea: There is not a single sound reason for positing the existence of such a being who is immortal | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 246d) |
146 | Soul is always in motion, so it must be self-moving and immortal [Plato] |
Full Idea: All soul is immortal, for what is always in motion is immortal. Only that which moves itself never ceases to be in motion. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 245c) |