9 ideas
| 8978 | Events are made of other things, and are not fundamental to ontology [Bennett] |
| Full Idea: Events are not basic items in the universe; they should not be included in any fundamental ontology...all the truths about them are entailed by and explained and made true by truths that do not involve the event concept. | |
| From: Jonathan Bennett (Events and Their Names [1988], p.12), quoted by Peter Simons - Events 3.1 | |
| A reaction: Given the variable time spans of events, their ability to coincide, their ability to contain no motion, their blatantly conventional component, and their recalcitrance to individuation, I say Bennett is right. |
| 304 | Beautiful things must be different from beauty itself, but beauty itself must be present in each of them [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Are fine things different from or identical to fineness? They are different from fineness itself, but fineness itself is in a sense present in each of them. | |
| From: Plato (Euthydemus [c.379 BCE], 301a) |
| 16120 | Knowing how to achieve immortality is pointless without the knowledge how to use immortality [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If there exists the knowledge of how to make men immortal, but without the knowledge of how to use this immortality, there seems to be no value in it. | |
| From: Plato (Euthydemus [c.379 BCE], 289b) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be not a gormless utilitarianism about knowledge, but a plea for holism, that knowledge only has value as part of some larger picture. The big view is the important view. He's wrong, though. Work out the use later. |
| 303 | Say how many teeth the other has, then count them. If you are right, we will trust your other claims [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If each of you says how many teeth the other has, and when they are counted we find you do know, we will believe your other claims as well. | |
| From: Plato (Euthydemus [c.379 BCE], 294c) | |
| A reaction: This is the clairvoyant problem for reliabilism, if truth is delivered for no apparent reason. Useful, but hardly knowledge. HOW did you know the number of teeth? |
| 302 | What knowledge is required to live well? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: What knowledge would enable us to live finely for the rest of our lives? | |
| From: Plato (Euthydemus [c.379 BCE], 293a) | |
| A reaction: A successful grasp of other people's points of view might lead to respect for them. Also a realisation that we are not isolated individuals. We really are all in it together. |
| 301 | Only knowledge of some sort is good [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Nothing is good except knowledge of some sort. | |
| From: Plato (Euthydemus [c.379 BCE], 292b) | |
| A reaction: I've heard it suggested that truth is the only value. This is the Socratic idea that moral goodness is a matter of successful rational judgement. Not convinced, but interesting. |
| 305 | Something which lies midway between two evils is better than either of them [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Something which is composed of two factors which are bad for different purposes and lies midway between them is better than either of the factors. | |
| From: Plato (Euthydemus [c.379 BCE], 306a) |
| 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'). |
| 10364 | Facts are about the world, not in it, so they can't cause anything [Bennett] |
| Full Idea: Facts are not the sort of item that can cause anything. A fact is a true proposition (they say); it is not something in the world but is rather something about the world. | |
| From: Jonathan Bennett (Events and Their Names [1988], p.22), quoted by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 1.1 | |
| A reaction: Compare 10361. Good argument, but maybe 'fact' is ambiguous. See Idea 10365. Events are said to be more concrete, and so can do the job, but their individuation also seems to depend on a description (as Davidson has pointed out). |