3 ideas
| 21650 | No language is semantically referential; it all occurs at the level of thought or utterance [Pietroski, by Hofweber] |
| Full Idea: For Paul Pietroski no expression in natural language is semantically referential. ....Reference to objects occurs not at the level of semantics, but at the level of thought or utterance. | |
| From: report of Paul M. Pietroski (Events and Semantic Architecture [2004]) by Thomas Hofweber - Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics 07.2 | |
| A reaction: Love this. It has always struck me that reference is what speakers do. Try taking any supposedly referential description and sticking 'so-called' in front of it. That seems to leave you with the reference even though you have denied the description. |
| 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'). |
| 5957 | Absurd superstitions make people atheist, not disharmony in nature [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Men have never thought the universe godless on the ground of detecting some fault in stars or seasons; ..it is the ridiculous things that superstition does that makes people say it would be better if there were no gods at all. | |
| From: Plutarch (14: Superstition [c.85], §12) | |
| A reaction: Not true, I would say. Absurd superstitions do discredit belief in the supernatural, but earthquakes are a disharmony in nature, and a nasty one at that. Nowadays we have other explanations to rival those of religion. |