4 ideas
| 15575 | Knowledge is not a static set of correct propositions, but a continuing search for better interpretations [Polt] |
| Full Idea: Thanks to Heidegger, hermeneutics has gained wider acceptance - that knowledge is not a static set of correct propositions, but a continuing search for better interpretations. | |
| From: Richard Polt (Heidegger: an introduction [1999], 3.§7) | |
| A reaction: I am not sure if I understand the notion of a search that has a refusal to actually find anything as one of its basic principles. |
| 15568 | When we consider possibilities, there must be something we are considering [Polt] |
| Full Idea: We would hardly want to say that a possibility is nothing, since surely we are considering something when we consider possibilities. | |
| From: Richard Polt (Heidegger: an introduction [1999], 1) | |
| A reaction: A nice contribution to the issue of whether modality is a feature of actuality. I would prefer to say that we can self-evidently utter truths and falsehoods about what is or is not possible, in nature, in logic, and maybe in metaphysics. |
| 6029 | Whoever knows future causes knows everything that will be [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Whoever grasps the causes of future things must necessarily grasp all that will be. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On Divination ('De divinatione') [c.46 BCE], 1.127) | |
| A reaction: Laplace stated this idea in terms of Newtonian physics (Idea 3441), but the key idea is stated more simply and clearly here. God can know the future in this way, without actually seeing it happen now. I can't think why it should not be true. |
| 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'). |