3 ideas
| 19423 | By an 'idea' I mean not an actual thought, but the resources we can draw on to think [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: What I mean by an idea is not a certain act of thinking, but a power or faculty such that we have an idea of a thing even if we are not thinking about it but know that we can think it when the occasion arises. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (What is an Idea? [1676], p.281) | |
| A reaction: 'Idea' tends to be used in the seventeenth century to mean an actual mental event. It is because Leibniz believes in the unconscious mind that he can offer this rather different, and probably superior, notion of an 'idea'. |
| 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'). |
| 8141 | He that does evil has not seen God [John] |
| Full Idea: He that doeth evil hath not seen God. | |
| From: St John (25: Third Epistle of John [c.90], 11) | |
| A reaction: This gives God a role striking similar to Plato's Form of the Good. Plato thought the Good was prior to the gods, but he gives the good a quasi-religious role. I say we would only be inspired by the sight of God if we already had a moral sense. |