7 ideas
1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
Full Idea: Thales was the first thinker in the west to believe that the arché (the basis of things) was intelligible. | |
From: comment on Thales (fragments/reports [c.585 BCE]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.138 |
3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Necessity is the strongest of things, for it rules everything. | |
From: report of Thales (fragments/reports [c.585 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 01.2.9 |
16618 | Intellectual and moral states, and even the soul itself, depend on prime matter for their existence [Blasius, by Pasnau] |
Full Idea: Blasius argued that prime matter is the subject of all our intellectual and moral states. This implies that such states cannot exist apart from the body, which seems to imply further that the soul itself cannot exist apart from the body. | |
From: report of Blasius of Parma (Les quaestiones de anima (lectures on the soul) [1385], I.8 p.65) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 06.3 | |
A reaction: It seems that, under pressure, Blasius recanted this view in lectures given eleven years later. |
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'). |
1494 | Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Thales says water is the first principle (which is why he declared the earth is on water); perhaps he concluded this from seeing that all food is moist. | |
From: report of Thales (fragments/reports [c.585 BCE], A12) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 983b12 |
1713 | Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Thales seems, from what is recorded of him, to have supposed that the soul is something productive of movement, if he really said that the magnet has soul because it produces movement in iron. | |
From: report of Thales (fragments/reports [c.585 BCE]) by Aristotle - De Anima 405a20 |
1742 | Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: When asked whether a man who did wrong could escape the notice of the gods, Thales is said to have replied: 'No, not even if he thinks wrong.' | |
From: report of Thales (fragments/reports [c.585 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 01.Th.9 |