3 ideas
| 5880 | Xenocrates held that the soul had no form or substance, but was number [Xenocrates, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Xenocrates denied that the soul had form or any substance, but said that it was number, and the power of number, as had been held by Pythagoras long before, was the highest in nature. | |
| From: report of Xenocrates (fragments/reports [c.327 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Tusculan Disputations I.x.20 | |
| A reaction: This shows how strong the Pythagorean influence was in the Academy. This is not totally stupid. Dawkins holds that the essence of DNA is information, which can be expressed mathematically. Xenocrates was a functionalist. |
| 8212 | Everything that is experienced in consciousness is meaning [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: All experience is the experience of meaning (Sinn). Everything that appears to consciousness, everything that is for consciousness in general, is meaning. | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (Semiology and Grammatology [1968], p.26) | |
| A reaction: This an assertion, from a quite different philosophical tradition, of the centrality of linguistic meaning in philosophy. It links with the centrality of intentionality in our understanding of the mind. |
| 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'). |