34 ideas
| 14179 | The finest branch of wisdom is justice and moderation in ordering states and families [Plato] |
| Full Idea: By far the greatest and fairest branch of wisdom is that which is concerned with the due ordering of states and families, whose name is moderation and justice. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 209a) | |
| A reaction: ['Justice' is probably 'dikaiosune'] It is hard to disagree with this, and it relegates ivory tower philosophical contemplation to second place, unlike the late books of Aristotle's Ethics. |
| 17651 | Without words or other symbols, we have no world [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: We can have words without a world but no world without words or other symbols. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: Goodman seems to have a particularly extreme version of the commitment to philosophy as linguistic. Non-human animals have no world, it seems. |
| 17652 | Truth is irrelevant if no statements are involved [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Truth pertains solely to what is said ...For nonverbal versions and even for verbal versions without statements, truth is irrelevant. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: Goodman is a philosopher of language (like Dummett), but I am a philosopher of thought (like Evans). The test, for me, is whether truth is applicable to the thought of non-human animals. I take it to be obvious that it is applicable. |
| 3534 | To be is to have causal powers [Alexander,S] |
| Full Idea: To be is to have causal powers. | |
| From: Samuel Alexander (works [1927], §4), quoted by Jaegwon Kim - Nonreductivist troubles with ment.causation | |
| A reaction: This is sometimes called Alexander's Principle. It is first found in Plato, and is popular with physicalists, but there are problem cases... A thing needs to exist in order to have causal powers. To exist is more than to be perceived. |
| 17656 | Being primitive or prior always depends on a constructional system [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Nothing is primitive or derivationally prior to anything apart from a constructional system. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.4c) | |
| A reaction: Something may be primitive not just because we can't be bothered to analyse it any further, but because even God couldn't analyse it. Maybe. |
| 17661 | We don't recognise patterns - we invent them [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Recognising patterns is very much a matter of inventing or imposing them. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.7) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be false. |
| 17659 | Reality is largely a matter of habit [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Reality in a world, like realism in a picture, is largely a matter of habit. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.6) | |
| A reaction: I'm a robust realist, me, but I sort of see what he means. We become steeped in unspoken conventions about how we take our world to be, and filter out anything that conflicts with it. |
| 17657 | We build our world, and ignore anything that won't fit [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: We dismiss as illusory or negligible what cannot be fitted into the architecture of the world we are building. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.4d) | |
| A reaction: I'm trying to think of an example of this, but can't. Maybe poor people are invisible to the rich? |
| 17654 | A world can be full of variety or not, depending on how we sort it [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: A world may be unmanageably heterogeneous or unbearably monotonous according to how events are sorted into kinds. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.4a) | |
| A reaction: We might expect this from the man who invented 'grue', which allows you to classify things that change colour with things that don't. Could you describe a bird as 'might have been a fish', and classify it with fish? ('Projectible'?) |
| 1607 | Diotima said the Forms are the objects of desire in philosophical discourse [Plato, by Roochnik] |
| Full Idea: According to Diotima, the Forms are the objects of desire operative in philosophical discourse. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 210a4-) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.199 |
| 17653 | Things can only be judged the 'same' by citing some respect of sameness [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Identification rests upon organization into entities and kinds. The response to the question 'Same or not the same?' must always be 'Same what?'. ...Identity or constancy in a world is identity with respect to what is within that world as organised. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.4a) | |
| A reaction: And the gist of his book is that 'organised' is done by us, not by the world. He seems to be committed to the full Geachean relative identity, rather than the mere Wigginsian relative individuation. An unfashionable view! |
| 174 | True opinion without reason is midway between wisdom and ignorance [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There is a state of mind half-way between wisdom and ignorance - having true opinions without being able to give reasons for them. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 202a) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 2140, where Plato scorns this state of mind. What he describes could be split into two - purely lucky true beliefs, and 'externalist knowledge', with non-conscious justification. |
| 17660 | Discovery is often just finding a fit, like a jigsaw puzzle [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Discovery often amounts, as when I place a piece in a jigsaw puzzle, not to arrival at a proposition for declaration or defense, but to finding a fit. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.7) | |
| A reaction: I find Goodman's views here pretty alien, but I like this bit. Coherence really rocks. |
| 17658 | Users of digital thermometers recognise no temperatures in the gaps [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: To use a digital thermometer with readings in tenths of a degree is to recognise no temperature as lying between 90 and 90.1 degrees. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.4d) | |
| A reaction: This appears to be nonsense, treating users of digital thermometers as if they were stupid. No one thinks temperatures go up and down in quantum leaps. We all know there is a gap between instrument and world. (Very American, I'm thinking!) |
| 17650 | We lack frames of reference to transform physics, biology and psychology into one another [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: We have no neat frames of reference, no ready rules for transforming physics, biology and psychology into one another. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.2) |
| 17655 | Grue and green won't be in the same world, as that would block induction entirely [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Grue cannot be a relevant kind for induction in the same world as green, for that would preclude some of the decisions, right or wrong, that constitute inductive inference. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.4b) | |
| A reaction: This may make 'grue' less mad than I thought it was. I always assume we are slicing the world as 'green, blue and grue'. I still say 'green' is a basic predicate of experience, but 'grue' is amenable to analysis. |
| 180 | We call a person the same throughout life, but all their attributes change [Plato] |
| Full Idea: During the period from boyhood to old age, man does not retain the same attributes, though he is called the same person. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 207d) | |
| A reaction: This precisely identifies the basic problem of personal identity over time. If this is the problem, DNA looks more and more significant for the answer, though it would be an awful mistake to think a pattern of DNA was a person. |
| 181 | Only the gods stay unchanged; we replace our losses with similar acquisitions [Plato] |
| Full Idea: We retain identity not by staying the same (the preserve of gods) but by replacing losses with new similar acquisitions. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 208b) | |
| A reaction: Any modern student of personal identity should be intrigued by this remark! It appears to take a rather physical view of the matter, and to be aware of human biology as a process. Are my continuing desires token-identical, or just 'similar'? |
| 3398 | Epiphenomenalism makes the mind totally pointless [Alexander,S] |
| Full Idea: Epiphenomenalism supposes something to exist in nature which has nothing to do and no purpose to serve. | |
| From: Samuel Alexander (works [1927]), quoted by Jaegwon Kim - Philosophy of Mind p.129 | |
| A reaction: An objection, but not, I think, a strong one. The fact, for example, that sweat is shiny is the result of good evolutionary reasons, but I cannot think of any purpose which it serves. All events which are purposeful are likely to have side-effects. |
| 173 | Beauty and goodness are the same [Plato] |
| Full Idea: What is good is the same as what is beautiful. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 201c) |
| 172 | Love of ugliness is impossible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There cannot be such a thing as love of ugliness. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 201a) |
| 4026 | Beauty is harmony with what is divine, and ugliness is lack of such harmony [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Ugliness is out of harmony with everything that is godly; beauty, however, is in harmony with the divine. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 206d) | |
| A reaction: This remark shows how the concept of 'harmony' is at the centre of Greek thought (and is a potential bridge of the is/ought gap). |
| 184 | Progress goes from physical beauty, to moral beauty, to the beauty of knowledge, and reaches absolute beauty [Plato] |
| Full Idea: One should step up from physical beauty, to moral beauty, to the beauty of knowledge, until at last one knows what absolute beauty is. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 211c) | |
| A reaction: Presumably this is why Socrates refused sexual favours to Alcibiades. The idea is inspiring, and yet it is a rejection of humanity. |
| 183 | Stage two is the realisation that beauty of soul is of more value than beauty of body [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The second stage of progress is to realise that beauty of soul is more valuable than beauty of body. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 210b) |
| 171 | Music is a knowledge of love in the realm of harmony and rhythm [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Music may be called a knowledge of the principles of love in the realm of harmony and rhythm. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 187c) |
| 179 | Love is desire for perpetual possession of the good [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Love is desire for perpetual possession of the good. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 206a) | |
| A reaction: Even the worst human beings often have lovers. 'Perpetual' is a nice observation. |
| 14177 | Love assists men in achieving merit and happiness [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Phaedrus: Love is not only the oldest and most honourable of the gods, but also the most powerful to assist men in the acquisition of merit and happiness, both here and hereafter. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 180b) | |
| A reaction: Maybe we should talk less of love as a feeling, and more as a motivation, not just in human relationships, but in activities like gardening and database compilation. |
| 176 | Love follows beauty, wisdom is exceptionally beautiful, so love follows wisdom [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Wisdom is one of the most beautiful of things, and Love is love of beauty, so it follows that Love must be a love of wisdom. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 204b) | |
| A reaction: Good, but wisdom isn't the only exceptionally beautiful thing. Music is beautiful partly because it is devoid of ideas. |
| 177 | If a person is good they will automatically become happy [Plato] |
| Full Idea: 'What will be gained by a man who is good?' 'That is easy - he will be happy'. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 205a) | |
| A reaction: Suppose you tried to assassinate Hitler in 1944 (a good deed), but failed. Happiness presumably results from success, rather than mere good intentions. |
| 14178 | Happiness is secure enjoyment of what is good and beautiful [Plato] |
| Full Idea: By happy you mean in secure enjoyment of what is good and beautiful? - Certainly. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 202c) | |
| A reaction: We seem to have lost track of the idea that beauty might be an essential ingredient of happiness. |
| 170 | The only slavery which is not dishonourable is slavery to excellence [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The only form of servitude which has no dishonour has for its object the acquisition of excellence. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 184c) |
| 182 | The first step on the right path is the contemplation of physical beauty when young [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The man who would pursue the right way to his goal must begin, when he is young, by contemplating physical beauty. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 210a) |
| 17649 | If the world is one it has many aspects, and if there are many worlds they will collect into one [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: If there is but one world, it embraces a multiplicity of contrasting aspects; if there are many worlds, the collection of them all is one. One world may be taken as many, or many worlds taken as one; whether one or many depends on the way of taking. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: He cites 'The Pluralistic Universe' by William James for this idea. The idea is that the distinction 'evaporates under analysis'. Parmenides seems to have thought that no features could be distinguished in the true One. |
| 175 | Gods are not lovers of wisdom, because they are already wise [Plato] |
| Full Idea: No god is a lover of wisdom or desires to be wise, for he is wise already. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 204a) |