71 ideas
| 3240 | There is more insight in fundamental perplexity about problems than in their supposed solutions [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Certain forms of perplexity (say about freedom, knowledge and the meaning of life) seem to me to embody more insight than any of the supposed solutions to those problems. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Obviously false solutions won't embody much insight. This sounds good, but I suspect that the insight is in the recognition of the facts which give rise to the perplexity. I can't think of anything in favour of perplexity for its own sake. |
| 22733 | Epicurus accepted God in his popular works, but not in his writings on nature [Epicurus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus in his popular exposition allows the existence of God, but in expounding the real nature of things he does not allow it. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Physicists (two books) I.58 | |
| A reaction: Plato and Aristotle also distinguished their esoteric from their exoteric writings, but this is an indication that thei popular works may always have presented safer doctrines. |
| 3242 | Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture can't skip it [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture that tries to skip it will never grow up. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Can he really mean that a mature culture doesn't need philosophy? |
| 13291 | Slavery to philosophy brings true freedom [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: To win true freedom you must be a slave to philosophy. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 008 | |
| A reaction: A lovely idea. It is one thing to free the body, or to free one's social situation, but the challenge to 'free your mind' is either romantic nonsense or totally baffling, apart from the suggestion offered here. Reason is freedom. Very Kantian. |
| 22758 | Philosophy aims at a happy life, through argument and discussion [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is an activity which secures the happy life by arguments and discussions. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Ethicists (one book) VI.169 | |
| A reaction: Presumably this aims at the happiness of the participant. Universal happiness would need to be much more political. If this is your aim then you can't just follow the winds of the argument, but must channel it towards happiness. No nasty truths? |
| 14523 | We should come to philosophy free from any taint of culture [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: I congratulate you, sir, because you have come to philosophy free of any taint of culture. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) | |
| A reaction: [source: Athenaeus, 'Deipnosophists' 13 588b] No one nowadays thinks such an aspiration remotely possible, not least because the culture is embedded in your native language, but I find the idea very appealing. |
| 3241 | It seems mad, but the aim of philosophy is to climb outside of our own minds [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: We are trying to climb outside of our own minds, an effort that some would regard as insane and that I regard as philosophically fundamental. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], Intro) | |
| A reaction: It is not only philosophers who do this. It is an essential feature of the mind, and is inherent in the concept of truth. |
| 22240 | The aim of medicine is removal of sickness, and philosophy similarly removes our affections [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Just as there is no benefit to medicine if it does not heal the sicknesses [nosos] of bodies, so too there is none to philosophy unless it expels that affections of the soul. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE], fr 221), quoted by James Allen - Soul's Virtue and the Health of the Body p.78 | |
| A reaction: This sounds rather Buddhist, if the only route to happiness is to suppress the emotions. Epicurus probably refers to the more extreme desires, which only lead to harm. Galen quotes Chrysippus as endorsing this idea (see footnote 5). |
| 1484 | We should say nothing of the whole if our contact is with the parts [Epicurus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: We should make no assertion about the whole when our contact is with the parts. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes 1109e |
| 3248 | Realism invites scepticism because it claims to be objective [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The search for objective knowledge, because of its commitment to realism, cannot refute scepticism and must proceed under its shadow, and scepticism is only a problem because of the realist claims of objectivity. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], V.1) |
| 20989 | Views are objective if they don't rely on a person's character, social position or species [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: A view or form of thought is more objective than another if it relies less on the specifics of the individual's makeup and position in the world, or on the character of the particular type of creature he is. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Notice that this defines comparative objectivity, rather than an absolute. I take it that something must be entirely objective to qualify as a 'fact', and so anything about which there is a consensus that it is a fact can be taken as wholly objective. |
| 22354 | Things cause perceptions, properties have other effects, hence we reach a 'view from nowhere' [Nagel, by Reiss/Sprenger] |
| Full Idea: First we realise that perceptions are caused by things, second we realise that properties have other effects (as well as causing perceptions), and third we conceive of a thing's true nature without perspectives. That is the 'view from nowhere'. | |
| From: report of Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], p.14) by Reiss,J/Spreger,J - Scientific Objectivity 2.1 | |
| A reaction: [My summary of their summary] This is obviously an optimistic view. I''m not sure how he can justify three precise stages, given than animals probably jump straight to the third stage, and engage with the nature's of things. |
| 2670 | Epicurus despises and laughs at the whole of dialectic [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus despises and laughs at the whole of dialectic. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica II.30.97 |
| 21668 | Epicurus rejected excluded middle, because accepting it for events is fatalistic [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus said that not every proposition is either true or false. ...Epicurus was afraid that if he admits that every proposition is true or false he will also have to admit that all events are caused by fate (if they are so from all eternity). | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 10.21 | |
| A reaction: Epicurus proposed his 'swerve' in the movements of atoms to avoid this fatalism. Epicurus is agreeing with Aristotle, who did not accept excluded middle for a future contingent sea-fight. |
| 21676 | Epicureans say disjunctions can be true whiile the disjuncts are not true [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Epicureans make the impudent assertion that disjunctions consisting of contrary propositions are true, but that the statements contained in the propositions are neither of them true. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 16.36 | |
| A reaction: Is that 'it is definitely one or the other, but we haven't a clue which one'? Seems to fit speculations about Goldbach's Conjecture. It doesn't sound terribly impudent to me. Or is it the crazy 'It's definitely one of them, but it's neither of them'? |
| 7566 | The Identity of Indiscernibles is really the same as the verification principle [Jolley] |
| Full Idea: Various writers have noted that the Identity of Indiscernibles is really tantamount to the verification principle. | |
| From: Nicholas Jolley (Leibniz [2005], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Both principles are false, because they are the classic confusion of epistemology and ontology. The fact that you cannot 'discern' a difference between two things doesn't mean that there is no difference. Things beyond verification can still be discussed. |
| 1823 | We can't seek for things if we have no idea of them [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: We could not seek for anything if we had not some notion of it. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.21 |
| 1824 | To name something, you must already have an idea of what it is [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: We could not give names to things, if we had not a preliminary notion of what the things were. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.21 |
| 3249 | Modern science depends on the distinction between primary and secondary qualities [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The distinction between primary and secondary qualities is the precondition for the development of modern physics and chemistry. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], V.3) |
| 22429 | We achieve objectivity by dropping secondary qualities, to focus on structural primary qualities [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: At the end [of the three stages of objectivity] the secondary qualities drop out of our picture of the external world, and the underlyiing primary qualities such as shape, size, weight, and motion are thought of structurally. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], II) | |
| A reaction: This is the orthodox view for realists about the external world, and I largely agree. The only problem I see is that secondary qualities contain information, such as the colour of rotting fruit - but then colour is not an essential feature of rot. |
| 5949 | Epicurus says colours are relative to the eye, not intrinsic to bodies [Epicurus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus says that colours are not intrinsic to bodies but a result of certain arrangements and positions relative to the eye, which implies that body is no more colourless than coloured. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE], Fr 30) by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes §1110 | |
| A reaction: This seems to me such a self-evident truth that I am puzzled as to why anyone would claim that colours are real features of bodies. Epicurus points out that entering a dark room we see no colour, but then colour appears after a while. |
| 1821 | Sensations cannot be judged, because similar sensations have equal value, and different ones have nothing in common [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Sensation is out of reach of control, because one sensation cannot judge another which resembles itself, as they have equal value, and different sensations have different objects. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.20 | |
| A reaction: Scepticism about the possibility of purely empirical knowledge; an interesting comment on the question of whether perceptions contain any intrinsic knowledge. |
| 1820 | The criteria of truth are senses, preconceptions and passions [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: The criteria of truth are the senses, the preconceptions, and the passions. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.20 |
| 1822 | Reason can't judge senses, as it is based on them [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Reason cannot judge the senses, because it is based on them. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.20 |
| 3247 | Epistemology is centrally about what we should believe, not the definition of knowledge [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The central problem of epistemology is what to believe and how to justify one's beliefs, not the impersonal problem of whether my beliefs can be said to be knowledge. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], V.1) | |
| A reaction: Wrong. The question of whether what one has is 'knowledge' is not impersonal at all - it is having the social status of a knower or expert. |
| 4549 | Epicurus denied knowledge in order to retain morality or hedonism as the highest values [Nietzsche on Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus denied the possibility of knowledge in order to retain moral (or hedonistic) values as the highest values. | |
| From: comment on Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - The Will to Power (notebooks) §578 | |
| A reaction: The history of philosophy suggests that this dichotomy is unnecessary. Dogmatist place a high value on multitudes of things. |
| 2668 | Epicurus says if one of a man's senses ever lies, none of his senses should ever be believed [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus says that if one sense has told a lie once in a man's life, no sense must ever be believed. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica II.25.79 |
| 3252 | Scepticism is based on ideas which scepticism makes impossible [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The sceptic reaches scepticism through thoughts that scepticism makes unthinkable. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], V.6) |
| 1482 | If two people disagree over taste, who is right? [Epicurus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: If one person says the wine is dry and the other that it is sweet, and neither errs in his sensation, how is the wine any more dry than sweet? | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes 1109b |
| 1483 | Bath water is too hot for some, too cold for others [Epicurus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: In the very same bath some treat the water as too hot, others as too cold. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes 1109b |
| 1487 | When entering a dark room it is colourless, but colour gradually appears [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: On entering a dark room we see no colour, but do so after waiting a short time. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes 1110d |
| 3251 | Observed regularities are only predictable if we assume hidden necessity [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Observed regularities provide reason to believe that they will be repeated only to the extent that they provide evidence of hidden necessary connections, which hold timelessly. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], V.5) |
| 14526 | The rational soul is in the chest, and the non-rational soul is spread through the body [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Democritus and Epicurus say the soul has two parts, one which is rational and is situated in the chest area, and the other which is non-rational and is spread throughout the entire compound of the body | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) | |
| A reaction: [source Aetius 4.4.6] |
| 6035 | Soul is made of four stuffs, giving warmth, rest, motion and perception [Epicurus, by Aetius] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus says the soul is a blend of fiery stuff (for bodily warmth), airy stuff (rest), breath (motion), and a nameless stuff (sense-perception). | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Aetius - fragments/reports 4.3.11 | |
| A reaction: Obviously Epicurus thought the four stuffs were different combinations of atoms, rather than being elements. Is there no stuff which gives reason? Reason must reduce to motion, presumably. |
| 3244 | Personal identity cannot be fully known a priori [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The full conditions of personal identity cannot be extracted from the concept of a person at all: they cannot be arrived at a priori. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], III.2) | |
| A reaction: However, if you turn to experience to get the hang of what a person is, it is virtually impossible to disentangle the essentials from the accidental features of being a person. How essential are memories or reasoning or hopes or understandings or plans? |
| 3245 | The question of whether a future experience will be mine presupposes personal identity [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The identity of the self must have some sort of objectivity, otherwise the subjective question whether a future experience will be mine or not will be contentless. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], III.3) | |
| A reaction: This sounds a bit circular and question-begging. If there is no objective self, then the question of whether a future experience will be mine would be a misconceived question. I sympathise with Nagel's attempt to show how personal identity is a priori. |
| 3246 | I can't even conceive of my brain being split in two [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: It is hard to think of myself as being identical with my brain. If my brain is to be split, with one half miserable and the other half euphoric, my expectations can take no form, as my idea of myself doesn't allow for divisibility. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], III.4) | |
| A reaction: Nagel is trying to imply that there is some sort of conceptual impossibility here, but it may just be very difficult. I can think about my lovely lunch while doing my miserable job. Does Nagel want to hang on to a unified thing which doesn't exist? |
| 6018 | Epicurus was the first to see the free will problem, and he was a libertarian [Epicurus, by Long/Sedley] |
| Full Idea: By posing the problem of determinism, Epicurus became arguably the first philosopher to recognise the philosophical centrality of what we call the Free Will Question. His strongly libertarian approach is strongly contrasted with Stoic determinism. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by AA Long / DN Sedley - Hellenic Philosophers commentary | |
| A reaction: Epicurus introduced the rather dubious 'swerve' of the atoms to make room for free will. It seems to me more consistent to stick with the determinism of Democritus. Zeno became a determinist in reaction to Epicurus. |
| 20922 | Epicurus showed that the swerve can give free motion in the atoms [Epicurus, by Diogenes of Oen.] |
| Full Idea: There is a free motion in the atoms, which Democritus did not discover, but which Epicurus brought to light, and which consists in a swerve, as he demonstrated on the basis of what is seen to be the case? | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes (Oen) - Wall inscription 54.II-III | |
| A reaction: I presume the last bit means that we see that we have freedom of choice, and infer the swerve in the atoms as the only possible explanation. The worry for libertarians is, of course, who is in charge of the swerve. |
| 14516 | There is no necessity to live with necessity [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Necessity is a bad thing, but there is no necessity to live with necessity. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE], 9) |
| 1909 | How can pleasure or judgement occur in a heap of atoms? [Sext.Empiricus on Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: If Epicurus makes the end consist in pleasure and asserts that the soul, like all else, is composed of atoms, it is impossible to explain how in a heap of atoms there can come about pleasure, or judgement of the good. | |
| From: comment on Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Outlines of Pyrrhonism III.187 | |
| A reaction: This is a nice statement of the mind-body problem. Ontologically, physics still seems to present reality as a 'heap of particles', which gives no basis for the emergence of anything as strange as consciousness. But then magnetism is pretty strange. |
| 7814 | It was Epicurus who made the question of the will's freedom central to ethics [Epicurus, by Grayling] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus was responsible for the innovatory recognition that the question of the will's freedom is central to ethics. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by A.C. Grayling - What is Good? Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: Compare Ideas 7672 and 6018. Obviously ethical action needs freedom, but the idea of a 'free will' is quite different. It is a fiction, created to give some sort of arrogant ultimate responsibility to our actions, like God. |
| 3257 | Total objectivity can't see value, but it sees many people with values [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: A purely objective view has no way of knowing whether anything has any value, but actually its data include the appearance of value to individuals with particular perspectives, including oneself. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.2) | |
| A reaction: I would have thought that a very objective assessment of someone's health is an obvious revelation of value, irrespective of anyone's particular perspective. |
| 3265 | We don't worry about the time before we were born the way we worry about death [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: We do not regard the period before we were born in the same way that we regard the prospect of death. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], XI.3) | |
| A reaction: This is a challenge to Epicurus, who said death is no worse than pre-birth. This idea may be true of the situation immediately post-death, but a thousand years from now it is hard to distinguish them. |
| 3263 | If our own life lacks meaning, devotion to others won't give it meaning [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: If no one's life has any meaning in itself, how can it acquire meaning through devotion to the meaningless lives of others? | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], XI.2) | |
| A reaction: This is one of the paradoxes of compassion. The other is that the virtue requires other people to be in need of help, which can't be a desirable situation. |
| 3562 | Fine things are worthless if they give no pleasure [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: I spit on the fine and those who emptily admire it, when it doesn't make any pleasure. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Julia Annas - The Morality of Happiness Ch.16 | |
| A reaction: in Athenaeus |
| 3256 | Pain doesn't have a further property of badness; it gives a reason for its avoidance [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The objective badness of pain is not some mysterious further property that all pains have, but just the fact that there is reason for anyone capable of viewing the world objectively to want it to stop. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.2) | |
| A reaction: Presumably all pains (e.g. of grief and of toothache) have something in common, to qualify as pains. It must be more than being disliked, because we can dislike a food. |
| 1840 | Pleasure is the chief good because it is the most natural, especially for animals [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Pleasure is the chief good, because all animals from the moment of their birth are delighted with pleasure and offended by pain by their natural instinct, without the employment of reason. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.29 | |
| A reaction: The highest pleasure of predators is likely to be the killing of weaker animals. What all animals do isn't much of a criterion for the natural chief good. They also breathe. |
| 1839 | Pains of the soul are worse than pains of the body, because it feels the past and future [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: The pains of the soul are worst, for the flesh is only sensible of present affliction, but the soul feels the past, present and future. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.29 | |
| A reaction: I don't think feeling extended across time is very relevant. What matters is that pains of the soul usually endure far longer than physical suffering. |
| 1842 | Pleasures only differ in their duration and the part of the body affected [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: If every pleasure lasted long, and affected the whole body, then there would be no difference between one pleasure and another | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.31.08 | |
| A reaction: This seems to miss out on intensity, which is of great importance to most pleasure seekers. Also it is a pleasure to be alive, which is lifelong, but we barely notice it. |
| 3557 | The end for Epicurus is static pleasure [Epicurus, by Annas] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus identifies our final end with what he calls tranquillity or 'ataraxia', which is static pleasure. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Julia Annas - The Morality of Happiness Ch.7 | |
| A reaction: I don't recall any Greek ever spotting that boredom is a problem. But then they didn't have privacy, so other people always hold their attention. Maybe this is a dream of privacy. |
| 1845 | Justice has no independent existence, but arises entirely from keeping contracts [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Justice has no independent existence; it results from mutual contracts, and establishes itself wherever there is a mutual engagement to guard against doing or sustaining mutual injury. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.31.35 |
| 1841 | We choose virtue because of pleasure, not for its own sake [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: We choose the virtues for the sake of pleasure, and not on their own account. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.30 |
| 1829 | A wise man would be happy even under torture [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Even if the wise man were put to the torture, he would still be happy. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.26 |
| 1843 | Friendship is by far the most important ingredient of a complete and happy life [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Of all the things which wisdom provides for the happiness of the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friendship. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.31.28 |
| 3261 | Something may be 'rational' either because it is required or because it is acceptable [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: "Rational" may mean rationally required or rationally acceptable | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], X.4) |
| 3258 | If cockroaches can't think about their actions, they have no duties [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: If cockroaches cannot think about what they should do, there is nothing they should do. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.3) |
| 3254 | If we can decide how to live after stepping outside of ourselves, we have the basis of a moral theory [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: If we can make judgements about how we should live even after stepping outside of ourselves, they will provide the material for moral theory. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.1) |
| 3264 | We should see others' viewpoints, but not lose touch with our own values [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: One should occupy a position far enough outside your own life to reduce the importance of the difference between yourself and other people, yet not so far outside that all human values vanish in a nihilistic blackout (i.e.aim for a form of humility). | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], XI.2) |
| 3255 | We find new motives by discovering reasons for action different from our preexisting motives [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: There are reasons for action, and we must discover them instead of deriving them from our preexisting motives - and in that way we can acquire new motives superior to the old. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.1) |
| 3262 | Utilitarianism is too demanding [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Utilitarianism is too demanding. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], X.5) |
| 1831 | Wise men should partake of life even if they go blind [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Even though he lose his eyes, a wise man should still partake of life. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.26 |
| 12044 | Only Epicurus denied purpose in nature, for the whole world, or for its parts [Epicurus, by Annas] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus alone among the ancient schools denies that in nature we find any teleological explanations. Nothing in nature is for anything, neither the world as a whole nor anything in it. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Julia Annas - Ancient Philosophy: very short introduction | |
| A reaction: This may explain the controversial position that epicureanism held in the seventeenth century, as well as its incipient atheism. |
| 20907 | Democritus says atoms have size and shape, and Epicurus added weight [Epicurus, by Ps-Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Democritus said that the properties of the atoms are in number two, magnitude and shape, but Epicurus added to these a third one, weight. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Pseudo-Plutarch - On the Doctrine of the Philosophers 1.3.18 | |
| A reaction: The addition of Epicurus seems very sensible, and an odd omission by Democritus. He seems to think that atoms have a uniform density, so that volume indicates weight. |
| 21669 | Atoms don't swerve by being struck, because they move in parallel, so the swerve is uncaused [Cicero on Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: The swerve of Epicurus takes place without a cause; it does not take place in consequence of being struck by another atom, since how can that take place if they are indivisible bodies travelling perpendicularly in straight lines by the force of gravity? | |
| From: comment on Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 10.22 | |
| A reaction: The swerve is the most ad hoc proposal in the history of theoretical physics. This is interesting for spelling out that the travel in vertical parallels. What's that all about, then? |
| 21680 | What causes atomic swerves? Do they draw lots? What decides the size or number of swerves? [Cicero on Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: What fresh cause exists in nature to make the atom swerve (or do the atoms cast lots among them which is to swerve and which not?), or to serve as the reason for making a very small swerve and not a large one, or one swerve, and not two or three swerves? | |
| From: comment on Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 20.46 | |
| A reaction: This is an appeal to the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which seems to be the main ground for rejecting the swerve. The only reason to accept the swerve is reluctance to accept determinism or fatalism. |
| 14525 | Stoics say time is incorporeal and self-sufficient; Epicurus says it is a property of properties of things [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Stoics posited that time is an incorporeal which is conceived of all by itself, while Epicurus thinks that it is an accident of certain things, ...and he called in a property of properties. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) | |
| A reaction: [Source Sextus 'Adversus Mathematicos' 10.219-227] |
| 2637 | For Epicureans gods are made of atoms, and are not eternal [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: For Epicureans the gods are made of atoms, so in that case they are not eternal. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.68 |
| 2633 | Epicurus saw that gods must exist, because nature has imprinted them on human minds [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus alone saw that gods must exist because nature herself has imprinted an idea of them in the minds of all mankind. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.43 |
| 2639 | Some say Epicurus only pretended to believe in the gods, so as not to offend Athenians [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Some believe that Epicurus gave lip-service only to the gods, so as not to offend the Athenians, but in fact did not believe in them. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.84 |
| 14527 | If god answered prayers we would be destroyed, because we pray for others to suffer [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: If god acted in accordance with the prayers of men, all men would rather quickly be destroyed, since they constantly pray for many sufferings to befall each other. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) | |
| A reaction: [source Maximus the Abbott 'Gnom.' 14] |