38 ideas
| 354 | Wisdom makes virtue and true goodness possible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is wisdom that makes possible courage and self-control and integrity or, in a word, true goodness. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 069b) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle also says that prudence (phronesis) makes virtue possible. |
| 7278 | Words of wisdom are precise and clear [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Words of wisdom are precise and clear. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: I can only approve of this. The issue of clarity is much discussed amongs philosophers, especially in the analytic v continental debate. Note, therefore, the additional requirement to be 'precise'. Should we be less clear in order to be precise? |
| 370 | Philosophy is a purification of the soul ready for the afterlife [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Souls which have purified themselves sufficiently by philosophy will live after death without bodies. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 114b) | |
| A reaction: Purifying it of what? Error, or desire, or narrow-mindedness, or the physical? |
| 7281 | Don't even start, let's just stay put [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Don't even start, let's just stay put. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: What a remarkable proposal! He seems frightened to make an omelette, because he will have to break an egg, or he might burn himself. I can't relate to this idea, but it's existence must be noted, like other scepticisms. |
| 350 | In investigation the body leads us astray, but the soul gets a clear view of the facts [Plato] |
| Full Idea: When philosophers investigate with the help of the body they are led astray, but through reflection the soul gets a clear view of the facts. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 065c) |
| 362 | The greatest misfortune for a person is to develop a dislike for argument [Plato] |
| Full Idea: No greater misfortune could happen to anyone than developing a dislike for argument. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 089d) |
| 7282 | Disagreement means you do not understand at all [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: The sage encompasses everything, while ordinary people just argue about things. Disagreement means you do not understand at all. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This is why democracy and western analytical philosophy come as a package. We can't assume that our government is always right, and we can't assume that a 'sage' has managed to encompass everything. Criticism is essential! |
| 7284 | If you beat me in argument, does that mean you are right? [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: If you get the better of me in a disagreement, rather than me getting the better of you, does this mean that you are automatically right and I am automatically wrong? | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Very nice. I don't, though, think that this invalidates the process of argument. What matters about such an exchange is the resulting reflection by the two parties. Only a fool thinks that he is right because he won, or wrong because he lost. |
| 18009 | Chomsky established the view that category mistakes are well-formed but meaningless [Chomsky, by Magidor] |
| Full Idea: The view of Chomsky in 1957 that category mistakes are syntactically well-formed but meaningless is a very standard one. | |
| From: report of Noam Chomsky (Syntactic Structure [1957]) by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 1.3 | |
| A reaction: I'm going off the idea that they are meaningless, largely because I am beginning to sympathise with the view that any composition of meaningful components is meaningful (even if blatantly false). |
| 13155 | If you add one to one, which one becomes two, or do they both become two? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: I cannot convince myself that when you add one to one either the first or the second one becomes two, or they both become two by the addition of the one to the other, ...or that when you divide one, the cause of becoming two is now the division. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 097d) | |
| A reaction: Lovely questions, all leading to the conclusion that two consists of partaking in duality, to which you can come by several different routes. |
| 21347 | If Simmias is taller than Socrates, that isn't a feature that is just in Simmias [Plato] |
| Full Idea: When you say Simmias is taller than Socrates but shorter than Phaedo, so you mean there is in Simmias both tallness and shortness? - I do. ...But surely he is not taller than Socrates because he is Simmias but because of the tallness he happens to have? | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 102b-c) | |
| A reaction: He adds that both people must be cited. This appears to be what we now call a rejection relative height as an 'internal' relation, which is it would presumably be if it was a feature of one or of both men. |
| 360 | We must have a prior knowledge of equality, if we see 'equal' things and realise they fall short of it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: We must have some previous knowledge of equality, before the time when we saw equal things, but realised that they fell short of it. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 075a) |
| 1 | There is only one source for all beauty [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If anything is beautiful other than beauty itself, it is beautiful for no other reason but because it participates in that beautiful. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 100c) | |
| A reaction: The Greek word will be 'kalon' (beautiful, fine, noble). Like Aristotle, I find it baffling that such diversity could have a single source. Beautiful things have diverse aims. |
| 368 | Other things are named after the Forms because they participate in them [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The reason why other things are called after the forms is that they participate in the forms. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 102a) |
| 16516 | The ship which Theseus took to Crete is now sent to Delos crowned with flowers [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The day before the trial the prow of the ship that the Athenians send to Delos had been crowned with garlands. - Which ship is that? - It is the ship in which, the Athenians say, Theseus once sailed to Crete, taking the victims. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 058a) | |
| A reaction: Not philosophical, but this is the Ship of Theseus whose subsequent identity, Plutarch tells us, became a matter of dispute. |
| 7289 | Do not try to do things, or to master knowledge; just be empty [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Do not try to do things. Do not try to master knowledge. ...Just be empty. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: Stands as a nice challenge to the assumption that knowledge is a good thing. Aristotle's views make a nice contrast (Ideas 548 and 549). Personally I totally agree with Aristotle, and with the western tradition. |
| 357 | People are obviously recollecting when they react to a geometrical diagram [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The way in which people react to a geometrical diagram or anything like that is unmistakable proof of the theory of recollection. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 073a) |
| 359 | If we feel the inadequacy of a resemblance, we must recollect the original [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If someone sees a resemblance, but feels that it falls far short of the original, they must therefore have a recollection of the original. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 074e) |
| 9343 | To achieve pure knowledge, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things with the soul [Plato] |
| Full Idea: We are convinced that if we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things by themselves with the soul by itself. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 066c) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the original ideal which motivates the devotion to a priori knowledge - that it will lead to a 'pure' knowledge, which in Plato's case will be eternal and necessary knowledge, like taking lessons from the gods. Wrong. |
| 23403 | You know you were dreaming when you wake, but there might then be a greater awakening from that [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Often after waking do you know that your dream was a dream. Still, there may be an even greater awakening after which you will know that this, too, was just a greater dream. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], 02), quoted by Bryan van Norden - Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy 9.2 | |
| A reaction: This is the key to the full horror of dream scepticism (as dramatised in the film 'The Matrix'). We can never know whether there is yet another awakening about to occur. |
| 7285 | Did Chuang Tzu dream he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dream he was Chuang Tzu? [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Once I, Chuang Tzu, dreamt that I was a butterfly, flitting around and enjoying myself. Suddenly I woke and was Chuang Tzu again. But had I been Chuang Tzu dreaming I was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I was now Chuang Tzu? | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Plato (Idea 2047) also spotted this problem, later made famous by Descartes (Idea 2250). Given the size of a butterfly's brain, this suggests that Chuang Tzu was a dualist. What can't I take the idea seriously, when reason says I should? |
| 15859 | To investigate the causes of things, study what is best for them [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If one wished to know the cause of each thing, why it comes to be or perishes or exists, one had to find what was the best way for it to be, or to be acted upon, or to act. Then it befitted a man to investigate only ...what is best. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 097d) | |
| A reaction: A reversal of the modern idea of 'best explanation'. Socrates is citing Anaxagoras's proposal to understand things by interpreting the workings of a supreme Mind. It is the religious version of best explanation. |
| 13154 | Do we think and experience with blood, air or fire, or could it be our brain? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Is it with the blood that we think, or with the air or the fire that is in us? Or is it none of these, but the brain that supplies our senses of hearing and sight and smell. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 097a) | |
| A reaction: In retrospect it seems surprising that such clever people hadn't worked this one out, given the evidence of anatomy, in animals and people, and given brain injuries. By the time of Galen they appear to have got the answer. |
| 364 | One soul can't be more or less of a soul than another [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Is one soul, even minutely, more or less of a soul than another? Not in the least. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 093b) | |
| A reaction: This idea is attractive because unconsciousness and death seem to be abrupt procedures, and so appear to be all-or-nothing, but I would personally view extreme Alzheimer's as an erasing of the soul, though a minimum level of it seems all-or-nothing. |
| 7277 | The perfect man has no self [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: As the saying goes, 'The perfect man has no self' | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be quoted with approval. This is interesting because it implies that lesser beings do have a self, and that having a self is a moral issue, and one which can be controlled. One could, I suppose, concentrate on externals. |
| 7286 | To see with true clarity, your self must be irrelevant [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: When a man discerns his own self as irrelevant, he sees with true clarity. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: Seeing 'with clarity' is only one of the ways of seeing, and one mustn't unquestioningly assume that it is the best. Wisdom should contemplate vision with and without the self, and then rise higher and compare the two views. Compare Parfit (Idea 5518). |
| 7279 | If words can't be defined, they may just be the chirruping of chicks [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Our words are not just hot air. Words work because they are something, but the problem is that, if we cannot define a word's meaning, it doesn't really say anything. Can we make a case for it being anything different from the chirruping of chicks? | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This obviously points us towards Quine's challenge to analyticity, and hence the value of definitions (Ideas 1622 and 1624). Even for Chuang Tzu, it seems naïve to think that you cannot use a word well if you cannot define it. |
| 18007 | Syntax is independent of semantics; sentences can be well formed but meaningless [Chomsky, by Magidor] |
| Full Idea: In 1957 Chomsky argues that syntax is an independent field from semantics. …To support this claim he argues that the now-famous category mistake 'Colourless green ideas sleep furiously' is grammatical but meaningless. | |
| From: report of Noam Chomsky (Syntactic Structure [1957]) by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 1.3 | |
| A reaction: I'm tempted by the thought that this famous sentence actually is meaningful, although the meaning is fragmentary, and any proposition which can be assembled from it appears to be blatantly false. |
| 23404 | Words are for meaning, and once you have that you can forget the words [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Words are for meaning: when you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], 26), quoted by Bryan van Norden - Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy 9.VI | |
| A reaction: 'What exactly did this person say?' 'Don't know, but I've given you the accurate gist'. This is such an obvious phenomenon that I amazed by modern philosophers who deny propositions, or deny meaning entirely. |
| 361 | It is a mistake to think that the most violent pleasure or pain is therefore the truest reality [Plato] |
| Full Idea: When anyone's soul feels a keen pleasure or pain it cannot help supposing that whatever causes the most violent emotion is the plainest and truest reality - which it is not. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 084c) | |
| A reaction: Do people think that? Most people distinguish subjective from objective. Wounded soldiers are also aware of victory or defeat. |
| 7283 | Great courage is not violent [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Great courage is not violent. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: A very nice remark. This, I think, is what the Greeks were struggling to say about courage, but they never quite pinned it down as Chuang Tzu does. |
| 351 | War aims at the acquisition of wealth, because we are enslaved to the body [Plato] |
| Full Idea: All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth, and we want this because of the body, to which we are slave. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 066c) |
| 13156 | Fancy being unable to distinguish a cause from its necessary background conditions! [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Fancy being unable to distinguish between the cause of a thing, and the condition without which it could not be a cause. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 099c) | |
| A reaction: Not as simple as he thinks. It seems fairly easy to construct a case where the immediately impacting event remains constant, and the background condition is changed. Even worse when negligence is held to be the cause. |
| 369 | If the Earth is spherical and in the centre, it is kept in place by universal symmetry, not by force [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If the earth is spherical and in the middle of the heavens, it needs neither air nor force to keep it from falling. The uniformity of heaven and equilibrium of earth are sufficient support. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 108e) |
| 7280 | As all life is one, what need is there for words? [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: As all life is one, what need is there for words? | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: In a sense this is nonsense, but it has an appeal. I presume that God would not need words, any more than he would need arithmetic. Life is obviously a complex one, with parts which can be discussed. |
| 7288 | Go with the flow, and be one with the void of Heaven [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Don't struggle, go with the flow, and you will find yourself at one with the vastness of the void of Heaven. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: Ugh. I've got all eternity to do that. The underlying assumption of Taoism seems to be that it is better not to have been born, and if you are thus unfortunate, you should try to pretend that it never happened. Much too negative for my taste. |
| 7287 | Fish forget about each other in the pond and forget each other in the Tao [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Fish forget about each other in the pond and forget each other in the Tao. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: Strikingly different from Christianity. No wonder Europeans used to describe orientals as 'enigmatic'; the faces of Taoists presumably express indifference. Not for me, I'm afraid. I identify with my fellow humans, because of our shared predicaments. |
| 363 | Whether the soul pre-exists our body depends on whether it contains the ultimate standard of reality [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The theory that our soul exists even before it enters the body surely stands or falls with the soul's possession of the ultimate standard of reality. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 092d) |