40 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. |
| 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? |
| 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) |
| 18470 | Maybe truth-making is an unanalysable primitive, but we can specify principles for it [Smith,B] |
| Full Idea: The signs are that truth-making is not analysable in terms of anything more primitive, but we need to be able to say more than just that. So we ought to consider it as specified by principles of truth-making. | |
| From: Barry Smith (Truth-maker Realism: response to Gregory [2000], p.20), quoted by Fraser MacBride - Truthmakers 1.5 | |
| A reaction: This is the axiomatic approach to such problems - treat the target concept as an undefinable, unanalysable primitive, and then give rules for its connections. Maybe all metaphysics should work like that, with a small bunch of primitives. |
| 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) |
| 11897 | A principle of individuation may pinpoint identity and distinctness, now and over time [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: One view of a principle of individuation is what is called a 'criterion of identity', determining answers to questions about identity and distinctness at a time and over time - a principle of distinction and persistence. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 8.2) | |
| A reaction: Since the term 'Prime Minister' might do this job, presumably there could be a de dicto as well as a de re version of individuation. The distinctness consists of chairing cabinet meetings, rather than being of a particular sex. |
| 11898 | Individuation may include counterfactual possibilities, as well as identity and persistence [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: A second view of the principle of individuation includes criteria of distinction and persistence, but also determines the counterfactual possibilities for a thing. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 8.5) | |
| A reaction: It would be a pretty comprehensive individuation which defined all the counterfactual truths about a thing, as well as its actual truths. This is where powers come in. We need to know a thing's powers, but not how they cash out counterfactually. |
| 11883 | A haecceity is the essential, simple, unanalysable property of being-this-thing [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Socrates can be assigned a haecceity: an essential property of 'being Socrates' which (unlike the property of 'being identical with Socrates') may be regarded as what 'makes' its possessor Socrates in a non-trivial sense, but is simple and unanalysable. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: I don't accept that there is any such property as 'being Socrates' (or even 'being identical with Socrates'), except as empty locutions or logical devices. A haecceity seems to be the 'ultimate subject of predication', with no predicates of its own. |
| 11889 | Essentialism must avoid both reduplication of essences, and multiple occupancy by essences [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: The argument for unshareable properties (the Reduplication Argument) suggests the danger of reduplication of Berkeley; the argument for incompatible properties (Multiple Occupancy) says Berkeley and Hume could be in the same possible object. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.8) | |
| A reaction: These are her arguments in favour of essential properties being necessarily incompatible between objects. Whatever the answer, it must allow essences for indistinguishables like electrons. 'Incompatible' points towards a haecceity. |
| 11877 | An individual essence is the properties the object could not exist without [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: By essentialism about individuals I simply mean the view that individual things have essential properties, where an essential property of an object is a property that the object could not have existed without. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: This presumably means I could exist without a large part of my reason and consciousness, but could not exist without one of my heart valves. This seems to miss the real point of essence. I couldn't exist without oxygen - not one of my properties. |
| 11882 | No other object can possibly have the same individual essence as some object [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Individual essences are essential properties that are unique to them alone. ...If a set of properties is an individual essence of A, then A has the properties essentially, and no other actual or possible object actually or possibly has them. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.1/2) | |
| A reaction: I'm unconvinced about this. Tigers have an essence, but individual tigers have individual essences over and above their tigerish qualities, yet the perfect identity of two tigers still seems to be possible. |
| 11886 | There are problems both with individual essences and without them [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: If all objects had individual essences, there would be no numerical difference without an essential difference. But if there aren't individual essences, there could be two things sharing all essential properties, differing only in accidental properties. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.5) | |
| A reaction: Depends how you define individual essence. Why can't two electrons have the same individual essence. To postulate a 'kind essence' which bestows the properties on each electron is to get things the wrong way round. |
| 11909 | Unlike Hesperus=Phosophorus, water=H2O needs further premisses before it is necessary [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: There is a disanalogy between 'necessarily water=H2O' and 'necessarily Hesperus=Phosphorus'. The second just needs the necessity of identity, but the first needs 'x is a water sample' and 'x is an H2O' sample to coincide in all possible worlds. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.1.) | |
| A reaction: This comment is mainly aimed at Kripke, who bases his essentialism on identities, rather than at Putnam. |
| 11899 | Why are any sortals essential, and why are only some of them essential? [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Accounts of sortal essentialism do not give a satisfactory explanation of why any sortals should be essential sortals, or a satisfactory account of why some sortals should be essential while others are not. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 8.6) | |
| A reaction: A theory is not wrong, just because it cannot give a 'satisfactory explanation' of every aspect of the subject. We might, though, ask why the theory isn't doing well in this area. |
| 11906 | The Kripke and Putnam view of kinds makes them explanatorily basic, but has modal implications [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Kripke and Putnam chose for their typical essence of kinds, sets of properties that could be thought of as explanatorily basic. ..But the modal implications of their views go well beyond this. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.1) | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 11905. The modal implications are that the explanatory essence is also necessary to the identity of the thing under discussion, such as H2O. So do basic explanations carry across into all possible worlds? |
| 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. |
| 11894 | Origin is not a necessity, it is just 'tenacious'; we keep it fixed in counterfactual discussions [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: I suggest 'tenacity of origin' rather than 'necessity of origin'. ..The most that we need is that Caesar's having something similar to his actual origin in certain respects (e.g. his actual parents) is normally kept fixed in counterfactual speculation. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 6.9) | |
| A reaction: I find necessity or essentially of origin very unconvincing, so I rather like this. Origin is just a particularly stable way to establish our reference to something. An elusive spy may have little more than date and place of birth to fix them. |
| 11887 | Transworld identity without individual essences leads to 'bare identities' [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Transworld identity without individual essences leads to 'bare identities'. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.7) | |
| A reaction: [She gives an argument for this, based on Forbes] I certainly favour the notion of individual essences over the notion of bare identities. We must distinguish identity in reality from identity in concept. Identities are points in conceptual space. |
| 11890 | De re modality without bare identities or individual essence needs counterparts [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Anyone who wishes to avoid both bare identities and individual essences, without abandoning de re modality entirely, must adopt counterpart theory. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: This at least means that Lewis's proposal has an important place in the discussion, forcing us to think more clearly about the identities involved when we talk of possibilities. Mackie herself votes for bare indentities. |
| 11892 | Things may only be counterparts under some particular relation [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: A may be a counterpart of B according to one counterpart relation (similarity of origin, say), but not according to another (similarity of later history). | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: Hm. Would two very diverse things have to be counterparts because they were kept in the same cupboard in different worlds? Can the counterpart relationship diverge or converge over time? Yes, I presume. |
| 11893 | Possibilities for Caesar must be based on some phase of the real Caesar [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: I take the 'overlap requirement' for Julius Caesar to be that, when considering how he might have been different, you have to take him as he actually was at some time in his existence, and consider possibilities consistent with that. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 6.5) | |
| A reaction: This is quite a large claim (larger than Mackie thinks?), as it seems equally applicable to properties, states of affairs and propositions, as well as to individuals. Possibility that has no contact at all with actuality is beyond our comprehension. |
| 11884 | The theory of 'haecceitism' does not need commitment to individual haecceities [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: The theory that things have 'haecceities' must be sharply distinguished from the theory referred to as 'haecceitism', which says there may be differences in transworld identities that do not supervene on qualitative differences. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.2 n7) | |
| A reaction: She says later [p,43 n] that it is possible to be a haecceitist without believing in individual haecceities, if (say) the transworld identities had no basis at all. Note that if 'thisness' is 'haecceity', then 'whatness' is 'quiddity'. |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 11905 | Locke's kind essences are explanatory, without being necessary to the kind [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: One might speak of 'Lockean real essences' of a natural kind, a set of properties that is basic in the explanation of the other properties of the kind, without commitment to the essence belonging to the kind in all possible worlds. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.1) | |
| A reaction: I think this may be the most promising account. The essence of a tiger explains what tigers are like, but tigers may evolve into domestic pets. Questions of individuation and of explaining seem to be quite separate. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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) |
| 11907 | Maybe the identity of kinds is necessary, but instances being of that kind is not [Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: One could be an essentialist about natural kinds (of tigers, or water) while holding that every actual instance or sample of a natural kind is only accidentally an instance or a sample of that kind. | |
| From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.2) | |
| A reaction: You wonder, then, in what the necessity of the kind consists, if it is not rooted in the instances, and presumably it could only result from a stipulative definition, and hence be conventional. |
| 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) |
| 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) |