Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Good and Evil', 'Saundaranandakavya' and 'Knowledge and its Limits'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts


6 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 2. Invocation to Philosophy
Pursue truth with the urgency of someone whose clothes are on fire [Ashvaghosha]
     Full Idea: As though your turban or your clothes were on fire, so with a sense of urgency should you apply your intellect to the comprehension of the truths.
     From: Ashvaghosha (Saundaranandakavya [c.50], XVI)
     A reaction: The best philosophers need no such urging. I retain a romantic view that we should be 'natural' in these things. See Plato's views in Idea 2153 and 1638. However, maybe I should be confronted with this quotation every morning when I awake.
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / c. Aim of beliefs
Belief aims at knowledge (rather than truth), and mere believing is a kind of botched knowing [Williamson]
     Full Idea: Knowing is the best kind of believing. Mere believing is a kind of botched knowing. In short, belief aims at knowledge (not just truth).
     From: Timothy Williamson (Knowledge and its Limits [2000], §1.5)
     A reaction: The difference between aiming at truth and aiming at knowledge has to be in the justificiation, so beliefs aim to be justified. Believers always aim at truth, but they can be strikingly relaxed about justification.
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 7. Knowledge First
Don't analyse knowledge; use knowledge to analyse other concepts in epistemology [Williamson, by DeRose]
     Full Idea: Williamson says that instead of being viewed as a concept to be analysed, knowledge should be seen as something useful in the analysis of all sorts of other concepts to epistemology - and to philosophy of mind as well.
     From: report of Timothy Williamson (Knowledge and its Limits [2000]) by Keith DeRose - The Case for Contextualism 1.8
     A reaction: I just don't believe this, because knowledge is obviously a complex state of mind, which invites breaking it down into ingredients. How could knowledge possibly be prior to truth?
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / a. Form of the Good
'Good' is an attributive adjective like 'large', not predicative like 'red' [Geach, by Foot]
     Full Idea: Geach puts 'good' in the class of attributive adjectives, such as 'large' and 'small', contrasting such adjectives with 'predicative' adjectives such as 'red'.
     From: report of Peter Geach (Good and Evil [1956]) by Philippa Foot - Natural Goodness Intro
     A reaction: [In Analysis 17, and 'Theories of Ethics' ed Foot] Thus any object can simply be red, but something can only be large or small 'for a rat' or 'for a car'. Hence nothing is just good, but always a good so-and-so. This is Aristotelian, and Foot loves it.
29. Religion / C. Spiritual Disciplines / 3. Buddhism
The Eightfold Path concerns morality, wisdom, and tranquillity [Ashvaghosha]
     Full Idea: The Eightfold Path has three steps concerning morality - right speech, right bodily action, and right livelihood; three of wisdom - right views, right intentions, and right effort; and two of tranquillity - right mindfulness and right concentration.
     From: Ashvaghosha (Saundaranandakavya [c.50], XVI)
     A reaction: Most of this translates quite comfortably into the aspirations of western philosophy. For example, 'right effort' sounds like Kant's claim that only a good will is truly good (Idea 3710). The Buddhist division is interesting for action theory.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / d. Heaven
At the end of a saint, he is not located in space, but just ceases to be disturbed [Ashvaghosha]
     Full Idea: When an accomplished saint comes to the end, he does not go anywhere down in the earth or up in the sky, nor into any of the directions of space, but because his defilements have become extinct he simply ceases to be disturbed.
     From: Ashvaghosha (Saundaranandakavya [c.50], XVI)
     A reaction: To 'cease to be disturbed' is the most attractive account of heaven I have encountered. It all sounds a bit dull though. I wonder, as usual, how they know all this stuff.