Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Lysis' and 'Community and Association'

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5 ideas

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / a. Form of the Good

295	The good is beautiful [Plato]
	Full Idea: The good is beautiful.
	From: Plato (Lysis [c.400 BCE], 216d)
	A reaction: also Timaeus 87c

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 4. External Goods / d. Friendship

294	People say that friendship exists only between good men [Plato]
	Full Idea: People say that friendship exists only between good men.
	From: Plato (Lysis [c.400 BCE], 214d)

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 7. Communitarianism / a. Communitarianism

7492	Early societies are based on community, and modern societies on association [Tönnies, by Watson]
	Full Idea: Pre-modern societies are based on community (Gemeinschaft), whereas modern societies are based on association (Gesellschaft).
	From: report of Ferdinand Tönnies (Community and Association [1887]) by Peter Watson - Ideas Ch.32
	A reaction: A very interesting distinction. The modern term implies contracts, and it strikes me as an extremely accurate description of modern liberal democracies. There is very little sense of community, but a strong sense of innumerable contracts that bind us.

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / c. Ultimate substances

22745	Pherecydes said the first principle and element is earth [Pherecydes, by Sext.Empiricus]
	Full Idea: Pherecydes of Syros said that the principle and element of all things is earth.
	From: report of Pherecydes (fragments/reports [c.600 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Physicists (two books) I.360
	A reaction: Sextus is giving the history, and mentions it before saying that Thales thought it was water. Earth seems a sensible starting point, and I am guessing that Thales was trying to think a bit more deeply than Pherecydes about it.

29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / a. Immortality

5883	Pherecydes was the first to say that the soul is eternal [Pherecydes, by Cicero]
	Full Idea: As far as the literature tells us, Pherecydes of Syros was the first who pronounced the souls of men to be eternal.
	From: report of Pherecydes (fragments/reports [c.600 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Tusculan Disputations I.xvi.38
	A reaction: Presumably before that it was the physical person who arrived in the Underworld. The Hindu tradition seems to require the soul to be very long-lived, if not eternal. Why did Pherecydes come up with this idea?