6 ideas
| 10494 | Several words may label a category; one word can name several categories; some categories lack words [Ellen] |
| Full Idea: Words are not always a good guide to the existence of categories: there may be several words which label the same categories (synonyms). and the same word can be used for quite different ideas. Some categories may exist without being labelled. | |
| From: Roy Ellen (Categories, Classification, Cogn. Anthropology [2006], I) | |
| A reaction: This is the sort of point which seems obvious to anyone outside philosophy, but which philosophers seem to find difficult to accept. Philosophers should pay much more attention to animals, and to illiterate peoples. Varieties of rice can lack labels. |
| 579 | Cratylus said you couldn't even step into the same river once [Cratylus, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Cratylus was appalled that Heraclitus said you could not step twice into the same river, because it was already going too far to admit stepping into the same river once. | |
| From: report of Cratylus (fragments/reports [c.425 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1010a | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 427. |
| 578 | Cratylus decided speech was hopeless, and his only expression was the movement of a finger [Cratylus, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Cratylus thought speech of any kind was radically inappropriate and that expression should be restricted exclusively to the movement of the finger. | |
| From: report of Cratylus (fragments/reports [c.425 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1010a |
| 22371 | Determinism threatens free will if actions can be causally traced to external factors [Foot] |
| Full Idea: The determinism which worries the defender of free will is that if human action is subject to a universal law of causation, there will be for any action a set of sufficient conditions which can be traced back to factors outside the control of the agent. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Free Will as Involving Determinism [1957], p.63) | |
| A reaction: She draws on Russell for this, but neither of them mention whether the causation is physical. Free will seems to imply non-physical causation. |
| 22372 | Not all actions need motives, but it is irrational to perform troublesome actions with no motive [Foot] |
| Full Idea: We do not expect that everything a rational man does should be done with a motive, ...but we do expect a man to have a motive for many things that he does, and would count anyone who constantly performed troublesome actions without a motive as irrational. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Free Will as Involving Determinism [1957], p.66) | |
| A reaction: Interestng, because the assessment of whether someone is 'rational' therefore needs a criterion for when a motive seems required and when not. 'Significant' actions need a motive? |
| 22373 | People can act out of vanity without being vain, or even vain about this kind of thing [Foot] |
| Full Idea: It makes sense to say that a man acts out of vanity on a particular occasion although he is not in general vain, or even vain about this kind of thing. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Free Will as Involving Determinism [1957], p.69) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle tells us that virtues and vices are habits, and also have an intellectual component, implying that the person believes in that sort of behaviour. Anyone can have 'a little moment of vanity'. |