109 ideas
2136 | Philosophers become as divine and orderly as possible, by studying divinity and order [Plato] |
Full Idea: Because a philosopher's links are with a realm which is divine and orderly, he becomes as divine and orderly as is humanly possible. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 500d) | |
A reaction: Can you be too orderly? Without order nothing of any interest (to gods or men) could ever happen. |
23767 | The winds of the discussion should decide its destination [Plato] |
Full Idea: We must let our destination be decided by the winds of the discussion. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 394d) | |
A reaction: Always loved that one. Had it on the wall of my teaching room. I take it that the aim is to follow reason, rather than the powerful rhetoric of some member of the group. The spirit of philosophy is to avoid prejudgement of your enquiry. |
15053 | If metaphysics can't be settled, it hardly matters whether it makes sense [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: If there is no way of settling metaphysical questions, then who cares whether or not they make sense? | |
From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 4 n20) | |
A reaction: This footnote is aimed at logical positivists, who seemed to worry about whether metaphysics made sense, and also dismissed its prospects even if it did make sense. |
15054 | 'Quietist' says abandon metaphysics because answers are unattainable (as in Kant's noumenon) [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: The 'quietist' view of metaphysics says that realist metaphysics should be abandoned, not because its questions cannot be framed, but because their answers cannot be found. The real world of metaphysics is akin to Kant's noumenal world. | |
From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 4) | |
A reaction: [He cites Blackburn, Dworkin, A.Fine, and Putnam-1987 as quietists] Fine aims to clarify the concepts of factuality and of ground, in order to show that metaphysics is possible. |
23682 | It would be absurd to be precise about the small things, but only vague about the big things [Plato] |
Full Idea: It would be absurd to devote all our energies to securing the greatest possible precision and clarity in matters of little consequence, and not to demand the highest precision in the most important things of all. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 504e) | |
A reaction: I offer this to modern analytic philosophers, who often strike me as having this priority the wrong way round. Their defence, of course, is that the important things depend on the things of little consequence - but they can lose the plot with big things. |
2154 | The ability to take an overview is the distinguishing mark of a dialectician [Plato] |
Full Idea: The ability to take an overview is the distinguishing mark of a dialectician. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 537c) |
2151 | Dialectic is the only method of inquiry which uproots the things which it takes for granted [Plato] |
Full Idea: Dialectic is the only field of inquiry whose quest for certainty causes it to uproot the things it takes for granted in the course of its journey. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 533c) |
4011 | For Plato, rationality is a vision of and love of a cosmic rational order [Plato, by Taylor,C] |
Full Idea: In Plato's theory, to be rational is to have a vision of rational order, and to love this order. | |
From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 537d) by Charles Taylor - Sources of the Self §4.1 | |
A reaction: There may be a worrying elitism in this, but it helps to pinpoint the sense in which 'all philosophers are Platonists'. |
2093 | You must never go against what you actually believe [Plato] |
Full Idea: You must never go against what you actually believe. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 350e) |
2130 | People often merely practice eristic instead of dialectic, because they don't analyse the subject-matter [Plato] |
Full Idea: People often think they are practising dialectic when they are practising eristic; this is because of their inability to conduct the enquiry by dividing the subject-matter into its various aspects. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 454a) |
2145 | In mathematics certain things have to be accepted without further explanation [Plato] |
Full Idea: The practitioners of maths take certain things as basic, and feel no further need to explain them. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 510c) |
8726 | Geometry can lead the mind upwards to truth and philosophy [Plato] |
Full Idea: Geometry can attract the mind towards truth. It can produce philosophical thought, in the sense that it can reverse the midguided downwards tendencies we currently have. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 527b) | |
A reaction: Hence the Academy gate bore the inscription "Let no one enter here who is ignorant of geometry". He's not necessarily wrong. Something in early education must straighten out some of the kinks in the messy human mind. |
9863 | We aim for elevated discussion of pure numbers, not attaching them to physical objects [Plato] |
Full Idea: Our discussion of numbers leads the soul forcibly upward and compels it to discuss the numbers themselves, never permitting anyone to propose for discussion numbers attached to visible or tangible bodies. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 525d) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as very important, because it shows that the platonist view of numbers places little or no importance on counting, inviting the question of whether they could be understood in complete ignorance of the process of counting. |
9864 | In pure numbers, all ones are equal, with no internal parts [Plato] |
Full Idea: With those numbers that can be grasped only in thought, ..each one is equal to every other, without the least difference and containing no internal parts. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 526a) | |
A reaction: [Two voices in the conversation are elided] Intriguing and tantalising. Does 13 have internal parts, in the platonist view? If so, is it more than the sum of its parts? Is Plato committed to numbers being built from indistinguishable abstract units/ |
8727 | Geometry is not an activity, but the study of unchanging knowledge [Plato] |
Full Idea: Geometers talk as if they were actually doing something, and the point of their theorems is to have some effect (like 'squaring'). ...But the sole purpose is knowledge, of things which exist forever, not coming into existence and passing away. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 527a) | |
A reaction: Modern Constructivism defends the view which Plato is attacking. The existence of real infinities can be doubted simply because we have not got enough time to construct them. |
9861 | The same thing is both one and an unlimited number at the same time [Plato] |
Full Idea: We see the same thing to be both one and an unlimited number at the same time. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 525a) | |
A reaction: Frege makes the same point, that a pair of boots is both two and one. The point is at its strongest in opposition to empirical accounts of arithmetic. However, Mill observes that pebbles can be both 5 and 3+2, without contradiction. |
9862 | To become rational, philosophers must rise from becoming into being [Plato] |
Full Idea: Philosophers must rise up out of becoming and grasp being, if they are ever to become rational. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 525b) | |
A reaction: I am never quite sure what 'being' means in such contexts, and it seems suffused with mysticism. In Plato's case, it is obviously related to what is unchanging, but why would something lack 'being', just because it underwent change? |
21818 | Being depends on the Good, which is not itself being, but superior to being [Plato] |
Full Idea: Not only do the objects of knowledge owe their being known to the good, but their being is also due to it, although the good is not being, but superior to it in rank and power. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 509b) | |
A reaction: I was surprised to find that in Plotinus the One is not being, because it is the source of being, and thus superior to being. Then a footnote sent me here, and I realise that Plato thought that the Form of the Good is superior to Being. |
2061 | The best things (gods, healthy bodies, good souls) are least liable to change [Plato] |
Full Idea: The best things (such as a god, a healthy body, or a good soul) are least liable to alteration or change. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 380e) | |
A reaction: Sounds a bit circular. They are unlikely to qualify for the 'best' group of they keep changing. We wouldn't praise good health which only last half an hour. |
15007 | If you make 'grounding' fundamental, you have to mention some non-fundamental notions [Sider on Fine,K] |
Full Idea: My main objection to Fine's notion of grounding as fundamental is that it violates 'purity' - that fundamental truths should involve only fundamental notions. | |
From: comment on Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001]) by Theodore Sider - Writing the Book of the World 08.2 | |
A reaction: [p.106 of Sider for 'purity'] The point here is that to define a grounding relation you have to mention the 'higher' levels of the relationship (as in a 'city' being grounded in physical stuff), which doesn't seem fundamental enough. |
15006 | Something is grounded when it holds, and is explained, and necessitated by something else [Fine,K, by Sider] |
Full Idea: When p 'grounds' q then q holds in virtue of p's holding; q's holding is nothing beyond p's holding; the truth of p explains the truth of q in a particularly tight sense (explanation of q by p in this sense requires that p necessitates q). | |
From: report of Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 15-16) by Theodore Sider - Writing the Book of the World 08.1 | |
A reaction: This proposal has become a hot topic in current metaphysics, as attempts are made to employ 'grounding' in various logical, epistemological and ontological contexts. I'm a fan - it is at the heart of metaphysics as structure of reality. |
15055 | Grounding relations are best expressed as relations between sentences [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: I recommend that a statement of ground be cast in the following 'canonical' form: Its being the case that S consists in nothing more than its being the case that T, U... (where S, T, U... are particular sentences). | |
From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 5) | |
A reaction: The point here is that grounding is to be undestood in terms of sentences (and 'its being the case that...'), rather than in terms of objects, properties or relations. Fine thus makes grounding a human activity, rather than a natural activity. |
15050 | Reduction might be producing a sentence which gets closer to the logical form [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: One line of reduction is logical analysis. To say one sentence reduces to another is to say that they express the same proposition (or fact), but the grammatical form of the second is closer to the logical form than the grammatical form of the first. | |
From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 3) | |
A reaction: Fine objects that S-and-T reduces to S and T, which is two propositions. He also objects that this approach misses the de re ingredient in reduction (that it is about the things themselves, not the sentences). It also overemphasises logical form. |
15051 | Reduction might be semantic, where a reduced sentence is understood through its reduction [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: A second line of reduction is semantic, and holds in virtue of the meaning of the sentences. It should then be possible to acquire an understanding of the reduced sentence on the basis of understanding the sentences to which it reduces. | |
From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 3) | |
A reaction: Fine says this avoids the first objection to the grammatical approach (see Reaction to Idea 15050), but still can't handle the de re aspect of reduction. Fine also doubts whether this understanding qualifies as 'reduction'. |
15052 | Reduction is modal, if the reductions necessarily entail the truth of the target sentence [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: The third, more recent, approach to reduction is a modal matter. A class of propositions will reduce to - or supervene upon - another if, necessarily, any truth from the one is entailed by truths from the other. | |
From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 3) | |
A reaction: [He cites Armstrong, Chalmers and Jackson for this approach] Fine notes that some people reject supervenience as a sort of reduction. He objects that this reduction doesn't necessarily lead to something more basic. |
15056 | The notion of reduction (unlike that of 'ground') implies the unreality of what is reduced [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: The notion of ground should be distinguished from the strict notion of reduction. A statement of reduction implies the unreality of what is reduced, but a statement of ground does not. | |
From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 5) | |
A reaction: That seems like a bit of a caricature of reduction. If you see a grey cloud and it reduces to a swarm of mosquitoes, you do not say that the cloud was 'unreal'. Fine is setting up a stall for 'ground' in the metaphysical market. We all seek structure. |
15047 | What is real can only be settled in terms of 'ground' [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: Questions of what is real are to be settled upon the basis of considerations of ground. | |
From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], Intro) | |
A reaction: This looks like being one of Fine's most important ideas, which is shifting the whole basis of contemporary metaphysics. Only Parmenides and Heidegger thought Being was the target. Aristotle aims at identity. What grounds what is a third alternative. |
15048 | In metaphysics, reality is regarded as either 'factual', or as 'fundamental' [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: The first main approach says metaphysical reality is to be identified with what is 'objective' or 'factual'. ...According to the second conception, metaphysical reality is to be identified with what is 'irreducible' or 'fundamental'. | |
From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 1) | |
A reaction: Fine is defending the 'fundamental' approach, via the 'grounding' relation. The whole structure, though, seems to be reality. In particular, a complete story must include the relations which facilitate more than mere fundamentals. |
15060 | Why should what is explanatorily basic be therefore more real? [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: We may grant that some things are explanatorily more basic than others, but why should that make them more real? | |
From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 8) | |
A reaction: This is the question asked by the 'quietist'. Fine's answer is that our whole conception of Reality, with its intrinsic structure, is what lies at the basis, and this is primitive. |
6562 | Plato's reality has unchanging Parmenidean forms, and Heraclitean flux [Plato, by Fogelin] |
Full Idea: For Plato, the intelligible world - the world of eternal and unchanging forms - is Parmenidean; the world of appearances - the world of flux we inhabit - is Heraclitean. | |
From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.1 | |
A reaction: Parmenides said reality is 'One'; Heraclitus said reality is 'flux'. This is a nice summary of Plato's view, and encapsulates two key influences on Plato, though the mathematical reality of Pythagoras should also be mentioned on the 'forms' side. |
15046 | Reality is a primitive metaphysical concept, which cannot be understood in other terms [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: I conclude that there is a primitive metaphysical concept of reality, one that cannot be understood in fundamentally different terms. | |
From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], Intro) | |
A reaction: Fine offers arguments to support his claim, but it seems hard to disagree with. The only alternative I can see is to understand reality in terms of our experiences, and this is the road to metaphysical hell. |
2142 | The plurality of beautiful things must belong to a single class, because they have a single particular character [Plato] |
Full Idea: All the things we refer to as pluralities (e.g. beautiful things) we also count as belonging to a single class by virtue of the fact that they have a single particular character. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 507b) |
5094 | Plato's Forms are said to have no location in space [Plato, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Plato claims that the Forms are not beyond the heavens, because they are not anywhere. | |
From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 203a09 | |
A reaction: This is an important corrective to caricature accounts of Plato's Forms (encouraged, I'm afraid, by 'Phaedrus'), when critics talk about 'Platonic Heaven'. Forms are not part of space-time. I like the view that they are hypothetical truths. |
12043 | Forms are not universals, as they don't cover every general term [Plato, by Annas] |
Full Idea: Despite a widely misinterpreted passage in the Republic, Plato does not think that there is a Form for every general term; Forms are not what came to be called universals. | |
From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Julia Annas - Ancient Philosophy: very short introduction Ch.5 | |
A reaction: Hm. This is a bit of a blow to someone who has catalogued Platonic Forms under 'Universals'. See also Idea 12042, for what Annas thinks Plato may really have had in mind. |
2159 | Craftsmen making furniture refer to the form, but no one manufactures the form of furniture [Plato] |
Full Idea: The manufacture of beds and tables involves the craftsman looking to the form and then making the furniture. The form itself is not manufactured by anyone. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 596b) |
17 | A Form applies to a set of particular things with the same name [Plato] |
Full Idea: We always postulate a single form for each set of particular things, to which we apply the same name. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 596a) | |
A reaction: This implies that the Forms have a great deal in common with the things, but also hints at the possibility of the Form being quite different from the particular things. |
12122 | Plato mistakenly thought forms were totally abstracted away from matter [Bacon on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato lost the real fruit of his opinion, by considering forms as absolutely abstracted from matter, and not confined and determined by matter. | |
From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Francis Bacon - The Advancement of Learning II.VII.5 | |
A reaction: This thought is roughly what got me interested in abstraction, on which you will find many ideas in this database. Research into Bacon's thought is hampered by that fact that the logicians have hijacked abstraction in recent philosophy. |
5574 | Plato's Forms not only do not come from the senses, but they are beyond possibility of sensing [Plato, by Kant] |
Full Idea: In Plato's use of the expression 'idea' we can see that he understood by it something that not only could never be borrowed from the senses, but even goes beyond the concepts of the understanding, since nothing in experience could be congruent to it. | |
From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Immanuel Kant - Critique of Pure Reason B370 | |
A reaction: This is why Kant is not a Platonist - because he thinks the limits of our world are the limits of our capacity for possible experience, and Platonic Forms exceed that limit. Personally I am with Plato. I'll never experience a quark either. |
2133 | Knowledge must be of the permanent unchanging nature of things [Plato] |
Full Idea: Those who can see each thing in itself, in its permanent and unvarying nature, we'll say they have knowledge and are not merely entertaining beliefs. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 479e) |
15061 | Although colour depends on us, we can describe the world that way if it picks out fundamentals [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: As long as colour terms pick out fundamental physical properties, I would be willing to countenance their use in the description of Reality in itself, ..even if they are based on a peculiar form of sensory awareness. | |
From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 8) | |
A reaction: This seems to explain why metaphysicians are so fond of using colour as their example of a property, when it seems rather subjective. There seem to be good reasons for rejecting Fine's view. |
2162 | If theory and practice conflict, the best part of the mind accepts theory, so the other part is of lower grade [Plato] |
Full Idea: When appearance and measure conflict…it is the best part of the mind which accepts measurements and calculations, and the part which opposes them, therefore, must be a low-grade part of the mind. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 603a) |
2140 | True belief without knowledge is like blind people on the right road [Plato] |
Full Idea: Don't people who have a correct belief but no knowledge strike you as exactly like blind people who happen to be taking the right road? | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 506c) | |
A reaction: Good. I love the style of this. Most philosophical points can be made in one concise sentence, and it is only the industry of journals and academe that forces points to be extended so much. |
7458 | The reliability of witnesses depends on whether they benefit from their observations [Laplace, by Hacking] |
Full Idea: The credibility of a witness is in part a function of the story being reported. When the story claims to have infinite value, the temptation to lie for personal benefit is asymptotically infinite. | |
From: report of Pierre Simon de Laplace (Philosophical Essay on Probability [1820], Ch.XI) by Ian Hacking - The Emergence of Probability Ch.8 | |
A reaction: Laplace seems to especially have reports of miracles in mind. This observation certainly dashes any dreams one might have of producing a statistical measure of the reliability of testimony. |
15059 | Grounding is an explanation of truth, and needs all the virtues of good explanations [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: The main sources of evidence for judgments of ground are intuitive and explanatory. The relationship of ground is a form of explanation, ..explaining what makes a proposition true, which needs simplicity, breadth, coherence, non-circularity and strength. | |
From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 7) | |
A reaction: My thought is that not only must grounding explain, and therefore be a good explanation, but that the needs of explanation drive our decisions about what are the grounds. It is a bit indeterminate which is tail and which is dog. |
15057 | Ultimate explanations are in 'grounds', which account for other truths, which hold in virtue of the grounding [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: We take ground to be an explanatory relation: if the truth that P is grounded in other truths, then they account for its truth; P's being the case holds in virtue of the other truths' being the case. ...It is the ultimate form of explanation. | |
From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 5) | |
A reaction: To be 'ultimate' that which grounds would have to be something which thwarted all further explanation. Popper, for example, got quite angry at the suggestion that we should put a block on further investigation in this way. |
2096 | Is the function of the mind management, authority and planning - or is it one's whole way of life? [Plato] |
Full Idea: Does the mind have a function - say, management, authority and planning? And isn't one's way of life a function of the mind? | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 353d) | |
A reaction: Note that this is Plato, not some Darwinian materialist. This strikes me as the correct starting point - what does a mind appear to be for (with or without the help of Darwin)? Plato's proposals seem good (though we could cut 'authority'). |
6009 | Psychic conflict is clear if appetite is close to the body and reason fairly separate [Plato, by Modrak] |
Full Idea: Plato makes psychic conflict intelligible by appeal to a conception of the soul such that the soul is closely connected to the body at the level of appetite and relatively separate from the body at the level of reason. | |
From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 339b) by Deborah K.W. Modrak - Classical theories of Mind | |
A reaction: I'm not sure about this at the level of biology or ontology, but at the phenomenal level this is obviously right. Hunger makes consciousness feel like a physical event, but doing arithmetic doesn't seem remotely physical. |
6041 | There is a third element to the mind - spirit - lying between reason and appetite [Plato] |
Full Idea: Is the third element of the mind a form of reason, so that there are only two elements to it, reason and appetite? There must be a third element, if spirit ('thumos') can be shown to be distinct - and you can see it in children when they are born. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 441a) | |
A reaction: This is Plato's famous tripartite doctrine of the soul, though in other dialogues he says that there is only reason and appetite. The suspicion is that he fixed the soul having three parts, to match the three parts of his republic's social structure. |
2127 | The mind has parts, because we have inner conflicts [Plato] |
Full Idea: If someone is thirsty but something is making the mind resist the pull of its thirst, isn't this bound to be a different part of the mind from the thirsty part? | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 439b) | |
A reaction: For Descartes there is one mind pulled by appetite and the 'natural light'. For Hume they don't seem to be 'parts' of anything. For Fodor there is an integrated team of modules. I like Fodor, and good integration is virtue. |
1737 | The soul seems to have an infinity of parts [Aristotle on Plato] |
Full Idea: There seem in a way to be an infinity of parts of the soul, and not only those that some have given, distinguishing the reasoning, spirited and desiderative parts, or with others the rational and irrational. | |
From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 439b) by Aristotle - De Anima 432a25 | |
A reaction: This seems a nice response to Plato's proposal that the psuché has two or three parts. He could have said that the soul was a unity, and has no parts, but the proposal of infinite parts seems much closer to the modern neurological view of the mind. |
3441 | If a supreme intellect knew all atoms and movements, it could know all of the past and the future [Laplace] |
Full Idea: An intelligence knowing at an instant the whole universe could know the movement of the largest bodies and atoms in one formula, provided his intellect were powerful enough to subject all data to analysis. Past and future would be present to his eyes. | |
From: Pierre Simon de Laplace (Philosophical Essay on Probability [1820]), quoted by Mark Thornton - Do we have free will? p.70 |
15058 | A proposition ingredient is 'essential' if changing it would change the truth-value [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: A proposition essentially contains a given constituent if its replacement by some other constituent induces a shift in truth value. Thus Socrates is essential to the proposition that Socrates is a philosopher, but not to Socrates is self-identical. | |
From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 6) | |
A reaction: In this view the replacement of 'is' by 'isn't' would make 'is' (or affirmation) part of the essence of most propositions. This is about linguistic essence, rather than real essence. It has the potential to be trivial. Replace 'slightly' by 'fairly'? |
5945 | The 'Republic' is a great work of rhetorical theory [Lawson-Tancred on Plato] |
Full Idea: The 'Republic' is the greatest single achievement of ancient rhetorical theory. | |
From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Hugh Lawson-Tancred - Plato's Republic and Greek Enlightenment Ch.9 | |
A reaction: A lovely inversion of our normal reading of Plato! Is the real aim of philosophy the making of good speeches? Is the great aim to display the true beauty of the human mind, as the Olympics display the beauty of the body? |
23316 | For Plato and Aristotle there is no will; there is only rational desire for what is seen as good [Plato, by Frede,M] |
Full Idea: Neither Plato nor Aristotle has a notion of the will. …Willing is a form of desire which is specific to reason. If reason perceives something as good, it wills or desires it. | |
From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 577e) by Michael Frede - A Free Will 1 | |
A reaction: [Frede cites 577e, Aris. 413c8, 1113a15-, 1136b6] How do they explain the apparent decisions of non-rational animals? No modern neuroscientist thinks there is a physical object called a person's 'will'. |
16 | We avoid evil either through a natural aversion, or because we have acquired knowledge [Plato] |
Full Idea: Unless a man is born with a heaven-sent aversion to wrong-doing, or acquires the knowledge to refrain from it, he will never do right of his own free will. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 366c) | |
A reaction: This is the territory explored so carefully by Aristotle (after he had read Republic!). It is hard to see what the knowledge could be, other than awareness of consequences. |
16565 | Without the surface decoration, poetry shows only appearances and nothing of what is real [Plato] |
Full Idea: If you strip a poet's works of their musical colorings and take them by themselves, I think you know what they look like. …We say that a maker of an image - an imitator - knows nothing about that which is but only about its appearance. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 601a) | |
A reaction: Knowing the appearances well is more than most people can manage, and aspirations to know the true reality may be an idle dream. Poets are, I presume, welcome in the Cave. |
2160 | Representation is two steps removed from the truth [Plato] |
Full Idea: The province of representation is indeed two steps removed from the truth. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 602c) |
2135 | Truth is closely related to proportion [Plato] |
Full Idea: Truth is closely related to proportion. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 486d) |
2163 | Artists should be excluded from a law-abiding community, because they destroy the rational mind [Plato] |
Full Idea: We are right to refuse admission to artists in any community which is going to respect convention, because he destroys the rational mind and feeds the irrational - it is like destroying good citizens by giving ruffians power. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 605b) |
2141 | I suggest that we forget about trying to define goodness itself for the time being [Plato] |
Full Idea: I suggest that we forget about trying to define goodness itself for the time being. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 506e) | |
A reaction: This was a source of some humour in the ancient world (in the theatre). Goodness is like some distant glow, which can never be approached in order to learn of its source. |
1869 | The good cannot be expressed in words, but imprints itself upon the soul [Plato, by Celsus] |
Full Idea: Plato points to the truth about the highest good when he says that it cannot be expressed in words, but rather comes from familiarity - like a flash from the blue, imprinting itself upon the soul. | |
From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Celsus - On the True Doctrine (Against Christians) VII | |
A reaction: It is reasonable to be drawn to something inexpressible, such as an appealing piece of music, but not good philosophy to build a system around something so obscure. |
4115 | Plato found that he could only enforce rational moral justification by creating an authoritarian society [Williams,B on Plato] |
Full Idea: For Plato, the problem of making the ethical into a force was the problem of making society embody rational justification, and that problem could only have an authoritarian solution. | |
From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Ch. 2 | |
A reaction: Plato's citizens were largely illiterate. We can be more carrot and less stick. |
4547 | Plato measured the degree of reality by the degree of value [Nietzsche on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato measured the degree of reality by the degree of value. | |
From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 518d) by Friedrich Nietzsche - The Will to Power (notebooks) §572 | |
A reaction: A most interesting comment. It epitomises the Nietzschean reading of Plato, in which the will to power leads the sense of value, which in turn creates the metaphysics. |
2094 | A thing's function is what it alone can do, or what it does better than other things [Plato] |
Full Idea: The function of anything is what it alone can do, or what it can do better than anything else. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 353a) | |
A reaction: I take this concept to be the lynchpin of Aristotle's virtue ethics. Note that it arises earlier, in Plato. Perhaps he should say what it is 'meant to do'. |
2095 | If something has a function then it has a state of being good [Plato] |
Full Idea: Anything which has been endowed with a function also has a state of being good. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 353b) | |
A reaction: 'ought' from 'is'? |
2129 | Goodness is mental health, badness is mental sickness [Plato] |
Full Idea: Goodness is a state of mental health, bloom and vitality; badness is a state of mental sickness, deformity and infirmity. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 444e) | |
A reaction: A nice statement of the closeness of goodness to health for the Greeks. The key point is that health is a deeply natural concept, which bridges the fact-value divide. |
12 | If we were invisible, would the just man become like the unjust? [Plato] |
Full Idea: Glaucon: with a ring of invisibility 'the just man would differ in no way from the unjust'. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 360c) | |
A reaction: I think a highly altruistic person would behave well with the ring, but I'm sure Glaucon would claim that these habits would wear off after a while. But I doubt that. |
2168 | Clever criminals do well at first, but not in the long run [Plato] |
Full Idea: Clever criminals are exactly like those runners who do well on the way up the track, and then flag on the way back. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 613b) | |
A reaction: Presumably there is some concept of natural justice lurking behind this comparison. Apart from the money, though, it is hard to imagine any professional criminal leading a flourishing life. |
2143 | Good has the same role in the world of knowledge as the sun has in the physical world [Plato] |
Full Idea: As goodness stands in the intelligible realm to intelligence and the things we know, so in the visible realm the sun stands to sight and the things we see. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 508c) | |
A reaction: The claim seems to be that only goodness makes the world intelligible, but that strikes as closer to mysticism than to objective observation. |
2164 | Bad is always destructive, where good preserves and benefits [Plato] |
Full Idea: Badness always manifests in destruction and corruption, while goodness always manifests in preservation and benefit. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 608e) | |
A reaction: Suspicions of tautology in this one. Can we have any concepts of good or bad which are not linked to desirable or undesirable outcomes? |
2147 | The sight of goodness leads to all that is fine and true and right [Plato] |
Full Idea: The sight of goodness shows that it is responsible for everything that is right and fine,…and it is the source and provider of truth and knowledge. It is necessary for intelligent conduct of private and public affairs. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 517c) | |
A reaction: As so often with Plato, I am baffled by such a claim. I sometimes see things in the world which strike me as right or fine, but I cannot conceive of a separate 'sight of goodness'. |
2137 | The main aim is to understand goodness, which gives everything its value and advantage [Plato] |
Full Idea: The most important thing to try to understand is the character of goodness, because this is where anything which is moral (or whatever) gets its value and advantages from. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 505a) | |
A reaction: I think I'm with Aristotle on this. I understand a good lunch or a good person, but pure goodness just seems to be an empty placeholder. A vote in favour. |
4007 | For Plato we abandon honour and pleasure once we see the Good [Plato, by Taylor,C] |
Full Idea: For Plato, once we see the Good, we cease to be fascinated by and absorbed in the search for honour and pleasure as we were before. | |
From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 505d) by Charles Taylor - Sources of the Self §3.2 | |
A reaction: This is the quasi-religious aspect of the Good - that it is more like a vision than a reason |
2139 | Every person, and every activity, aims at the good [Plato] |
Full Idea: The Good is something which everyone is after, and is the goal of all their activities. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 505d) | |
A reaction: An obvious danger of tautology. If a blood crazed army is 'after' a massacre of some sort, that seems to qualify. What proportion is needed for 'everyone'? |
2144 | Goodness makes truth and knowledge possible [Plato] |
Full Idea: It is goodness which gives the things we know their truth and makes it possible for people to have knowledge. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 508e) | |
A reaction: If we take truth to be the hallmark of successful thinking, then I have no idea what this means. I can't see how truth would disappear in an amoral cosmos. |
2138 | Pleasure is commonly thought to be the good, though the more ingenious prefer knowledge [Plato] |
Full Idea: The usual view of goodness is that it is pleasure, while there's also a more ingenious view that it is knowledge. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 505b) | |
A reaction: Pleasure clearly has an attraction for everyone (even puritans), and is thus a plausible natural candidate. Is this pure or instrumental knowledge? Hard to justify the former. |
2070 | Even people who think pleasure is the good admit that there are bad pleasures [Plato] |
Full Idea: Those who define good as pleasure are clearly confused, and are compelled to admit that there are bad pleasures, so that the same thing is both good and bad. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 505c) | |
A reaction: The issue is whether the pleasure can be disentangled from the action. 'It was a hideous murder, but at least the murderer enjoyed it'. Sounds wrong to me. |
2157 | Nice smells are intensive, have no preceding pain, and no bad after-effect [Plato] |
Full Idea: Nice smells have no preceding feeling of pain, they are very intense, and they leave no distress when they are over. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 584b) | |
A reaction: A nice example for extreme puritans to contemplate. Objections to enjoying nice smells seem almost inconceivable. Puritans will, I suppose, say 'slippery slope'. |
2134 | Philosophers are concerned with totally non-physical pleasures [Plato] |
Full Idea: A person concerned with learning is concerned with purely mental pleasure, having nothing to do with pleasures reaching the mind through the body - assuming the person is a genuine philosopher. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 485d) | |
A reaction: It is hard to find any argument which can demonstrate that mental pleasures are superior to physical ones. Mill notably failed to do it. |
2156 | There are three types of pleasure, for reason, for spirit and for appetite [Plato] |
Full Idea: Each of the three mental categories (reason, spirit, appetite) has its own particular pleasure, so that there are three kinds of pleasure. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 580d) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure why the types of pleasure are distinguished by mental faculties, rather than by the variety of sources of the pleasure. |
2158 | Pleasure-seekers desperately seek illusory satisfaction, like filling a leaky vessel [Plato] |
Full Idea: Pleasure-seekers desperately and violently seek satisfaction in unreal things for a part of themselves which is also unreal - a leaky vessel they're trying to fill. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 586b) | |
A reaction: Plato dreams of some enduring 'satisfaction' which never fades. He should have attended more to Heraclitus, and less to Parmenides. |
2123 | Excessive pleasure deranges people, making the other virtues impossible [Plato] |
Full Idea: Self-discipline and excessive pleasure cannot go together, because pleasure deranges people just as much as distress. Excessive pleasure cannot partner any of the other virtues. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 402e) | |
A reaction: This invites an examination of the word 'excessive', which seems too subjective. Aristotle says any good is improved by the addition of pleasure. Pleasure can certainly derange people. |
2166 | We should behave well even if invisible, for the health of the mind [Plato] |
Full Idea: There's nothing better for the mind than morality, and a person ought to behave morally whether or not he owns Gyges' ring. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 612b) |
5 | Justice is merely the interests of the stronger party [Plato] |
Full Idea: Thrasymachus: Justice or right is simply what is in the interest of the stronger party. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 338c) | |
A reaction: Not sure whether this is cynicism about the brutal realities of life, or cynicism about the very concept of justice. |
19946 | Morality is a compromise, showing restraint, to avoid suffering wrong without compensation [Plato] |
Full Idea: The origin and nature of morality is a compromise between the ideal of doing wrong without paying for it, and the worst situation, which is having wrong done to one while lacking the means of exacting compensation. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 359a) | |
A reaction: This idea is from Glaucon, and is not endorsed by Socrates. Hobbes thought it was right, though he emphasised safety. Game theory makes this approach to moraliy much more plausible. |
2097 | Isn't it better to have a reputation for goodness than to actually be good? [Plato] |
Full Idea: Unless I gain a reputation for morality, my actually being moral will do me no good, but an immoral person who has managed to get a reputation for morality is said to have a wonderful life. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 365b) |
7 | Surely you don't return a borrowed weapon to a mad friend? [Plato] |
Full Idea: If one borrowed a weapon from a friend who subsequently went out of his mind and then asked for it back, surely one ought not to return it? | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 331c) | |
A reaction: Only a Kantian would think of disagreeing with this obvious truth. There is no promise here, but an implicit moral commitment. Such things should always have an all-things-being-equal clause. |
8 | Is right just the interests of the powerful? [Plato] |
Full Idea: Thrasymachus: right is the interest of the established government. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 339a) | |
A reaction: To believe this you would have to believe the powerful control not what is judged to be right, but also the ordinary language which expresses such judgements. Marxism explains that. |
15 | Sin first, then sacrifice to the gods from the proceeds [Plato] |
Full Idea: The thing to do is to sin first and sacrifice afterwards from the proceeds. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 365e) | |
A reaction: A bit like Graham Greene's Catholicism. One Greek view of the gods seems to be that they are quite myopic and naïve. |
5944 | For Plato, virtue is its own reward [Lawson-Tancred on Plato] |
Full Idea: The 'Republic' is the first sustained philosophical defence of the idea that virtue is its own reward. | |
From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], Ch.9) by Hugh Lawson-Tancred - Plato's Republic and Greek Enlightenment | |
A reaction: Sceptics might say that at the heart of his claim is the idea that the virtuous life is the best means of achieving long-term pleasure (as opposed to short-sighted hedonism). What is it about people which could make virtue attractive to them? |
2155 | True goodness requires mental unity and harmony [Plato] |
Full Idea: True goodness requires mental unity and harmony. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 554e) |
2126 | A good community necessarily has wisdom, courage, self-discipline and morality [Plato] |
Full Idea: A good community has everything which is good, so it necessarily has wisdom, courage, self-discipline and morality. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 427e) |
2092 | Simonides said morality is helping one's friends and harming one's enemies [Plato] |
Full Idea: Simonides claims that morality is doing good to one's friends and harm to one's enemies. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 332d) |
23562 | If the parts of our soul do their correct work, we will be just people, and will act justly [Plato] |
Full Idea: Each one of us in whom each part is doing its own work will himself be just and do his own. …So it is appropriate for the rational part to rule …and for the spirited part to obey. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 441d) | |
A reaction: 'Do his own' must mean play his own part in society correctly, because his internal faculties are also correctly focused on their role. So balancing the three parts in persons and society is not just an analogy, but one leads to the other. See 443e. |
19889 | People need society because the individual has too many needs [Plato] |
Full Idea: Society originates because the individual is not self-sufficient, but has many needs which he cannot supply himself. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 369b) | |
A reaction: Notice that Plato has the liberal individualist approach to problem, of starting with isolated individuals, and asking why they need to gang together. This is despite the dependency of children, and the proximity of extended families. |
19890 | All exchanges in a community are for mutual benefit [Plato] |
Full Idea: In the community all mutual exchanges are made on the assumption that the parties to them stand to gain. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 369c) | |
A reaction: The sole purpose of his society appears to be trading, either of goods or of services. The assumption is that if each individual were self-sufficient there would be no society, which strikes me as unlikely. Aristotle offers a better picture. |
10 | After a taste of mutual harm, men make a legal contract to avoid it [Plato] |
Full Idea: Once people experience committing wrong and suffering it, they see the disadvantages are unavoidable and the benefits unobtainable, ...so they enter into a contract, guaranteeing no permitting or receiving wrong, ...and they then make laws and decrees. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 359a) | |
A reaction: This seems to be the earliest statement of the social contract idea. Here it both sets up the state and creates morality. This is Glaucon speaking, and is NOT endorsed by Socrates. |
23561 | People doing their jobs properly is the fourth cardinal virtue for a city [Plato] |
Full Idea: The power that consists in everyone's doing his own work rivals wisdom, moderation, and courage in its contribution to the virtue of the city. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 433d) | |
A reaction: Making conscientious the fourth cardinal virtue. Well said! My maxim for the modern world is that nearly all human misery consists of either bad health or other people not doing their jobs properly. You know I'm right. |
2132 | Only rule by philosophers of integrity can keep a community healthy [Plato] |
Full Idea: Unless communities have philosophers as kings, or the people who are currently called kings and rulers practise philosophy with enough integrity, there can be no end to political troubles. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 473d) |
2149 | Reluctant rulers make a better and more unified administration [Plato] |
Full Idea: The less keen the would-be rulers of a community are to rule, the better and less divided the administration of that community are bound to be. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 520d) |
2131 | Is there anything better for a community than to produce excellent people? [Plato] |
Full Idea: Is anything better for a community than for it to engender women and men who are exceptionally good? | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 456e) |
2148 | To gain knowledge, turn away from the world of change, and focus on true goodness [Plato] |
Full Idea: To gain knowledge we must turn the mind away from the world of becoming, until it becomes capable of bearing the sight of real being and reality at its most bright, which we are saying is goodness. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 518c) |
2152 | Dialectic is the highest and most important part of the curriculum [Plato] |
Full Idea: Dialectic occupies the highest position and forms, as it were, the copestone of the curriculum. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 534e) |
2153 | Compulsory intellectual work never remains in the mind [Plato] |
Full Idea: Compulsory intellectual work never remains in the mind. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 536e) |
2630 | If Plato's God is immaterial, he will lack consciousness, wisdom, pleasure and movement, which are essential to him [Cicero on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato holds God to be without a body, immaterial; but this is an incomprehensible idea. Such a god would inevitably lack any consciousness, any wisdom and any pleasure (…or motion), all of which are bound up in our idea of God. | |
From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.30 |
14 | If the gods are non-existent or indifferent, why bother to deceive them? [Plato] |
Full Idea: If there are no gods or if they care nothing for human affairs, why should we bother to deceive them? | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 365d) | |
A reaction: There is incipient deism here, as well as atheism. |
2165 | Something is unlikely to be immortal if it is imperfectly made from diverse parts [Plato] |
Full Idea: Something is unlikely to be immortal if it's a compound, formed imperfectly from diverse parts. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 611b) |
13 | Is the supreme reward for virtue to be drunk for eternity? [Plato] |
Full Idea: (the poets think) 'the supreme reward of virtue was to be drunk for eternity'. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 363d) | |
A reaction: A perceptive thought. Most people consider the best life to contain endless fun and physical pleasure, so a boozy bawdy holiday in the sunshine ticks all the boxes. |
2120 | God is responsible for the good things, but we must look elsewhere for the cause of the bad things [Plato] |
Full Idea: God and God alone must be held responsible for the good things, but responsibility for bad things must be looked for elsewhere, and not attributed to God. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 379c) |