50 ideas
| 7529 | All philosophy should begin with an analysis of propositions [Russell] |
| Full Idea: That all sound philosophy should begin with an analysis of propositions is a truth too evident, perhaps, to demand a proof. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Leibniz [1900], p.8), quoted by Ray Monk - Bertrand Russell: Spirit of Solitude | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 483. The obvious response to Russell is that it must actually begin with a decision about which propositions are worth analysing - and that ain't easy. I like analysis, but philosophy is also a vision of truth. |
| 224 | When questions are doubtful we should concentrate not on objects but on ideas of the intellect [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Doubtful questions should not be discussed in terms of visible objects or in relation to them, but only with reference to ideas conceived by the intellect. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135e) |
| 232 | Opposites are as unlike as possible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Opposites are as unlike as possible. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159a) |
| 8937 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic [Hegel on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic. | |
| From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Georg W.F.Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit Pref 71 | |
| A reaction: It is a long way from the analytic tradition of philosophy to be singling out a classic text for its 'artistic' achievement. Eventually we may even look back on, say, Kripke's 'Naming and Necessity' and see it in that light. |
| 13986 | Plato found antinomies in ideas, Kant in space and time, and Bradley in relations [Plato, by Ryle] |
| Full Idea: Plato (in 'Parmenides') shows that the theory that 'Eide' are substances, and Kant that space and time are substances, and Bradley that relations are substances, all lead to aninomies. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Gilbert Ryle - Are there propositions? 'Objections' |
| 14150 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made [Russell on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made. | |
| From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Bertrand Russell - The Principles of Mathematics §337 |
| 16150 | One is, so numbers exist, so endless numbers exist, and each one must partake of being [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If one is, there must also necessarily be number - Necessarily - But if there is number, there would be many, and an unlimited multitude of beings. ..So if all partakes of being, each part of number would also partake of it. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 144a) | |
| A reaction: This seems to commit to numbers having being, then to too many numbers, and hence to too much being - but without backing down and wondering whether numbers had being after all. Aristotle disagreed. |
| 229 | The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 155d) |
| 21821 | Plato's Parmenides has a three-part theory, of Primal One, a One-Many, and a One-and-Many [Plato, by Plotinus] |
| Full Idea: The Platonic Parmenides is more exact [than Parmenides himself]; the distinction is made between the Primal One, a strictly pure Unity, and a secondary One which is a One-Many, and a third which is a One-and-Many. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08 | |
| A reaction: Plotinus approves of this three-part theory. Parmenides has the problem that the highest Being contains no movement. By placing the One outside Being you can give it powers which an existent thing cannot have. Cf the concept of God. |
| 221 | Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The absolute good and the beautiful and all which we conceive to be absolute ideas are unknown to us. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 134c) |
| 223 | If you deny that each thing always stays the same, you destroy the possibility of discussion [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If a person denies that the idea of each thing is always the same, he will utterly destroy the power of carrying on discussion. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135c) |
| 227 | You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name [Plato] |
| Full Idea: You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 147d) |
| 210 | It would be absurd to think there were abstract Forms for vile things like hair, mud and dirt [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Are there abstract ideas for such things as hair, mud and dirt, which are particularly vile and worthless? That would be quite absurd. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 130d) |
| 220 | The concept of a master includes the concept of a slave [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Mastership in the abstract is mastership of slavery in the abstract. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133e) |
| 211 | If admirable things have Forms, maybe everything else does as well [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is troubling that if admirable things have abstract ideas, then perhaps everything else must have ideas as well. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 130d) |
| 219 | If absolute ideas existed in us, they would cease to be absolute [Plato] |
| Full Idea: None of the absolute ideas exists in us, because then it would no longer be absolute. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133c) |
| 228 | Greatness and smallness must exist, to be opposed to one another, and come into being in things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: These two ideas, greatness and smallness, exist, do they not? For if they did not exist, they could not be opposites of one another, and could not come into being in things. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 149e) |
| 16151 | Plato moves from Forms to a theory of genera and principles in his later work [Plato, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: It seems to me that Plato in the later dialogues, beginning with the second half of 'Parmenides', wants to substitute a theory of genera and theory of principles that constitute these genera for the earlier theory of forms. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Title, Unity, Authenticity of the 'Categories' V | |
| A reaction: My theory is that the later Plato came under the influence of the brilliant young Aristotle, and this idea is a symptom of it. The theory of 'principles' sounds like hylomorphism to me. |
| 218 | Participation is not by means of similarity, so we are looking for some other method of participation [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Participation is not by means of likeness, so we must seek some other method of participation. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133a) |
| 213 | Each idea is in all its participants at once, just as daytime is a unity but in many separate places at once [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Just as day is in many places at once, but not separated from itself, so each idea might be in all its participants at once. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 131b) |
| 216 | If things are made alike by participating in something, that thing will be the absolute idea [Plato] |
| Full Idea: That by participation in which like things are made like, will be the absolute idea, will it not? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132e) |
| 215 | If things partake of ideas, this implies either that everything thinks, or that everything actually is thought [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If all things partake of ideas, must either everything be made of thoughts and everything thinks, or everything is thought, and so can't think? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132c) |
| 212 | The whole idea of each Form must be found in each thing which participates in it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The whole idea of each form (of beauty, justice etc) must be found in each thing which participates in it. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 131a) |
| 217 | Nothing can be like an absolute idea, because a third idea intervenes to make them alike (leading to a regress) [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible for anything to be like an absolute idea, because a third idea will appear to make them alike, and if that is like anything, it will lead to another idea, and so on. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133a) |
| 214 | If absolute greatness and great things are seen as the same, another thing appears which makes them seem great [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If you regard the absolute great and the many great things in the same way, will not another appear beyond, by which all these must appear to be great? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132a) |
| 15851 | Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The part would not be the part of many things or all, but of some one character ['ideas'] and of some one thing, which we call a 'whole', since it has come to be one complete [perfected] thing composed [created] of all. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157d) | |
| A reaction: A serious shot by Plato at what identity is. Harte quotes it (125) and shows that 'character' is Gk 'idea', and 'composed' will translate as 'created'. 'Form' links this Platonic passage to Aristotle's hylomorphism. |
| 15846 | In Parmenides, if composition is identity, a whole is nothing more than its parts [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: At the heart of the 'Parmenides' puzzles about composition is the thesis that composition is identity. Considered thus, a whole adds nothing to an ontology that already includes its parts | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 2.5 | |
| A reaction: There has to be more to a unified identity that mere proximity of the parts. When do parts come together, and when do they actually 'compose' something? |
| 15849 | Plato says only a one has parts, and a many does not [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: In 'Parmenides' it is argued that a part cannot be part of a many, but must be part of something one. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 3.2 | |
| A reaction: This looks like the right way to go with the term 'part'. We presuppose a unity before we even talk of its parts, so we can't get into contradictions and paradoxes about their relationships. |
| 15850 | Anything which has parts must be one thing, and parts are of a one, not of a many [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The whole of which the parts are parts must be one thing composed of many; for each of the parts must be part, not of a many, but of a whole. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
| A reaction: This is a key move of metaphysics, and we should hang on to it. The other way madness lies. |
| 13259 | It seems that the One must be composed of parts, which contradicts its being one [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The One must be composed of parts, both being a whole and having parts. So on both grounds the One would thus be many and not one. But it must be not many, but one. So if the One will be one, it will neither be a whole, nor have parts. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137c09), quoted by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2 | |
| A reaction: This is the starting point for Plato's metaphysical discussion of objects. It seems to begin a line of thought which is completed by Aristotle, surmising that only an essential structure can bestow identity on a bunch of parts. |
| 15847 | Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Everything is surely related to everything as follows: either it is the same or different; or, if it is not the same or different, it would be related as part to whole or as whole to part. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 146b) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a really helpful first step in trying to analyse the nature of identity. Two things are either two or (actually) one, or related mereologically. |
| 4983 | There are no rules linking thought and behaviour, because endless other thoughts intervene [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: We know too much about thought and behaviour to trust exact and universal statements linking them. Beliefs and desires issue in behaviour only as modified and mediated by further beliefs and desires, attitudes and attendings, without limit. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970], p.217) | |
| A reaction: Now seen as a key objection to behaviourism, and rightly so. However, I am not sure about "without limit", which implies an implausible absolute metaphysical freedom. Davidson goes too far in denying any nomological link between thought and brain. |
| 3529 | Reduction is impossible because mind is holistic and brain isn't [Davidson, by Maslin] |
| Full Idea: Davidson rejects ontological reduction of mental to physical because propositional attitudes are holistic; there must be extensive coherence among someone's attitudes to treat them as a rational person, and this has no counterpart in physical theory. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by Keith T. Maslin - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind 7.5 | |
| A reaction: I don't find this view persuasive. We treat the weather in simple terms, even though it is almost infinitely complex. Davidson has a Kantian overconfidence in our rationality. A coherence among the parts is needed to be a tree. |
| 2307 | Anomalous monism says nothing at all about the relationship between mental and physical [Davidson, by Kim] |
| Full Idea: Davidson's anomalous monism says no more about the relationship between the mental and the physical than the claim that all objects with a colour have a shape says about the relationship between colours and shapes. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by Jaegwon Kim - Mind in a Physical World §1 p.005 | |
| A reaction: Indeed, I find the enthusiasm for property dualism etc. quite baffling, given that we are merely told that mind is 'an anomaly'. I take it to be old fashioned dualism in trendy clothes. |
| 5497 | Mind is outside science, because it is humanistic and partly normative [Davidson, by Lycan] |
| Full Idea: For Davidson, mental types are individuated by considerations that are nonscientific, distinctly humanistic, and part normative, so will not coincide with any types that are designated in scientific terms. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by William Lycan - Introduction - Ontology p.8 | |
| A reaction: I just don't believe this, mainly because I don't accept that there is a category called 'nonscientific'. All we are saying is that a brain is a hugely complicated object, and we don't properly understand its operations, though we relate to it very well. |
| 4081 | Anomalous monism says causes are events, so the mental and physical are identical, without identical properties [Davidson, by Crane] |
| Full Idea: Davidson's anomalous monism says that events are causes, so we can identify mental and physical events without having to identify their properties. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by Tim Crane - Elements of Mind 2.18 | |
| A reaction: As Fodor insists, a thing like a mountain has properties at different levels of description. We can have 'property dualism' and full-blown reductive identity. |
| 2321 | If rule-following and reason are 'anomalies', does that make reductionism impossible? [Davidson, by Kim] |
| Full Idea: Davidson takes mental anomalism (that the mind exhibits normativity and rationality), and in particular his claim that there are no laws connecting mental and physical properties, to undermine mind-body reductionism. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by Jaegwon Kim - Mind in a Physical World §4 p.092 | |
| A reaction: A nice summary of the core idea of property dualism. Personally I expect the whole lot to be reducible, and to follow laws, but the sheer complexity of the brain permanently bars us from actually doing the reduction. |
| 3404 | Davidson claims that mental must be physical, to make mental causation possible [Davidson, by Kim] |
| Full Idea: Davidson's thesis is that if mental events of a particular kind cause physical events of a particular kind, and the two kinds are connected by a law, then they must both be physical kinds. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by Jaegwon Kim - Philosophy of Mind p.137 | |
| A reaction: Davidson would pretty obviously be right. The whole problem here is the idea of a 'law'. You can only have strict law for simple entities, like particles and natural kinds. The brain is a mess, like weather or explosions. |
| 3405 | If mental causation is lawless, it is only possible if mental events have physical properties [Davidson, by Kim] |
| Full Idea: Since no laws exist connecting mental and physical properties, purely physical laws must do the causal work, which means mental events enter into causal relations only because they possess physical properties that figure in laws. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by Jaegwon Kim - Philosophy of Mind p.138 | |
| A reaction: Surely no such laws exist 'yet'? I can see no plausible argument that psycho-physical laws are impossible. However, the conclusion of this remark seems right. Interaction requires some sort of equality. |
| 16041 | Supervenience of the mental means physical changes mental, and mental changes physical [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The supervenience [of mental characteristics on the physical] might be taken to mean that there cannot be two events alike in all physical respects but differing in some mental respect, or an object cannot differ mentally without altering physically. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970], I) | |
| A reaction: This is the first occasion on which Davidson introduced his notion of supervenience. Supervenience is often taken to be one-way. The first implies physical causing mental; his second implies that mental causes physical. |
| 6620 | Davidson sees identity as between events, not states, since they are related in causation [Davidson, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Davidson's version of the identity theory is couched in terms of events rather than states, because he regards causation as a relation between events. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.2 n12 | |
| A reaction: I think it may be more to the point that the mind is a dynamic thing, and so it consists of events rather than states, and hence we want to know what those events are made up from. I think my chair is causing me to rest above the floor… |
| 3429 | Multiple realisability was worse news for physicalism than anomalous monism was [Davidson, by Kim] |
| Full Idea: Davidson's argument about psychophysical anomalism has not been embraced by everyone; multiple realisability of mental properties has had a much greater impact in undermining reductionism (and hence type physicalism). | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by Jaegwon Kim - Philosophy of Mind p.218 | |
| A reaction: My view is that functional states are multiply realisable, but phenomenal states aren't. Fear functions in frogs much as it does in us, but being a frightened frog is nothing like being a frightened human. Their brains are different! |
| 222 | Only a great person can understand the essence of things, and an even greater person can teach it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Only a man of very great natural gifts will be able to understand that everything has a class and absolute essence, and an even more wonderful man can teach this. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135a) |
| 225 | The unlimited has no shape and is endless [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The unlimited partakes neither of the round nor of the straight, because it has no ends nor edges. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137e) |
| 233 | Some things do not partake of the One [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The others cannot partake of the one in any way; they can neither partake of it nor of the whole. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159d) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 231 |
| 2062 | The only movement possible for the One is in space or in alteration [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If the One moves it either moves spatially or it is altered, since these are the only motions. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 138b) |
| 231 | Everything partakes of the One in some way [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The others are not altogether deprived of the one, for they partake of it in some way. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 233. |
| 3524 | Causation is either between events, or between descriptions of events [Davidson, by Maslin] |
| Full Idea: According to Davidson analyses of causality proceed at two different levels: at the lower level it holds between events regardless of how they are described; higher level explanations hold between descriptions of events, which pick out properties. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by Keith T. Maslin - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind 7.4 |
| 3526 | Whether an event is a causal explanation depends on how it is described [Davidson, by Maslin] |
| Full Idea: Davidson says causal explanations hold between descriptions of events and not between the events themselves, so the possibility of events as explanations depends on how they are described (e.g. a wind collapsing a bridge). | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by Keith T. Maslin - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind 7.4 |
| 234 | We couldn't discuss the non-existence of the One without knowledge of it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There must be knowledge of the one, or else not even the meaning of the words 'if the one does not exist' would be known. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 160d) |