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All the ideas for 'Theaetetus', 'Mathematical Intuition' and 'works'

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49 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / a. Philosophy as worldly
Ideals and metaphysics are practical, not imaginative or speculative [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
     Full Idea: To T.H. Green an ideal was no creation of an idle imagination, metaphysics no mere play of the speculative reason. Ideals were the most solid, and metaphysics the most practical thing about a man.
     From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State I
     A reaction: This is despite the fact that Green was an idealist in the Hegelian tradition. I like this. I see it not just as ideals having practical guiding influence, but also that ideals themselves arising out of experience.
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 7. Despair over Philosophy
Philosophers are always switching direction to something more interesting [Plato]
     Full Idea: Philosophers are always ready to change direction, if a topic crops up which is more attractive than the one to hand.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 172d)
     A reaction: Which sounds trivial, but it may be what God does.
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 2. Analysis by Division
Either a syllable is its letters (making parts as knowable as whole) or it isn't (meaning it has no parts) [Plato]
     Full Idea: Either a syllable is not the same as its letters, in which case it cannot have the letters as parts of itself, or it is the same as its letters, in which case these basic elements are just as knowable as it is.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 205b)
Understanding mainly involves knowing the elements, not their combinations [Plato]
     Full Idea: A perfect grasp of any subject depends far more on knowing elements than on knowing complexes.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 206b)
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence
A rational account is essentially a weaving together of things with names [Plato]
     Full Idea: Just as primary elements are woven together, so their names may be woven together to produce a spoken account, because an account is essentially a weaving together of names.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 202b)
     A reaction: If justification requires 'logos', and logos is a 'weaving together of names', then Plato might be taken as endorsing the coherence account of justification. Or do the two 'weavings' correspond?
2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 3. Eristic
Eristic discussion is aggressive, but dialectic aims to help one's companions in discussion [Plato]
     Full Idea: Eristic discussions involve as many tricks and traps as possible, but dialectical discussions involve being serious and correcting the interlocutor's mistakes only when they are his own fault or the result of past conditioning.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 167e)
2. Reason / D. Definition / 4. Real Definition
A primary element has only a name, and no logos, but complexes have an account, by weaving the names [Plato]
     Full Idea: A primary element cannot be expressed in an account; it can only be named, for a name is all that it has. But with the things composed of these ...just as the elements are woven together, so the names can woven to become an account.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 202b01-3)
     A reaction: This is the beginning of what I see as Aristotle's metaphysics, as derived from his epistemology, that is, ontology is what explains, and what we can give an account [logos] of. Aristotle treats this under 'definitions'.
3. Truth / D. Coherence Truth / 1. Coherence Truth
Truth is a relation to a whole of organised knowledge in the collection of rational minds [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
     Full Idea: When we speak of anything as true or false, we do so on the ground of its relation to a whole of organised knowledge existing actually in no human mind, but prefigured in every mind which is possessed of reason.
     From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State I n1
     A reaction: This seems to be the super-idealist view of the coherence account of truth. I have no idea what 'prefigured' means here.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 1. Mathematical Platonism / a. For mathematical platonism
We master arithmetic by knowing all the numbers in our soul [Plato]
     Full Idea: It must surely be true that a man who has completely mastered arithmetic knows all numbers? Because there are pieces of knowledge covering all numbers in his soul.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 198b)
     A reaction: This clearly views numbers as objects. Expectation of knowing them all is a bit startling! They also appear to be innate in us, and hence they appear to be Forms. See Aristotle's comment in Idea 645.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 4. Mathematical Empiricism / c. Against mathematical empiricism
General principles can be obvious in mathematics, but bold speculations in empirical science [Parsons,C]
     Full Idea: The existence of very general principles in mathematics are universally regarded as obvious, where on an empiricist view one would expect them to be bold hypotheses, about which a prudent scientist would maintain reserve.
     From: Charles Parsons (Mathematical Intuition [1980], p.152), quoted by Penelope Maddy - Naturalism in Mathematics
     A reaction: This is mainly aimed at Quine's and Putnam's indispensability (to science) argument about mathematics.
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 1. Nature of Change
There seem to be two sorts of change: alteration and motion [Plato]
     Full Idea: There are two kinds of change, I think: alteration and motion.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 181d)
     A reaction: Idea 1700 is better than this.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / a. Parts of objects
If a word has no parts and has a single identity, it turns out to be the same kind of thing as a letter [Plato]
     Full Idea: If a complex or a syllable has no parts and is a single identity, hasn't it turned out to be the same kind of thing as an element or letter?
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 205d)
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / c. Wholes from parts
The whole can't be the parts, because it would be all of the parts, which is the whole [Plato]
     Full Idea: The whole does not consist of parts; for it did, it would be all the parts and so would be the sum.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 204e)
     A reaction: That is, 'the whole is the sum of its parts' is a tautology! The claim that 'the whole is more than the sum of its parts' gets into similar trouble. See Verity Harte on this.
A sum is that from which nothing is lacking, which is a whole [Plato]
     Full Idea: But this sum now - isn't it just when there is nothing lacking that it is a sum? Yes, necessarily. And won't this very same thing - that from which nothing is lacking - be a whole?
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 205a)
     A reaction: This seems to be right, be rather too vague and potentially circular to be of much use. What is the criterion for deciding that nothing is lacking?
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 1. Knowledge
Things are only knowable if a rational account (logos) is possible [Plato]
     Full Idea: Things which are susceptible to a rational account are knowable.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 201d)
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
Expertise is knowledge of the whole by means of the parts [Plato]
     Full Idea: A man has passed from mere judgment to expert knowledge of the being of a wagon when he has done so in virtue of having gone over the whole by means of the elements.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 207c)
     A reaction: Plato is emphasising that the expert must know the hundred parts of a wagon, and not just the half dozen main components, but here the point is to go over the whole via the parts, and not just list the parts.
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / c. Aim of beliefs
It is impossible to believe something which is held to be false [Plato]
     Full Idea: It is impossible to believe something which is not the case.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 167a)
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / d. Cause of beliefs
How can a belief exist if its object doesn't exist? [Plato]
     Full Idea: If the object of a belief is what is not, the object of this belief is nothing; but if there is no object to a belief, then that is not belief at all.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 189a)
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / d. Absolute idealism
All knowledge rests on a fundamental unity between the knower and what is known [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
     Full Idea: All knowledge is seen on ultimate analysis to rest upon the idea of a fundamental unity between subject and object, between the knower and that which there is to be known.
     From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III
     A reaction: I don't really understand this thought, but I think it embodies the essence of Hegelian idealism. If I know a tree in the wood, any 'unity' between us strikes as merely imaginary. If the tree isn't separate, what does 'knowing' it mean?
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 1. Perception
Perception is infallible, suggesting that it is knowledge [Plato]
     Full Idea: Perception is always of something that is, and it is infallible, which suggests that it is knowledge.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 152c)
Our senses could have been separate, but they converge on one mind [Plato]
     Full Idea: It would be peculiar if each of us were like a Trojan horse, with a whole bunch of senses sitting inside us, rather than that all these perceptions converge onto a single identity (mind, or whatever one ought to call it).
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 184d)
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
Thought must grasp being itself before truth becomes possible [Plato]
     Full Idea: If you can't apprehend being you can't apprehend truth, and so a thing could not be known. Therefore knowledge is not located in immediate experience but in thinking about it, since the latter makes it possible to grasp being and truth.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 186c)
With what physical faculty do we perceive pairs of opposed abstract qualities? [Plato]
     Full Idea: With what physical faculty do we perceive being and not-being, similarity and dissimilarity, identity and difference, oneness and many, odd and even and other maths, ….fineness and goodness?
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 185d)
You might mistake eleven for twelve in your senses, but not in your mind [Plato]
     Full Idea: Sight or touch might make someone take eleven for twelve, but he could never form this mistaken belief about the contents of his mind.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 195e)
13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 1. Justification / b. Need for justification
An inadequate rational account would still not justify knowledge [Plato]
     Full Idea: If you don't know which letters belong together in the right syllables…it is possible for true belief to be accompanied by a rational account and still not be entitled to the name of knowledge.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 208b)
     A reaction: In each case of justification there is a 'clinching' stage, for which there is never going to be a strict rule. It might be foundational, but equally it might be massive coherence, or no alternative.
13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 2. Justification Challenges / a. Agrippa's trilemma
Parts and wholes are either equally knowable or equally unknowable [Plato]
     Full Idea: Either a syllable and its letters are equally knowable and expressible in a rational account, or they are both equally unknowable and inexpressible.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 205e)
     A reaction: Presumably you could explain the syllable by the letters, but not vice versa, but he must mean that the explanation is worthless without the letters being explained too. So all explanation is worthless?
Without distinguishing marks, how do I know what my beliefs are about? [Plato]
     Full Idea: If I only have beliefs about Theaetetus when I don't know his distinguishing mark, how on earth were my beliefs about you rather than anyone else?
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 209b)
     A reaction: This is a rather intellectualist approach to mental activity. Presumably Theaetetus has lots of distinguishing marks, but they are not conscious. Must Socrates know everything?
13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 3. Internal or External / a. Pro-internalism
A rational account might be seeing an image of one's belief, like a reflection in a mirror [Plato]
     Full Idea: A rational account might be forming an image of one's belief, as in a mirror or a pond.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 206d)
     A reaction: Not promising, since the image is not going to be clearer than the original, or contain any new information. Maybe it would be clarified by being 'framed', instead of drifting in muddle.
A rational account involves giving an image, or analysis, or giving a differentiating mark [Plato]
     Full Idea: A third sort of rational account (after giving an image, or analysing elements) is being able to mention some mark which differentiates the object in question ('the sun is the brightest heavenly body').
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 208c)
     A reaction: This is Plato's clearest statement of what would be involved in adding the necessary logos to your true belief. An image of it, or an analysis, or an individuation. How about a cause?
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / a. Foundationalism
Maybe primary elements can be named, but not receive a rational account [Plato]
     Full Idea: Maybe the primary elements of which things are composed are not susceptible to rational accounts. Each of them taken by itself can only be named, but nothing further can be said about it.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 201e)
     A reaction: This still seems to be more or less the central issue in philosophy - which things should be treated as 'primitive', and which other things are analysed and explained using the primitive tools?
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / a. Coherence as justification
The ultimate test for truth is the systematic interdependence in nature [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
     Full Idea: Systematic interdependence in the world of nature is the ultimate test of truth.
     From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II
     A reaction: Green (or Muirhead) drifts between coherence as the nature of truth and coherence as the nature of justification. He it is the 'test' for truth, which was Russell's view.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / b. Pro-coherentism
A rational account of a wagon would mean knowledge of its hundred parts [Plato]
     Full Idea: In the case of a wagon, we may only have correct belief, but someone who is able to explain what it is by going through its hundred parts has got hold of a rational account.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 207b)
     A reaction: A wonderful example. In science, you know smoking correlates with cancer, but you only know it when you know the mechanism, the causal structure. This may be a general truth.
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 5. Dream Scepticism
What evidence can be brought to show whether we are dreaming or not? [Plato]
     Full Idea: What evidence could be brought if we were asked at this very moment whether we are asleep and are dreaming all our thoughts?
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 158b)
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 6. Relativism Critique
If you claim that all beliefs are true, that includes beliefs opposed to your own [Plato]
     Full Idea: To say that everyone believes what is the case, is to concede the truth of the oppositions' beliefs; in other words, the person has to concede that he himself is wrong.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 171a)
Clearly some people are superior to others when it comes to medicine [Plato]
     Full Idea: In medicine, at least, most people are not self-sufficient at prescribing and effecting cures for themselves, and here some people are superior to others.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 171e)
How can a relativist form opinions about what will happen in the future? [Plato]
     Full Idea: Does a relativist have any authority to decide about things which will happen in the future?
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 178c)
     A reaction: Nice question! It seems commonsense that such speculations are possible, but without a concept of truth they are ridiculous.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
What is distinctive of human life is the desire for self-improvement [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
     Full Idea: All that is distinctively human in the life of man springs not from the desire to possess this or that object, and so far to realise a better, but to be something more and better than he is.
     From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II
     A reaction: An example of Victorian optimism, I think. I'm guessing that people who are not motivated by this impulse are not behaving in a way that is 'distinctively human'. That said, this is an interesting aspect of human nature.
23. Ethics / A. Egoism / 2. Hedonism
Hedonism offers no satisfaction, because what we desire is self-betterment [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
     Full Idea: Hedonism failed because it offered as an end of human aspiration an object in which the human spirit, pledged by its own nature to self-betterment, …could never find satisfaction.
     From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II
     A reaction: It is always both sad and amusing to see that 150 years ago someone wrote of a doctrine that is still with us that it has 'failed'. Nowadays they try to say the same of physicalism. His objection rests on optimism about humanity.
24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 2. State Legitimacy / d. General will
Politics is compromises, which seem supported by a social contract, but express the will of no one [Green,TH]
     Full Idea: Where laws and institutions are apparently the work of deliberate volition, they are in reality the result of a compromise, which while by a kind of social contract it has the acquiescence of all, expresses the will of none.
     From: T.H. Green (works [1875]), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III
     A reaction: Politicians who claim to be enacting the 'will of the people' (e.g. when they won a referendum 52-48) are simply lying. Committees usually end up enacting one person's will, but often without realising what has happened.
24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 4. Citizenship
The ideal is a society in which all citizens are ladies and gentlemen [Green,TH]
     Full Idea: With all seriousness and reverence we may hope and pray for a condition of English society in which all honest citizens will recognise themselves and be recognised by each other as gentlemen.
     From: T.H. Green (works [1875]), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State IV
     A reaction: Call me old fashioned but, as long as we expand this to include ladies, I like this thought. Chaucer's knight (in his Prologue) should be our national role model. The true gentleman is an Aristotelian ideal.
Enfranchisement is an end in itself; it makes a person moral, and gives a basis for respect [Green,TH]
     Full Idea: Enfranchisement of the people is an end in itself. …Only citizenship makes the moral man; only citizenship gives that respect which is the true basis of the respect for others.
     From: T.H. Green (works [1875], iii:436), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State IV
     A reaction: Should people respect their betters? If so, that is a sort of deferential respect which is different from the mutual respect between equals. That said, I wholly approve of this idea.
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 6. Liberalism / a. Liberalism basics
The good is identified by the capacities of its participants [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
     Full Idea: The modern idea of the good has developed in respect of the range of persons who have the capacity and therefore the right to participate in this good.
     From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II
     A reaction: Green is a notable Victorian liberal, starting from an idealist metaphysics. This is an intriguing view of liberal values. The concept of the good should be what suits persons with full capacity. Having the capacity bestows the right of access to it. Hm.
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 6. Liberalism / b. Liberal individualism
A true state is only unified and stabilised by acknowledging individuality [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
     Full Idea: In so far as society commits itself to the principle of individuality of its citizens does it realise the unity and stability that constitute it a true 'State'.
     From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II
     A reaction: This asserts the liberal vision of a state, rather than asserting a fact. A state consistently mostly of slaves still seems to be a state, and may achieve a lot.
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 7. Communitarianism / a. Communitarianism
People only develop their personality through co-operation with the social whole [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
     Full Idea: In so far as the individual commits himself to the principle of co-operation in a social whole does he realise his end as individual personality.
     From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II
     A reaction: This makes for a very communitarian type of liberalism. The question is whether we create insitutions which suck our free citizens into a communal way of life, or whether that is a matter of their own initiative.
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 2. Natural Purpose / a. Final purpose
If something develops, its true nature is embodied in its end [Green,TH]
     Full Idea: To anyone who understands a process of development, the result being developed is the reality; and it is its ability to become this that the subject undergoing development has its true nature.
     From: T.H. Green (works [1875], iii: 224), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II
     A reaction: Although this contains the dubious Hegelian idea that development tends towards some 'end', presented as fixed and final, it still seems important that anything accepted as a 'development' is the expression of some natural potential.
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 1. God
God is the ideal end of the mature mind's final development [Green,TH]
     Full Idea: God is a subject which is eternally all that the self-conscious subject as developed in time has the possibility of becoming.
     From: T.H. Green (works [1875]), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State I
     A reaction: [Ethics p.197] Reminiscent of Peirce's account of truth, as the ideal end of enquiry. If God is a human ideal, we either limit God, or exaggerate our powers of idealisation.
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / c. God is the good
God must be the epitome of goodness, and we can only approach a divine state by being as good as possible [Plato]
     Full Idea: It is impossible for God to be immoral and not to be the acme of morality; and the only way any of us can approximate to God is to become as moral as possible.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 176c)
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 4. God Reflects Humanity
God is the realisation of the possibilities of each man's self [Green,TH]
     Full Idea: God is identical with the self of every man in the sense of being the realisation of its determinate possibilities.…In being conscious of himself man is conscious of God and thus knows that God is, but only in so far as he knows what he himself really is.
     From: T.H. Green (works [1875], iii:226-7), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II
     A reaction: Does this, by the transitivity of identity, imply the identity of all individual men? Do we all contain identical possibilities, which converge on a unified concept of God? I always take the monotheistic God to far exceed mere human possibilities.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 3. Problem of Evil / a. Problem of Evil
There must always be some force of evil ranged against good [Plato]
     Full Idea: The elimination of evil is impossible, Theodorus; there must always be some force ranged against good.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.364 BCE], 176a)