160 ideas
23890 | For Plato true wisdom is supernatural [Plato, by Weil] |
Full Idea: It is evident that Plato regards true wisdom as something supernatural. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Simone Weil - God in Plato p.61 | |
A reaction: Taken literally, I assume this is wrong, but we can empathise with the thought. Wisdom has the feeling of rising above the level of mere knowledge, to achieve the overview I associate with philosophy. |
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. |
3060 | Plato never mentions Democritus, and wished to burn his books [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Plato, who mentions nearly all the ancient philosophers, nowhere speaks of Democritus; he wished to burn all of his books, but was persuaded that it was futile. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.7.8 |
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. |
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. |
23891 | Two contradictories force us to find a relation which will correlate them [Plato, by Weil] |
Full Idea: Where contradictions appear there is a correlation of contraries, which is relation. If a contradiction is imposed on the intelligence, it is forced to think of a relation to transform the contradiction into a correlation, which draws the soul higher. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Simone Weil - God in Plato p.70 | |
A reaction: A much better account of the dialectic than anything I have yet seen in Hegel. For the first time I see some sense in it. A contradiction is not a falsehood, and it must be addressed rather than side-stepped. A kink in the system, that needs ironing. |
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) |
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) |
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) |
6052 | Definitions identify two concepts, so they presuppose identity [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Any definition must presuppose the notion of identity precisely because a definition affirms the identity of two concepts. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: McGinn is arguing that identity is fundamental to thought, and this seems persuasive. It may be, though, that while identities are inescapable, definitions are impossible. |
6064 | Regresses are only vicious in the context of an explanation [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Regresses are only vicious in the context of some explanatory aim, not in themselves. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2 n11) | |
A reaction: A nice point. It is not quite clear how 'pure' reason could ever be vicious, or charming, or sycophantic. The problem about a vicious regress is precisely that it fails to explain anything. Now benign regresses are something else… (see Idea 2523) |
6088 | Truth is a method of deducing facts from propositions [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Truth is essentially a method of deducing facts from propositions. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: Very persuasive. McGinn is offering a disquotational account of truth, but in a robust form. Of course, deduction normally takes the form of moving infallibly from one truth to another, but that model of deduction won't fit this particular proposal. |
6084 | 'Snow does not fall' corresponds to snow does fall [McGinn] |
Full Idea: We can say that the proposition that snow does not fall from the sky corresponds to the fact that snow does fall from the sky - in the sense that there is a mapping from fact to proposition. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: A very nice difficulty for the correspondence theory. It becomes essential to say how the two things correspond before it can offer any sort of account of the truth-relation. |
6085 | The idea of truth is built into the idea of correspondence [McGinn] |
Full Idea: The correspondence theory has an air of triviality, and hence undeniability, but this is because it implicitly builds the idea of truth into the notion of correspondence. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: If this is accepted, it is a really fatal objection to the theory. Russell tried to use the idea of 'congruency' between beliefs and reality, but that may be open to the same objection. McGinn is claiming that truth is essentially indefinable. |
6083 | The coherence theory of truth implies idealism, because facts are just coherent beliefs [McGinn] |
Full Idea: If 'snow falls from the sky' is true iff it coheres with other beliefs, this is a form of idealism; snow could surely fall from sky even if there were no beliefs in the world to cohere with each other. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: The coherence theory of truth strikes me as yet another blunder involving a confusion of ontology and epistemology. Of course, idealism may be true, but I have yet to hear a good reason why I should abandon commonsense realism. |
6086 | Truth is the property of propositions that makes it possible to deduce facts [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Truth is a property of a proposition from which one can deduce the fact stated by the proposition. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: This is McGinn's explanation of the disquotational account of truth ('p' is true iff p). The redundancy theorist would reply that you can deduce p from 'p' without mentioning truth, but it remains to ask why this deduction is possible. |
6087 | Without the disquotation device for truth, you could never form beliefs from others' testimony [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Imagine being in a community which had no concept of truth; ..you cannot disquote on p and hence form beliefs about the world as a result of testimony, since you lack the device of disquotation that is the essence of truth. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: Whether his theory is right or not, the observation that testimony is the really crucial area where we must have a notion of truth is very good. How about 'truth is what turns propositions into beliefs'? |
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) |
6051 | In 'x is F and x is G' we must assume the identity of x in the two statements [McGinn] |
Full Idea: If we say 'for some x, x is F and x is G' we are making tacit appeal to the idea of identity in using 'x' twice here: it has to be the same object that is both F and G. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: This may well be broadened to any utterances whatsoever. The only remaining question is to speculate about whether it is possible to think without identities. The Hopi presumably gave identity to processes rather objects. How does God think? |
6055 | Both non-contradiction and excluded middle need identity in their formulation [McGinn] |
Full Idea: To formulate the law of non-contradiction ('nothing can be both F and non-F') and the law of excluded middle ('everything is either F or it is not-F'), we need the concept of identity (in 'nothing' and 'everything'). | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: Two good examples in McGinn's argument that identity is basic to all thinking. But the argument also works to say that necessity is basic (since both laws claim it) and properties are basic. Let's just declare everything 'basic', and we can all go home. |
6059 | Identity is unitary, indefinable, fundamental and a genuine relation [McGinn] |
Full Idea: I have endorsed four main theses about identity: it is unitary, it is indefinable, it is fundamental, and it is a genuine relation | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: That it is fundamental to our thinking seems certain (but to all possible thought?). That it is a relation looks worth questioning. One might challenge unitary by comparing the identity of numbers, values, electrons and continents. I can't define it. |
6042 | The quantifier is overrated as an analytical tool [McGinn] |
Full Idea: The quantifier has been overrated as a tool of logical and linguistic analysis. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Pref) | |
A reaction: I find this proposal quite thrilling. Twentieth century analytical philosophy has been in thrall to logic, giving the upper hand in philosophical discussion to the logicians, who are often not very good at philosophy. |
6067 | Existential quantifiers just express the quantity of things, leaving existence to the predicate 'exists' [McGinn] |
Full Idea: What the existential quantifier does is indicate the quantity of things in question - it says that some are; it is left up to the predicate 'exists' to express existence. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: This seems right. The whole quantification business seems like a conjuring trick to conceal the embarrassingly indefinable and 'metaphysical' notion of 'existence'. Cf Idea 7697. |
6069 | 'Partial quantifier' would be a better name than 'existential quantifier', as no existence would be implied [McGinn] |
Full Idea: We would do much better to call 'some' the 'partial quantifier' (rather than the 'existential quantifier'), on analogy with the universal quantifier - as neither of them logically implies existence. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: Like McGinn's other suggestions in this chapter, this strikes me as a potentially huge clarification in linguistic analysis. I wait with interest to see whether the philosophical logicians take it up. I bet they don't. |
6068 | We need an Intentional Quantifier ("some of the things we talk about.."), so existence goes into the proposition [McGinn] |
Full Idea: We could introduce an 'intentional quantifier' (Ix) which means 'some of the things we talk about..'; we could then say 'some of the things we talk about are F and exist' (Ix, x is F and x exists). | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: This immediately strikes me as a promising contribution to the analytical toolkit. McGinn is supporting his view that existence is a predicate, and so belongs inside the proposition, not outside. |
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. |
6070 | Existence is a primary quality, non-existence a secondary quality [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Existence is like a primary quality; non-existence is like a secondary quality. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2 n29) | |
A reaction: Since McGinn thinks existence really is a property, and hence, presumably, a predicate, I don't quite see why he uses the word "like". A nicely pithy and thought-provoking remark. |
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. |
6062 | Existence can't be analysed as instantiating a property, as instantiation requires existence [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Paraphrasing existence statements into statements about the instantiation of a property does not establish that existence is not a predicate, since the notion of instantiation must be taken to have existence built into it. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: Thank you, Colin McGinn! This now strikes me as so obvious that it is astonishing that for the whole of the twentieth century no one seems to have said it. For a century philosophers had swept the ontological dirt under the mat. |
6065 | We can't analyse the sentence 'something exists' in terms of instantiated properties [McGinn] |
Full Idea: The problems of the orthodox view are made vivid by analysis of the sentence 'something exists'; this is meaningful and true, but what property are we saying is instantiated here? | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: A very nice point. McGinn claims that existence is a property, a very generalised one. Personally I don't think anyone is even remotely clear what a property is, so the whole discussion is a bit premature. Must properties have causal powers? |
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) |
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. |
6082 | If causal power is the test for reality, that will exclude necessities and possibilities [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Whether my body weight is necessary or contingent makes no difference at all to my causal powers, so modality is epiphenomenal; if you took causal potential as a test of reality you would have to declare modes unreal. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: We could try analysing modality into causal terms, as Lewis proposes with quantification across worlds, or as Quine proposes by reduction to natural regularities. I am not sure what it would mean to declare that modes are 'real'. |
6075 | Facts are object-plus-extension, or property-plus-set-of-properties, or object-plus-property [McGinn] |
Full Idea: A fact may be an object and an extension (Quine's view), or a property and a set of properties, or an object and a property; the view I favour is the third one, which seems the most natural. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: Personally I tend to use the word 'fact' in a realist and non-linguistic way. There must be innumerable inexpressible facts, such as the single pattern made by all the particles of the universe. McGinn seems to be talking of 'atomic facts'. See Idea 6111. |
14502 | Plato's idea of 'structure' tends to be mathematically expressed [Plato, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: 'Structure' tends to be characterized by Plato as something that is mathematically expressed. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects V.3 iv | |
A reaction: [Koslicki is drawing on Verity Harte here] |
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) |
17948 | Plato's Forms meant that the sophists only taught the appearance of wisdom and virtue [Plato, by Nehamas] |
Full Idea: Plato's theory of Forms allowed him to claim that the sophists and other opponents were trapped in the world of appearance. What they therefore taught was only apparent wisdom and virtue. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Alexander Nehamas - Eristic,Antilogic,Sophistic,Dialectic p.118 |
3039 | When Diogenes said he could only see objects but not their forms, Plato said it was because he had eyes but no intellect [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: When Diogenes told Plato he saw tables and cups, but not 'tableness' and 'cupness', Plato replied that this was because Diogenes had eyes but no intellect. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 06.2.6 |
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) |
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. |
20906 | Platonists argue for the indivisible triangle-in-itself [Plato, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: The Platonists, on the basis of purely logical arguments, posit the existence of an indivisible 'triangle in itself'. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 316a15 | |
A reaction: A helpful confirmation that geometrical figures really are among the Forms (bearing in mind that numbers are not, because they contain one another). What shape is the Form of the triangle? |
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. |
556 | If there is one Form for both the Form and its participants, they must have something in common [Aristotle on Plato] |
Full Idea: If there is the same Form for the Forms and for their participants, then they must have something in common. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 991a |
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. |
563 | If gods are like men, they are just eternal men; similarly, Forms must differ from particulars [Aristotle on Plato] |
Full Idea: We say there is the form of man, horse and health, but nothing else, making the same mistake as those who say that there are gods but that they are in the form of men. They just posit eternal men, and here we are not positing forms but eternal sensibles. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 997b |
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. |
557 | A Form is a cause of things only in the way that white mixed with white is a cause [Aristotle on Plato] |
Full Idea: A Form is a cause of things only in the way that white mixed with white is a cause. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 991a |
565 | The Forms cannot be changeless if they are in changing things [Aristotle on Plato] |
Full Idea: The Forms could not be changeless if they were in changing things. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 998a |
9607 | The greatest discovery in human thought is Plato's discovery of abstract objects [Brown,JR on Plato] |
Full Idea: The greatest discovery in the history of human thought is Plato's discovery of abstract objects. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by James Robert Brown - Philosophy of Mathematics Ch. 2 | |
A reaction: Compare Idea 2860! Given the diametrically opposed views, it is clearly likely that Plato's central view is the most important idea in the history of human thought, even if it is wrong. |
13263 | We can grasp whole things in science, because they have a mathematics and a teleology [Plato, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Due to the mathematical nature of structure and the teleological cause underlying the creation of Platonic wholes, these wholes are intelligible, and are in fact the proper objects of science. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.3 | |
A reaction: I like this idea, because it pays attention to the connection between how we conceive objects to be, and how we are able to think about objects. Only examining these two together enables us to grasp metaphysics. |
13261 | Plato sees an object's structure as expressible in mathematics [Plato, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: The 'structure' of an object tends to be characterised by Plato as something that is mathematically expressible. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.3 | |
A reaction: This seems to be pure Pythagoreanism (see Idea 644). Plato is pursuing Pythagoras's research programme, of trying to find mathematics buried in every aspect of reality. |
13265 | Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the source of unity in a complex object [Plato, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the project of how to account, in completely general terms, for the source of unity within a mereologically complex object. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.5 | |
A reaction: Plato seems to have simply asserted that some sort of harmony held things together. Aristotles puts the forms [eidos] within objects, rather than external, so he has to give a fuller account of what is going on in an object. He never managed it! |
593 | Plato's holds that there are three substances: Forms, mathematical entities, and perceptible bodies [Plato, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Plato's doctrine was that the Forms and mathematicals are two substances and that the third substance is that of perceptible bodies. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1028b |
13260 | Plato says wholes are either containers, or they're atomic, or they don't exist [Plato, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Plato considers a 'container' model for wholes (which are disjoint from their parts) [Parm 144e3-], and a 'nihilist' model, in which only wholes are mereological atoms, and a 'bare pluralities' view, in which wholes are not really one at all. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2 | |
A reaction: [She cites Verity Harte for this analysis of Plato] The fourth, and best, seems to be that wholes are parts which fall under some unifying force or structure or principle. |
11237 | Only universals have essence [Plato, by Politis] |
Full Idea: Plato argues that only universals have essence. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.4 |
11238 | Plato and Aristotle take essence to make a thing what it is [Plato, by Politis] |
Full Idea: Plato and Aristotle have a shared general conception of essence: the essence of a thing is what that thing is simply in virtue of itself and in virtue of being the very thing it is. It answers the question 'What is this very thing?' | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.4 |
6058 | Identity propositions are not always tautological, and have a key epistemic role [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Identity propositions are not always analytic or a priori (as Frege long ago taught us) so there is nothing trivial about such propositions; the claim of redundancy ignores the epistemic role that the concept of identity plays. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: He is referring to Frege's Morning Star/Evening Star distinction (Idea 4972). Wittgenstein wanted to eliminate our basic metaphysics by relabelling it as analytic or tautological, but his project failed. Long live metaphysics! |
6053 | Identity is as basic as any concept could ever be [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Identity has a universality and basicness that is hard to overstate; concepts don't get more basic than this - or more indispensable. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: I agree with this. It seems to me to follow that the natural numbers are just as basic, because they are entailed by the separateness of the identities of things. And the whole of mathematics is the science of the patterns within these numbers. |
6043 | Type-identity is close similarity in qualities [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Two things are said to be type-identical when they are similar enough to be declared qualitatively identical. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: A simple point which brings out the fact that type-identity is unlikely to be any sort of true identity (unless there is absolutely no different at all between two electrons, say). |
6044 | Qualitative identity is really numerical identity of properties [McGinn] |
Full Idea: A statement of so-called qualitative identity is really a statement of numerical identity (that is, identity tout court) about the properties of the objects in question - assuming that there are genuine universals. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: We might agree that two cars are type-identical, even though (under the microscope) we decided that none of their properties were absolutely identical. |
6046 | Qualitative identity can be analysed into numerical identity of the type involved [McGinn] |
Full Idea: We can analyse qualitative identity in terms of numerical identity, by saying that x and y are type-identical if there is a single type T that x and y both are, i.e. they both exemplify the same type. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: This just seems to shift the problem onto the words 'are' and 'exemplify'. This takes us back to the problem of things 'partaking' of Plato's Forms. Better to say that qualitative identity isn't identity - it is resemblance (see Idea 6045). |
6045 | It is best to drop types of identity, and speak of 'identity' or 'resemblance' [McGinn] |
Full Idea: It would be better to drop talk of 'numerical' and 'qualitative' identity altogether, speaking instead simply of identity and resemblance. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1 n4) | |
A reaction: This is the kind of beautifully simple proposal I pay analytical philosophers to come up with. I will attempt in future to talk either of 'identity' (which is strict), or 'resemblance' (which comes in degrees). |
6066 | Existence is a property of all objects, but less universal than self-identity, which covers even conceivable objects [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Existence is a property universal to all objects that exist, somewhat like self-identity, but less universal, because self-identity holds of all conceivable objects, not merely those that happen to exist. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: This is a splendidly defiant response to the Kantian slogan that 'existence is not a predicate', and I find McGinn persuasive. I can still not find anyone to explain to me exactly what a property is, so I will reserve judgement. |
6054 | Sherlock Holmes does not exist, but he is self-identical [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Sherlock Holmes does not exist, but he is self-identical (he is certainly not indentical to Dr Watson). | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: Most significant. Identity does not entail existence; identity is necessary for existence (I think) but not sufficient. But the notion of existence might be prior to the notion of identity, and the creation of Holmes be parasitic on real existence. |
6047 | All identity is necessary, though identity statements can be contingently true [McGinn] |
Full Idea: All identity is necessary, although there can be contingently true identity statements - those that contain non-rigid designators. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1 n5) | |
A reaction: A nice case of the need to keep epistemology and ontology separate. An example might be 'The Prime Minister wears a wig', where 'Prime Minister' may not be a rigid designator. 'Winston wears a wig' will be necessary, if true (which it wasn't). |
6049 | Leibniz's Law says 'x = y iff for all P, Px iff Py' [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's Law says 'x = y iff for all P, Px iff Py'. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: That is, two things are the same if when we say that one thing (x) has a property (P), then we are saying that the other thing (y) also has the property. A usefully concise statement of the Law. |
6048 | Leibniz's Law is so fundamental that it almost defines the concept of identity [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's Law, which a defender of relative identity might opt to reject, is so fundamental to the notion of identity that rejecting it amounts to changing the subject. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1 n8) | |
A reaction: The Law here is the 'indiscernibility of identicals'. I agree with McGinn, and anyone who loses their grip on this notion of identity strikes me as losing all grip on reality, and threatening their own sanity (well, call it their 'philosophical sanity'). |
6050 | Leibniz's Law presupposes the notion of property identity [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's Law presupposes the notion of property identity. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: A very important observation, because it leads to recognition of the way in which basic concepts and categories of thought interconnect. Which is more metaphysically basic, identity or properties? It is not easy to say… |
6080 | Modality is not objects or properties, but the type of binding of objects to properties [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Modality has a special ontological category: it consists neither in objects (possible worlds theory) nor in properties (predicate modifier view), but items I have called 'modes', ..which can be hard/soft/rigid/pliable binding of objects to properties. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: As so often, McGinn is very persuasive. Essentially he is proposing that modality is adverbial. He associates the middle view with David Wiggins. |
6079 | If 'possible' is explained as quantification across worlds, there must be possible worlds [McGinn] |
Full Idea: If we replace modal words like 'possible' with quantification across worlds, clearly the notion of 'world' must exclude impossible worlds, otherwise 'possibly p' will be true if 'p' holds in an impossible world. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: The point here, of course, is that the question is being begged of what 'possible' and 'impossible' actually mean. |
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) |
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) |
6081 | Necessity and possibility are big threats to the empiricist view of knowledge [McGinn] |
Full Idea: It is clear that modality is a prima-facie threat to the usual kind of naturalistic-causal-empiricist theory of knowledge. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: This is why modern empiricists spend of a lot of energy on trying to analyse counterfactuals and laws of nature. Rationalists are much happier to assert necessities a priori, but then they often don't have much basis for their claims. |
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. |
6071 | Scepticism about reality is possible because existence isn't part of appearances [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Scepticism about the external world is possible because you can never build existence into the appearances, so it must always be inferred or assumed. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: When McGinn's claim that existence is a very universal property begins to produce interesting observations like this, I think we should take it very seriously. |
17085 | A good explanation totally rules out the opposite explanation (so Forms are required) [Plato, by Ruben] |
Full Idea: For Plato, an acceptable explanation is one such that there is no possibility of there being the opposite explanation at all, and he thought that only explanations in terms of the Forms, but never physical explanations, could meet this requirement. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by David-Hillel Ruben - Explaining Explanation Ch 2 | |
A reaction: [Republic 436c is cited] |
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. |
1651 | Plato wanted to somehow control and purify the passions [Vlastos on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato put high on his agenda a project which did not figure in Socrates' programme at all: the hygienic conditioning of the passions. This cannot be an intellectual process, as argument cannot touch them. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.88 | |
A reaction: This is the standard traditional view of any thinker who exaggerates the importance and potential of reason in our lives. |
6077 | Semantics should not be based on set-membership, but on instantiation of properties in objects [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Semantics should not employ the relationship of set-membership between objects and extensions, but rather the relation of instantiation between objects and properties. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: At least this means that philosophers won't be required to read fat books on set theory, but they will have to think very carefully about 'instantiation'. A good start is the ideas on 'Partaking' of Platonic Forms in this database (in 'Universals'). |
6074 | Clearly predicates have extensions (applicable objects), but are the extensions part of their meaning? [McGinn] |
Full Idea: We are taught that predicates have extensions - the class of objects of which the predicate is true - which seems hard to deny; but a stronger claim is also made - that extensions are semantically relevant features of predicates. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: He cites Quine as a spokesman for this view. McGinn is going on to challenge it, by defending universals. It seems to fit in with other externalist theories of concepts and meanings, none of which seems very appealing to me. |
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? |
3324 | Plato's whole philosophy may be based on being duped by reification - a figure of speech [Benardete,JA on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato is liable to the charge of having been duped by a figure of speech, albeit the most profound of all, the trope of reification. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.12 | |
A reaction: That might be a plausible account if his view was ridiculous, but given how many powerful friends Plato has, especially in the philosophy of mathematics, we should assume he was cleverer than that. |
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) |
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) |
2135 | Truth is closely related to proportion [Plato] |
Full Idea: Truth is closely related to proportion. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 486d) |
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. |
7503 | Plato never refers to examining the conscience [Plato, by Foucault] |
Full Idea: Plato never speaks of the examination of conscience - never! | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Michel Foucault - On the Genealogy of Ethics p.276 | |
A reaction: Plato does imply some sort of self-evident direct knowledge about that nature of a healthy soul. Presumably the full-blown concept of conscience is something given from outside, from God. In 'Euthyphro', Plato asserts the primacy of morality (Idea 337). |
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. |
2173 | As religion and convention collapsed, Plato sought morals not just in knowledge, but in the soul [Williams,B on Plato] |
Full Idea: Once gods and fate and social expectation were no longer there, Plato felt it necessary to discover ethics inside human nature, not just as ethical knowledge (Socrates' view), but in the structure of the soul. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Shame and Necessity II - p.43 | |
A reaction: anti Charles Taylor |
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. |
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'? |
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'. |
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. |
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. |
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'? |
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 |
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. |
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? |
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. |
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'. |
9274 | Plato's legacy to European thought was the Good, the Beautiful and the True [Plato, by Gray] |
Full Idea: Plato's legacy to European thought was a trio of capital letters - the Good, the Beautiful and the True. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by John Gray - Straw Dogs 2.8 | |
A reaction: It seems to have been Baumgarten who turned this into a slogan (Idea 8117). Gray says these ideals are lethal, but I identify with them very strongly, and am quite happy to see the good life as an attempt to find the right balance between them. |
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. |
94 | Pleasure is better with the addition of intelligence, so pleasure is not the good [Plato, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Plato says the life of pleasure is more desirable with the addition of intelligence, and if the combination is better, pleasure is not the good. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics 1172b27 | |
A reaction: It is obvious why we like pleasure, but not why intelligence makes it 'better'. Maybe it is just because we enjoy intelligence? |
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. |
17947 | Plato decided that the virtuous and happy life was the philosophical life [Plato, by Nehamas] |
Full Idea: Plato came to the conclusion that virtue and happiness consist in the life of philosophy itself. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Alexander Nehamas - Eristic,Antilogic,Sophistic,Dialectic p.117 | |
A reaction: This view is obviously ridiculous, because it largely excludes almost the entire human race, which sees philosophy as a cul-de-sac, even if it is good. But virtue and happiness need some serious thought. |
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) |
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) |
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. |
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. |
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. |
6015 | Plato, unusually, said that theoretical and practical wisdom are inseparable [Plato, by Kraut] |
Full Idea: Two virtues that are ordinarily kept distinct - theoretical and practical wisdom - are joined by Plato; he thinks that neither one can be fully possessed unless it is combined with the other. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Richard Kraut - Plato | |
A reaction: I get the impression that this doctrine comes from Socrates, whose position is widely reported as 'intellectualist'. Aristotle certainly held the opposite view. |
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) |
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. |
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) |
2912 | Plato is boring [Nietzsche on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato is boring. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Twilight of the Idols 9.2 |
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. |
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) |
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) |
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) |
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) |
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) |
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) |
1526 | Almost everyone except Plato thinks that time could not have been generated [Plato, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: With a single exception (Plato) everyone agrees about time - that it is not generated. Democritus says time is an obvious example of something not generated. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 251b14 |
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 |
6072 | If Satan is the most imperfect conceivable being, he must have non-existence [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Satan cannot exist because he is the most imperfect conceivable being, and existence is one of the perfections. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: The logic of this seems right to me. Presumably the theologians would hastily deny this as a definition of Satan; he must have some positive qualities (like power) in order to enact his supreme moral imperfections. NIce, though. |
6073 | I think the fault of the Ontological Argument is taking the original idea to be well-defined [McGinn] |
Full Idea: My own suspicion about the Ontological Argument is that the fault lies in taking notions like 'the most perfect, impressive and powerful being conceivable' to be well-defined. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: I'm tempted to put it more strongly: the single greatest challenge for the theist with intellectual integrity is to give a clear and coherent definition of God. There must be no internal contradictions, and it must be within the bounds of possibility. |
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) |