58 ideas
| 224 | When questions are doubtful we should concentrate not on objects but on ideas of the intellect [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Doubtful questions should not be discussed in terms of visible objects or in relation to them, but only with reference to ideas conceived by the intellect. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135e) |
| 232 | Opposites are as unlike as possible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Opposites are as unlike as possible. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159a) |
| 8937 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic [Hegel on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic. | |
| From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Georg W.F.Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit Pref 71 | |
| A reaction: It is a long way from the analytic tradition of philosophy to be singling out a classic text for its 'artistic' achievement. Eventually we may even look back on, say, Kripke's 'Naming and Necessity' and see it in that light. |
| 13986 | Plato found antinomies in ideas, Kant in space and time, and Bradley in relations [Plato, by Ryle] |
| Full Idea: Plato (in 'Parmenides') shows that the theory that 'Eide' are substances, and Kant that space and time are substances, and Bradley that relations are substances, all lead to aninomies. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Gilbert Ryle - Are there propositions? 'Objections' |
| 14150 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made [Russell on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made. | |
| From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Bertrand Russell - The Principles of Mathematics §337 |
| 16150 | One is, so numbers exist, so endless numbers exist, and each one must partake of being [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If one is, there must also necessarily be number - Necessarily - But if there is number, there would be many, and an unlimited multitude of beings. ..So if all partakes of being, each part of number would also partake of it. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 144a) | |
| A reaction: This seems to commit to numbers having being, then to too many numbers, and hence to too much being - but without backing down and wondering whether numbers had being after all. Aristotle disagreed. |
| 229 | The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 155d) |
| 21821 | Plato's Parmenides has a three-part theory, of Primal One, a One-Many, and a One-and-Many [Plato, by Plotinus] |
| Full Idea: The Platonic Parmenides is more exact [than Parmenides himself]; the distinction is made between the Primal One, a strictly pure Unity, and a secondary One which is a One-Many, and a third which is a One-and-Many. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08 | |
| A reaction: Plotinus approves of this three-part theory. Parmenides has the problem that the highest Being contains no movement. By placing the One outside Being you can give it powers which an existent thing cannot have. Cf the concept of God. |
| 221 | Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The absolute good and the beautiful and all which we conceive to be absolute ideas are unknown to us. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 134c) |
| 223 | If you deny that each thing always stays the same, you destroy the possibility of discussion [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If a person denies that the idea of each thing is always the same, he will utterly destroy the power of carrying on discussion. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135c) |
| 227 | You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name [Plato] |
| Full Idea: You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 147d) |
| 210 | It would be absurd to think there were abstract Forms for vile things like hair, mud and dirt [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Are there abstract ideas for such things as hair, mud and dirt, which are particularly vile and worthless? That would be quite absurd. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 130d) |
| 220 | The concept of a master includes the concept of a slave [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Mastership in the abstract is mastership of slavery in the abstract. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133e) |
| 211 | If admirable things have Forms, maybe everything else does as well [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is troubling that if admirable things have abstract ideas, then perhaps everything else must have ideas as well. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 130d) |
| 219 | If absolute ideas existed in us, they would cease to be absolute [Plato] |
| Full Idea: None of the absolute ideas exists in us, because then it would no longer be absolute. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133c) |
| 228 | Greatness and smallness must exist, to be opposed to one another, and come into being in things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: These two ideas, greatness and smallness, exist, do they not? For if they did not exist, they could not be opposites of one another, and could not come into being in things. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 149e) |
| 16151 | Plato moves from Forms to a theory of genera and principles in his later work [Plato, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: It seems to me that Plato in the later dialogues, beginning with the second half of 'Parmenides', wants to substitute a theory of genera and theory of principles that constitute these genera for the earlier theory of forms. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Title, Unity, Authenticity of the 'Categories' V | |
| A reaction: My theory is that the later Plato came under the influence of the brilliant young Aristotle, and this idea is a symptom of it. The theory of 'principles' sounds like hylomorphism to me. |
| 218 | Participation is not by means of similarity, so we are looking for some other method of participation [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Participation is not by means of likeness, so we must seek some other method of participation. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133a) |
| 213 | Each idea is in all its participants at once, just as daytime is a unity but in many separate places at once [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Just as day is in many places at once, but not separated from itself, so each idea might be in all its participants at once. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 131b) |
| 216 | If things are made alike by participating in something, that thing will be the absolute idea [Plato] |
| Full Idea: That by participation in which like things are made like, will be the absolute idea, will it not? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132e) |
| 215 | If things partake of ideas, this implies either that everything thinks, or that everything actually is thought [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If all things partake of ideas, must either everything be made of thoughts and everything thinks, or everything is thought, and so can't think? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132c) |
| 212 | The whole idea of each Form must be found in each thing which participates in it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The whole idea of each form (of beauty, justice etc) must be found in each thing which participates in it. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 131a) |
| 217 | Nothing can be like an absolute idea, because a third idea intervenes to make them alike (leading to a regress) [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible for anything to be like an absolute idea, because a third idea will appear to make them alike, and if that is like anything, it will lead to another idea, and so on. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133a) |
| 214 | If absolute greatness and great things are seen as the same, another thing appears which makes them seem great [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If you regard the absolute great and the many great things in the same way, will not another appear beyond, by which all these must appear to be great? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132a) |
| 15851 | Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The part would not be the part of many things or all, but of some one character ['ideas'] and of some one thing, which we call a 'whole', since it has come to be one complete [perfected] thing composed [created] of all. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157d) | |
| A reaction: A serious shot by Plato at what identity is. Harte quotes it (125) and shows that 'character' is Gk 'idea', and 'composed' will translate as 'created'. 'Form' links this Platonic passage to Aristotle's hylomorphism. |
| 15846 | In Parmenides, if composition is identity, a whole is nothing more than its parts [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: At the heart of the 'Parmenides' puzzles about composition is the thesis that composition is identity. Considered thus, a whole adds nothing to an ontology that already includes its parts | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 2.5 | |
| A reaction: There has to be more to a unified identity that mere proximity of the parts. When do parts come together, and when do they actually 'compose' something? |
| 15849 | Plato says only a one has parts, and a many does not [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: In 'Parmenides' it is argued that a part cannot be part of a many, but must be part of something one. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 3.2 | |
| A reaction: This looks like the right way to go with the term 'part'. We presuppose a unity before we even talk of its parts, so we can't get into contradictions and paradoxes about their relationships. |
| 15850 | Anything which has parts must be one thing, and parts are of a one, not of a many [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The whole of which the parts are parts must be one thing composed of many; for each of the parts must be part, not of a many, but of a whole. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
| A reaction: This is a key move of metaphysics, and we should hang on to it. The other way madness lies. |
| 13259 | It seems that the One must be composed of parts, which contradicts its being one [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The One must be composed of parts, both being a whole and having parts. So on both grounds the One would thus be many and not one. But it must be not many, but one. So if the One will be one, it will neither be a whole, nor have parts. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137c09), quoted by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2 | |
| A reaction: This is the starting point for Plato's metaphysical discussion of objects. It seems to begin a line of thought which is completed by Aristotle, surmising that only an essential structure can bestow identity on a bunch of parts. |
| 15847 | Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Everything is surely related to everything as follows: either it is the same or different; or, if it is not the same or different, it would be related as part to whole or as whole to part. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 146b) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a really helpful first step in trying to analyse the nature of identity. Two things are either two or (actually) one, or related mereologically. |
| 23308 | Reasoning relates to understanding as time does to eternity [Boethius, by Sorabji] |
| Full Idea: Boethius says that reasoning [ratiocinatio] is related to intellectual understanding [intellectus] as time to eternity, involving as it does movement from one stage to another. | |
| From: report of Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], 4, prose 6) by Richard Sorabji - Rationality 'Shifting' | |
| A reaction: This gives true understanding a quasi-religious aura, as befits a subject which is truly consoling. |
| 5771 | Knowledge of present events doesn't make them necessary, so future events are no different [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: Just as the knowledge of present things imposes no necessity on what is happening, so foreknowledge imposes no necessity on what is going to happen. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], V.IV) | |
| A reaction: This, I think, is the key idea if you are looking for a theological answer to the theological problem of free will. Don't think of God as seeing the future 'now'. God is outside time, and so only observes all of history just as we observe the present. |
| 5767 | Rational natures require free will, in order to have power of judgement [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: There is freedom of the will, for it would be impossible for any rational nature to exist without it. Whatever by nature has the use of reason has the power of judgement to decide each matter. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], V.II) | |
| A reaction: A view taken up by Aquinas (Idea 1849) and Kant (Idea 3740). The 'power of judgement' pinpoints the core of rationality, and it is not clear how a robot could fulfil such a power, if it lacked consciousness. Does a machine 'judge' barcodes? |
| 5768 | God's universal foreknowledge seems opposed to free will [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: God's universal foreknowledge and freedom of the will seem clean contrary and opposite. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], V.III) | |
| A reaction: The original source of the great theological and philosophical anguish over free will. The problem is anything which fixes future facts, be it oracular knowledge or scientific prediction. Personally I think free will was an invention by religions. |
| 5769 | Does foreknowledge cause necessity, or necessity cause foreknowledge? [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: Does foreknowledge of the future cause the necessity of events, or necessity cause the foreknowledge? | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], V.III) | |
| A reaction: An intriguing question, though not one that bothers me. I don't understand how foreknowledge causes necessity, unless God's vision of the future is a kind of 'freezing ray'. Even the gods must bow to necessity (Idea 3016). |
| 5762 | The wicked want goodness, so they would not be wicked if they obtained it [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: If the wicked obtained what they want - that is goodness - they could not be wicked. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], IV.II) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice paradox which arises from Boethius being, like Socrates, an intellectualist. The question is whether the wicked want the good de re or de dicto. If they wanted to good de re (as its true self) they would obviously not be wicked. |
| 5770 | Rewards and punishments are not deserved if they don't arise from free movement of the mind [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: If there is no free will, then in vain is reward offered to the good and punishment to the bad, because they have not been deserved by any free and willed movement of the mind. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], V.III) | |
| A reaction: I just don't see why decisions have to come out of nowhere in order to have any merit. People are different from natural forces, because the former can be persuaded by reasons. A moral agent is a mechanism which decides according to reasons. |
| 5764 | When people fall into wickedness they lose their human nature [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: When people fall into wickedness they lose their human nature. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], IV.III) | |
| A reaction: This is a view I find quite sympathetic, but which is a million miles from the modern view. Today's paper showed a picture of a famous criminal holding a machine gun and a baby. We seem to delight in the idea that human nature is partly wicked. |
| 5756 | Happiness is a good which once obtained leaves nothing more to be desired [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: Happiness is a good which once obtained leaves nothing more to be desired. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], III.I) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like the ancient 'eudaimonism' of Socrates and Aristotle, which might not be entirely compatible with orthodox Christianity. It is not true, though, that happy people lack ambition. To be happy, an unfilfilled aim may be needed. |
| 5763 | The bad seek the good through desire, but the good through virtue, which is more natural [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: The supreme good is the goal of good men and bad men alike, and the good seek it by means of a natural activity - the exercise of virtue - while the bad strive to acquire it by means of their desires, which is not a natural way of obtaining the good. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], IV.II) | |
| A reaction: Interesting here is the slightly surprising claim that the pursuit of virtue is 'natural', implying that the mere pursuit of desire is not. Doesn't nature have to be restrained to achieve the good? Boethius is in the tradition of Aristotle and stoicism. |
| 5759 | Varied aims cannot be good because they differ, but only become good when they unify [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: The various things that men pursue are not perfect and good, because they differ from one another; ..when they differ they are not good, but when they begin to be one they become good, so it is through the acquisition of unity that these things are good. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], III.XI) | |
| A reaction: This is a criticism of Aristotle's pluralism about the good(s) for man. Boethius' thought is appealing, and ties in with the Socratic notion that the virtues might be unified in some way. I think it is right that true virtues merge together, ideally. |
| 5754 | You can't control someone's free mind, only their body and possessions [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: The only way one man can exercise power over another is over his body and what is inferior to it, his possessions. You cannot impose anything on a free mind. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], II.VI) | |
| A reaction: Written, of course, in prison. Boethius had not met hypnotism, or mind-controlling drugs, or invasive brain surgery. He hadn't read '1984'. He hadn't seen 'The Ipcress File'. (In fact, he should have got out more…) |
| 222 | Only a great person can understand the essence of things, and an even greater person can teach it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Only a man of very great natural gifts will be able to understand that everything has a class and absolute essence, and an even more wonderful man can teach this. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135a) |
| 225 | The unlimited has no shape and is endless [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The unlimited partakes neither of the round nor of the straight, because it has no ends nor edges. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137e) |
| 233 | Some things do not partake of the One [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The others cannot partake of the one in any way; they can neither partake of it nor of the whole. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159d) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 231 |
| 2062 | The only movement possible for the One is in space or in alteration [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If the One moves it either moves spatially or it is altered, since these are the only motions. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 138b) |
| 231 | Everything partakes of the One in some way [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The others are not altogether deprived of the one, for they partake of it in some way. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 233. |
| 19414 | Men are related to animals, which are related to plants, then to fossils, and then to the apparently inert [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Men are related to animals, these to plants, and the latter directly to fossils which will be linked in their turn to bodies which the senses and the imagination represent to us as perfectly dead and formless. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Varignon [1702], 1702) | |
| A reaction: Leibniz would be a bit surprised to find the way in which this has turned out to be largely true, since he is basing it on his picture of a hierarchy of monads. Nevertheless, the idea that we are all related wasn't invented in 1859. |
| 16692 | Divine eternity is the all-at-once and complete possession of unending life [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: Divine eternity is the all-at-once [tota simul] and complete possession of unending life. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], V.6), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.1 | |
| A reaction: This is a famous definition, and 'tota simul' became the phrase used for 'entia successiva', such as a day, or the Olympic Games. |
| 5752 | Where does evil come from if there is a god; where does good come from if there isn't? [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: A philosopher (possibly Epicurus) asked where evil comes from if there is a god, and where good comes from if there isn't. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], I.IV) | |
| A reaction: A nice question. The best known answer to the first question is 'Satan'. Some would say that in the second case good is impossible, but I would have thought that the only possible answer is 'mankind'. |
| 5758 | God is the good [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: God is the good. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], III.XI) | |
| A reaction: This summary follows on from the rather dubious discussion in Idea 5757. If God IS the good, it is not clear how God could be usefully described as 'good'. We would know that he was good a priori, without any enquiry into his nature being needed. |
| 5757 | God is the supreme good, so no source of goodness could take precedence over God [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: That which by its own nature is something distinct from supreme good, cannot be supreme good. ..It is impossible for anything to be by nature better than that from which it is derived, so that which is the origin of all things is supreme good. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], III.X) | |
| A reaction: This is the contortion early Christians got into once they decided God had to be 'supreme' in the moral world (and every other world). Boethius allows a possible external source of all morality, but then has to say that this source is morally inferior. |
| 234 | We couldn't discuss the non-existence of the One without knowledge of it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There must be knowledge of the one, or else not even the meaning of the words 'if the one does not exist' would be known. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 160d) |
| 5760 | The power through which creation remains in existence and motion I call 'God' [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: For this power, whatever it is, through which creation remains in existence and in motion, I use the word which all people use, namely God. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], III.XII) | |
| A reaction: An interesting caution in the phrase 'whatever it is'. Boethius would have been very open-minded in discussion with modern science about the stability of nature. Personally I reject Boethius' theory, but don't have a better one. Cf Idea 1431. |
| 5753 | The regular events of this life could never be due to chance [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: I could never believe that events of such regularity as we find in this life are due to the haphazards of chance. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], I.VI) | |
| A reaction: It depends what you mean by 'chance'. Boethius infers a conscious mind, and presumes this to be God, but that is two large and unsupported steps. Modern atheists must acknowledge Boethius' problem. Why is there order? |
| 5765 | The reward of the good is to become gods [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: Goodness is happiness, ..but we agree that those who attain happiness are divine. The reward of the good, then, is to become gods. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], IV.III) | |
| A reaction: Kant offered a similar argument (see Idea 1455). Most of us are unlikely to agree with the second premise of Boethius' argument. The idea that we might somehow become gods gripped the imagination for the next thousand years. |
| 5761 | God can do anything, but he cannot do evil, so evil must be nothing [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: 'There is nothing that an omnipotent power could not do?' 'No.' 'Then can God do evil?' 'No.' 'So evil is nothing, since that is what He cannot do who can do anthing.' | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], III.XII) | |
| A reaction: A lovely example of the contortions necessary once you insist that God must be 'omnipotent', in some absolute sense of the term. Saying that evil is 'nothing' strikes me as nothing more than a feeble attempt to insult it. |
| 5766 | If you could see the plan of Providence, you would not think there was evil anywhere [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: If you could see the plan of Providence, you would not think there was evil anywhere. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], IV.VI) | |
| A reaction: This brings out the verificationist in me. See Idea 1467, by Antony Flew. Presumably Boethius would retain his faith as Europe moved horribly from 1939 to 1945, and even if the whole of humanity sank into squalid viciousness. |