40 ideas
| 125 | Is a gifted philosopher unmanly if he avoids the strife of the communal world? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Callicles: Even a naturally gifted philosopher isn't going to develop into a real man, because he's avoiding the heart of his community and the thick of the agora. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 485d) | |
| A reaction: A serious charge against philosophy. An attraction of the subject is its purity, its necessity, its timelessness, and in some ways these are just nicer and easier and more understandable than the hard mess of real life. But understanding has to be good. |
| 16123 | Whenever you perceive a community of things, you should also hunt out differences in the group [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The rule is that when one perceives first the community between the members of a group of many things, one should not desist until one sees in it all those differences that are located in classes. | |
| From: Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 285b) | |
| A reaction: He goes on to recommend the opposite as well - see community even when there appears to be nothing but differences. I take this to be analysis, just as much as modern linguistic approaches are. Analyse the world, not language. |
| 4321 | We should test one another, by asking and answering questions [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Test me, and let yourself be tested as well, by asking and answering questions. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 462a) | |
| A reaction: The idea must be to avoid wild speculation, by continually filtering ideas through rival critical intelligences. The best philosophical method ever devised. |
| 1654 | In "Gorgias" Socrates is confident that his 'elenchus' will decide moral truth [Vlastos on Plato] |
| Full Idea: In the 'Gorgias' Socrates is still supremely confident that the elenchus is the final arbiter of moral truth. | |
| From: comment on Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.117 |
| 16125 | To reveal a nature, divide down, and strip away what it has in common with other things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Let's take the kind posited and cut it in two, .then follow the righthand part of what we've cut, and hold onto things that the sophist is associated with until we strip away everything he has in common with other things, then display his peculiar nature. | |
| From: Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 264e) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be close to Aristotle's account of definition, when he is trying to get at what-it-is-to-be some thing. But if you strip away everything the definiendum has in common with other things, will anything remain? |
| 16124 | No one wants to define 'weaving' just for the sake of weaving [Plato] |
| Full Idea: I don't suppose that anyone with any sense would want to hunt down the definition of 'weaving' for the sake of weaving itself. | |
| From: Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 285d) | |
| A reaction: The point seems to be that the definition brings out the connections between weaving and other activities and objects, thus enlarging our understanding. |
| 5040 | Necessary truths can be analysed into original truths; contingent truths are infinitely analysable [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Derivative truths are of two sorts: some are analysed into original truths, others admit of an infinite process of analysis. The former are necessary, the latter are contingent. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Freedom [1689], p.108) | |
| A reaction: An intriguing proposal. Hume would presumably see contingent truths as being analysed until you reach 'impressions'. Analysis of necessary truths soon comes to the blinding light of what is obvious, but analysis of contingency never gets there. |
| 13159 | Only God sees contingent truths a priori [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Only God sees contingent truths a priori. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Freedom [1689], p.95) | |
| A reaction: This because everything is interconnected, and the whole picture must be seen to understand a contingent truth. |
| 5039 | If non-existents are possible, their existence would replace what now exists, which cannot therefore be necessary [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: If certain possibles never exist, then existing things are not always necessary; otherwise it would be impossible for other things to exist instead of them, and so all things that never exist would be impossible. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Freedom [1689], p.106) | |
| A reaction: A neat argument, though it is not self-evident that when possibles came into existence they would have to replace what is already there. Can't something be possible, but only in another world, because this one is already booked? |
| 5961 | The soul gets its goodness from god, and its evil from previous existence. [Plato] |
| Full Idea: From its composer the soul possesses all beautiful things, but from its former condition, everything that proves to be harsh and unjust in heaven. | |
| From: Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 273b) | |
| A reaction: A neat move to explain the origins of evil (or rather, to shift the problem of evil to a long long way from here). This view presumably traces back to the views of Empedocles on good and evil. Can the soul acquire evil in its current existence? |
| 283 | The question of whether or not to persuade comes before the science of persuasion [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The science of whether one must persuade or not must rule over the science capable of persuading. | |
| From: Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 304c) | |
| A reaction: Plato probably thinks that reason has to be top of the pyramid, but there is always the Nietzschean/romantic question of why we should place such a value on what is rational. |
| 114 | Rhetoric can produce conviction, but not educate people about right and wrong [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Rhetoric is an agent of the kind of persuasion which is designed to produce conviction, but not to educate people about right and wrong. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 455a) | |
| A reaction: Surely there must be good rhetoric (or at least it is an open question)? |
| 116 | Rhetoric is irrational about its means and its ends [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Rhetoric is a knack, because it lacks rational understanding of its object or what it dispenses (and can't explain the reason anything happens). | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 465a) | |
| A reaction: If there are cunning people who have the wrong sort of intelligence for morality, there must be cunning users of rhetoric who know exactly what they are doing. |
| 135 | All activity aims at the good [Plato] |
| Full Idea: All activity aims at the good. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 499e) | |
| A reaction: He includes non-conscious activity, so this is the 'teleological' view of nature, which seems a bit optimistic to the modern mind. |
| 282 | Non-physical beauty can only be shown clearly by speech [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The bodiless things, being the most beautiful and the greatest, are only shown with clarity by speech and nothing else. | |
| From: Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 286a) | |
| A reaction: Unfortunately this will be true of warped and ugly ideas as well. |
| 122 | Moral rules are made by the weak members of humanity [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Callicles: It's the weaklings who constitute the majority of the human race who make the rules. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 483b) | |
| A reaction: An aristocrat bemoans democracy. Presumably the qualification for being a 'weakling' is shortage of money. How strong are the scions of the aristocrats? |
| 139 | A good person is bound to act well, and this brings happiness [Plato] |
| Full Idea: A good person is bound to do whatever he does well and successfully, and success brings fulfilment and happiness. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 507c) | |
| A reaction: Not how we would see it, I guess, but this is the Greek idea that a good person is one who functions well. Anyone who functions well is probably having a good time. |
| 128 | Is it natural to simply indulge our selfish desires? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Callicles: Nature says the only authentic way of life is to do nothing to hinder or restrain the expansion of one's desires. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 491e) | |
| A reaction: Sounds like the natural desires of a young single man. Parents and spouses have natural desires that focus on other people's desires. |
| 136 | Good should be the aim of pleasant activity, not the other way round [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Good should be the goal of pleasant activities, rather than pleasure being the goal of good activities. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 500a) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Not far off what Aristotle says on the topic. So what activities should we seek out? Narrow the pleasures down to the good ones, or narrow the good ones down to the pleasurable? |
| 4322 | In slaking our thirst the goodness of the action and the pleasure are clearly separate [Plato] |
| Full Idea: When we drink to quench thirst, we lose the distress of the thirst and the pleasure of drinking at the same moment, but one loss is good and the other bad, so the pleasure and the goodness must be separate. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 497d) | |
| A reaction: This is open to the objection that the good of slaking one's thirst is a long-term pleasure, where the drinking is short-term, so pleasure is still the good. |
| 24223 | Admirable people are happy, and unjust people are miserable [Plato] |
| Full Idea: I say that the admirable and good person, man or woman, is happy [eudaimon], but that the one who's unjust and wicked is miserable. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 470e) | |
| A reaction: This is eudaimonia, which is flourishing. So Socrates might consider them to be flourishing, when they saw themselves as failure. Parents said make money, but instead they lived altruistically, but guiltily. Note 'woman'. |
| 134 | Good and bad people seem to experience equal amounts of pleasure and pain [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There is little to tell between good and bad people (e.g. cowards) in terms of how much pleasure and distress they experience. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 498c) | |
| A reaction: A very perceptive remark. If the good are people with empathy for others, then they may suffer more distress than the insensitive wicked. |
| 4319 | In a fool's mind desire is like a leaky jar, insatiable in its desires, and order and contentment are better [Plato] |
| Full Idea: In a fool's mind desire is a leaky jar, …which is an analogy for the mind's insatiability, showing we should prefer an orderly life, in which one is content with whatever is to hand, to a self-indulgent life of insatiable desire. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 493b) | |
| A reaction: This points to an interesting paradox, that pleasure requires the misery of desire. And yet absence of desire is like death. An Aristotelian mean, of living according to nature, seems the escape route. |
| 132 | If happiness is the satisfaction of desires, then a life of scratching itches should be happiness [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Socrates: I want to ask whether a lifetime spent scratching, itching and scratching, no end of scratching, is also a life of happiness. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 494c) | |
| A reaction: There are plenty of people who think 'fun' is the main aim of life, and who fit what Socrates is referring to. We don't admire such a life, but not many people can be admired. |
| 130 | Is the happiest state one of sensual, self-indulgent freedom? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Callicles: If a person has the means to live a life of sensual, self-indulgent freedom, there's no better or happier state of existence. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 492c) |
| 120 | Should we avoid evil because it will bring us bad consequences? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Socrates: We should avoid doing wrong because of all the bad consequences it will bring us. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 480a) |
| 118 | I would rather be a victim of crime than a criminal [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Socrates: If I had to choose between doing wrong and having wrong done to me, I'd prefer the latter to the former. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 469c) | |
| A reaction: cf Democritus 68B45 |
| 281 | The arts produce good and beautiful things by preserving the mean [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is by preserving the mean that arts produce everything that is good and beautiful. | |
| From: Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 284b) |
| 131 | If absence of desire is happiness, then nothing is happier than a stone or a corpse [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Callicles: If people who need nothing are happy, there would be nothing happier than a stone or a corpse. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 492e) | |
| A reaction: We aren't really supposed to approve of Callicles, but to me this is a splendidly crushing western response to many of the ideals found in eastern philosophy. |
| 140 | Self-indulgent desire makes friendship impossible, because it makes a person incapable of co-operation [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Self-indulgent desire makes a person incapable of co-operation, which is a prerequisite of friendship. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 507e) |
| 119 | A criminal is worse off if he avoids punishment [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Socrates: A criminal is worse off if he doesn't pay the penalty, and continues to do wrong without getting punished. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 472e) |
| 129 | Do most people praise self-discipline and justice because they are too timid to gain their own pleasure? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Callicles: Why do most people praise self-discipline and justice? Because their own timidity makes them incapable of satisfying their pleasures. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 492a) |
| 4320 | The popular view is that health is first, good looks second, and honest wealth third [Plato] |
| Full Idea: I'm sure you know the list of human advantages in the party song: 'The very best is health, Second good looks, and third honest wealth'. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 451e) | |
| A reaction: This invites the obvious question of why anyone wants these three things, with the implied answer of 'pleasure'. But we might want them even if we couldn't use them, implying pluralism. |
| 137 | As with other things, a good state is organised and orderly [Plato] |
| Full Idea: As in every case (an artefact, a body, a mind, a creature), a good state is an organised and orderly state. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 506e) |
| 22559 | Democracy is the worst of good constitutions, but the best of bad constitutions [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Plato judged that when the constitution is decent, democracy is the worst of them, but when they are bad it is the best. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 302e) by Aristotle - Politics 1289b07 | |
| A reaction: Aristotle denies that a good oligarchy is superior. What of technocracy? The challenge is to set up institutions which ensure the health of the democracy. The big modern problem is populists who lie. |
| 141 | A good citizen won't be passive, but will redirect the needs of the state [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The only responsibility of a good member of a community is altering the community's needs rather than going along with them. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 517b) |
| 123 | Do most people like equality because they are second-rate? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Callicles: It's because most people are second-rate that they are happy for things to be distributed equally. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 483c) |
| 124 | Does nature imply that it is right for better people to have greater benefits? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Callicles: We only have to look at nature to find evidence that it is right for better to have a greater share than worse. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 483d) |
| 279 | Only divine things can always stay the same, and bodies are not like that [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is fitting for only the most divine things of all to be always the same and in the same state and in the same respects, and the nature of body is not of this ordering. | |
| From: Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 269b) |
| 5041 | God does everything in a perfect way, and never acts contrary to reason [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: We can regard it as certain that everything is done by God in the most perfect way, that he does nothing which is contrary to reason. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Freedom [1689], p.109) | |
| A reaction: The famous optimism which Voltaire laughed at in 'Candide'. I can't help thinking that there is an ideal of God being ABOVE reason. We reason, and give reasons, because we are unsure, and life is a struggle. The highest ideal is mystically self-evident. |