43 ideas
| 2056 | Philosophers are always switching direction to something more interesting [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers are always ready to change direction, if a topic crops up which is more attractive than the one to hand. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 172d) | |
| A reaction: Which sounds trivial, but it may be what God does. |
| 18859 | Metaphysics is a quest for truthmakers [Tallant] |
| Full Idea: In this book I will treat metaphysics as a quest for truthmakers. | |
| From: Jonathan Tallant (Metaphysics: an introduction [2011], 01) | |
| A reaction: I find this appealing, though obviously you have to say what sort of truthmakers generate 'metaphysical' truths, as opposed to physics or biology. I take it that would involve truthmakers that had a high level of generality, idealisation and abstraction. |
| 2086 | Understanding mainly involves knowing the elements, not their combinations [Plato] |
| Full Idea: A perfect grasp of any subject depends far more on knowing elements than on knowing complexes. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 206b) |
| 2083 | Either a syllable is its letters (making parts as knowable as whole) or it isn't (meaning it has no parts) [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Either a syllable is not the same as its letters, in which case it cannot have the letters as parts of itself, or it is the same as its letters, in which case these basic elements are just as knowable as it is. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 205b) |
| 2082 | A rational account is essentially a weaving together of things with names [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Just as primary elements are woven together, so their names may be woven together to produce a spoken account, because an account is essentially a weaving together of names. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 202b) | |
| A reaction: If justification requires 'logos', and logos is a 'weaving together of names', then Plato might be taken as endorsing the coherence account of justification. Or do the two 'weavings' correspond? |
| 2052 | Eristic discussion is aggressive, but dialectic aims to help one's companions in discussion [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Eristic discussions involve as many tricks and traps as possible, but dialectical discussions involve being serious and correcting the interlocutor's mistakes only when they are his own fault or the result of past conditioning. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 167e) |
| 15854 | A primary element has only a name, and no logos, but complexes have an account, by weaving the names [Plato] |
| Full Idea: A primary element cannot be expressed in an account; it can only be named, for a name is all that it has. But with the things composed of these ...just as the elements are woven together, so the names can woven to become an account. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 202b01-3) | |
| A reaction: This is the beginning of what I see as Aristotle's metaphysics, as derived from his epistemology, that is, ontology is what explains, and what we can give an account [logos] of. Aristotle treats this under 'definitions'. |
| 18861 | Maybe number statements can be paraphrased into quantifications plus identities [Tallant] |
| Full Idea: One strategy is whenever we are presented with a sentence that might appear to entail the existence of numbers, all that we have to do is paraphrase it using a quantified logic, plus identity. | |
| From: Jonathan Tallant (Metaphysics: an introduction [2011], 03.5) | |
| A reaction: This nominalist strategy seems fine for manageable numbers, but gets in trouble with numbers too big to count (e.g. grains of sand in the world) , or genuine infinities. |
| 18866 | Maybe only 'positive' truths need truth-makers [Tallant] |
| Full Idea: We might say that those truths that do not need truth-makers are those that are negative. Those that do need truth-makers are those that are positive. | |
| From: Jonathan Tallant (Metaphysics: an introduction [2011], 10.8) | |
| A reaction: If you deny the existence of something, there is always an implicit domain for the denial, such as 'on the table', or 'in this building', or 'in the cosmos'. So why can't that domain be the truthmaker for a negative existential? |
| 18860 | A truthmaker is the minimal portion of reality that will do the job [Tallant] |
| Full Idea: A 'minimal' truth-maker is the 'smallest' portion of reality required to make a given proposition true. | |
| From: Jonathan Tallant (Metaphysics: an introduction [2011], 01.2) | |
| A reaction: A nice suggestion. This seems to make Ockham's Razor an integral part of the theory of truth-makers. I would apply the same principle to explanations. An Ockhamist explanation is what explains the puzzling thing - and nothing else. |
| 18863 | What is the truthmaker for a possible new power? [Tallant] |
| Full Idea: What power will make true 'there could be a power that does not in fact exist'? | |
| From: Jonathan Tallant (Metaphysics: an introduction [2011], 04.13) | |
| A reaction: Nice question. We can't know whether it is true that a new power could exist, so we can't expect an actual truthmaker for it. Though we might predict new powers (such as for a new transuranic element), on the basis of the known ones. |
| 18256 | Quantity is inconceivable without the idea of addition [Frege] |
| Full Idea: There is so intimate a connection between the concepts of addition and of quantity that one cannot begin to grasp the latter without the former. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Rechnungsmethoden (dissertation) [1874], p.2), quoted by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics 22 'Quantit' | |
| A reaction: Frege offers good reasons for making cardinals prior to ordinals, though plenty of people disagree. |
| 10216 | We master arithmetic by knowing all the numbers in our soul [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It must surely be true that a man who has completely mastered arithmetic knows all numbers? Because there are pieces of knowledge covering all numbers in his soul. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 198b) | |
| A reaction: This clearly views numbers as objects. Expectation of knowing them all is a bit startling! They also appear to be innate in us, and hence they appear to be Forms. See Aristotle's comment in Idea 645. |
| 9831 | Geometry appeals to intuition as the source of its axioms [Frege] |
| Full Idea: The elements of all geometrical constructions are intuitions, and geometry appeals to intuition as the source of its axioms. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Rechnungsmethoden (dissertation) [1874], Ch.6), quoted by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics | |
| A reaction: Very early Frege, but he stuck to this view, while firmly rejecting intuition as a source of arithmetic. Frege would have known well that Euclid's assumption about parallels had been challenged. |
| 2060 | There seem to be two sorts of change: alteration and motion [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There are two kinds of change, I think: alteration and motion. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 181d) | |
| A reaction: Idea 1700 is better than this. |
| 18864 | The wisdom of Plato and of Socrates are not the same property [Tallant] |
| Full Idea: It is not the case that Plato's wisdom = Socrates's wisdom. Platonic-wisdom and Socratic-wisdom are not the same property. | |
| From: Jonathan Tallant (Metaphysics: an introduction [2011], 05.4) | |
| A reaction: This seems reasonable in the case of wisdom, but not so clear in the case of indistinguishable properties of redness or squareness or mass. Nevertheless it gives nice support for trope theory. |
| 18865 | Substance must have two properties: individuation, and property-bearing [Tallant] |
| Full Idea: It appears that substance has essential properties: it is of the essence of substance that it individuates, and it is of the essence of substance that it bears properties. | |
| From: Jonathan Tallant (Metaphysics: an introduction [2011], 06.2) | |
| A reaction: The point being that substances are not 'bear', because they have a role to perform, and a complete blank can't fulfil a role. We can't take substance, though, seriously in ontology. It is just a label for distinct individuals. |
| 2084 | If a word has no parts and has a single identity, it turns out to be the same kind of thing as a letter [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If a complex or a syllable has no parts and is a single identity, hasn't it turned out to be the same kind of thing as an element or letter? | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 205d) |
| 15844 | A sum is that from which nothing is lacking, which is a whole [Plato] |
| Full Idea: But this sum now - isn't it just when there is nothing lacking that it is a sum? Yes, necessarily. And won't this very same thing - that from which nothing is lacking - be a whole? | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 205a) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be right, be rather too vague and potentially circular to be of much use. What is the criterion for deciding that nothing is lacking? |
| 15843 | The whole can't be the parts, because it would be all of the parts, which is the whole [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The whole does not consist of parts; for it did, it would be all the parts and so would be the sum. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 204e) | |
| A reaction: That is, 'the whole is the sum of its parts' is a tautology! The claim that 'the whole is more than the sum of its parts' gets into similar trouble. See Verity Harte on this. |
| 2080 | Things are only knowable if a rational account (logos) is possible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Things which are susceptible to a rational account are knowable. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 201d) |
| 16126 | Expertise is knowledge of the whole by means of the parts [Plato] |
| Full Idea: A man has passed from mere judgment to expert knowledge of the being of a wagon when he has done so in virtue of having gone over the whole by means of the elements. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 207c) | |
| A reaction: Plato is emphasising that the expert must know the hundred parts of a wagon, and not just the half dozen main components, but here the point is to go over the whole via the parts, and not just list the parts. |
| 2050 | It is impossible to believe something which is held to be false [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible to believe something which is not the case. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 167a) |
| 2076 | How can a belief exist if its object doesn't exist? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If the object of a belief is what is not, the object of this belief is nothing; but if there is no object to a belief, then that is not belief at all. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 189a) |
| 2045 | Perception is infallible, suggesting that it is knowledge [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Perception is always of something that is, and it is infallible, which suggests that it is knowledge. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 152c) |
| 2067 | Our senses could have been separate, but they converge on one mind [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It would be peculiar if each of us were like a Trojan horse, with a whole bunch of senses sitting inside us, rather than that all these perceptions converge onto a single identity (mind, or whatever one ought to call it). | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 184d) |
| 2068 | With what physical faculty do we perceive pairs of opposed abstract qualities? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: With what physical faculty do we perceive being and not-being, similarity and dissimilarity, identity and difference, oneness and many, odd and even and other maths, ….fineness and goodness? | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 185d) |
| 2069 | Thought must grasp being itself before truth becomes possible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If you can't apprehend being you can't apprehend truth, and so a thing could not be known. Therefore knowledge is not located in immediate experience but in thinking about it, since the latter makes it possible to grasp being and truth. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 186c) |
| 2078 | You might mistake eleven for twelve in your senses, but not in your mind [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Sight or touch might make someone take eleven for twelve, but he could never form this mistaken belief about the contents of his mind. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 195e) |
| 2089 | An inadequate rational account would still not justify knowledge [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If you don't know which letters belong together in the right syllables…it is possible for true belief to be accompanied by a rational account and still not be entitled to the name of knowledge. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 208b) | |
| A reaction: In each case of justification there is a 'clinching' stage, for which there is never going to be a strict rule. It might be foundational, but equally it might be massive coherence, or no alternative. |
| 2085 | Parts and wholes are either equally knowable or equally unknowable [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Either a syllable and its letters are equally knowable and expressible in a rational account, or they are both equally unknowable and inexpressible. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 205e) | |
| A reaction: Presumably you could explain the syllable by the letters, but not vice versa, but he must mean that the explanation is worthless without the letters being explained too. So all explanation is worthless? |
| 2091 | Without distinguishing marks, how do I know what my beliefs are about? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If I only have beliefs about Theaetetus when I don't know his distinguishing mark, how on earth were my beliefs about you rather than anyone else? | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 209b) | |
| A reaction: This is a rather intellectualist approach to mental activity. Presumably Theaetetus has lots of distinguishing marks, but they are not conscious. Must Socrates know everything? |
| 2087 | A rational account might be seeing an image of one's belief, like a reflection in a mirror [Plato] |
| Full Idea: A rational account might be forming an image of one's belief, as in a mirror or a pond. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 206d) | |
| A reaction: Not promising, since the image is not going to be clearer than the original, or contain any new information. Maybe it would be clarified by being 'framed', instead of drifting in muddle. |
| 2090 | A rational account involves giving an image, or analysis, or giving a differentiating mark [Plato] |
| Full Idea: A third sort of rational account (after giving an image, or analysing elements) is being able to mention some mark which differentiates the object in question ('the sun is the brightest heavenly body'). | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 208c) | |
| A reaction: This is Plato's clearest statement of what would be involved in adding the necessary logos to your true belief. An image of it, or an analysis, or an individuation. How about a cause? |
| 2081 | Maybe primary elements can be named, but not receive a rational account [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Maybe the primary elements of which things are composed are not susceptible to rational accounts. Each of them taken by itself can only be named, but nothing further can be said about it. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 201e) | |
| A reaction: This still seems to be more or less the central issue in philosophy - which things should be treated as 'primitive', and which other things are analysed and explained using the primitive tools? |
| 2088 | A rational account of a wagon would mean knowledge of its hundred parts [Plato] |
| Full Idea: In the case of a wagon, we may only have correct belief, but someone who is able to explain what it is by going through its hundred parts has got hold of a rational account. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 207b) | |
| A reaction: A wonderful example. In science, you know smoking correlates with cancer, but you only know it when you know the mechanism, the causal structure. This may be a general truth. |
| 2047 | What evidence can be brought to show whether we are dreaming or not? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: What evidence could be brought if we were asked at this very moment whether we are asleep and are dreaming all our thoughts? | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 158b) |
| 2054 | Clearly some people are superior to others when it comes to medicine [Plato] |
| Full Idea: In medicine, at least, most people are not self-sufficient at prescribing and effecting cures for themselves, and here some people are superior to others. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 171e) |
| 2053 | If you claim that all beliefs are true, that includes beliefs opposed to your own [Plato] |
| Full Idea: To say that everyone believes what is the case, is to concede the truth of the oppositions' beliefs; in other words, the person has to concede that he himself is wrong. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 171a) |
| 2059 | How can a relativist form opinions about what will happen in the future? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Does a relativist have any authority to decide about things which will happen in the future? | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 178c) | |
| A reaction: Nice question! It seems commonsense that such speculations are possible, but without a concept of truth they are ridiculous. |
| 18862 | Are propositions all the thoughts and sentences that are possible? [Tallant] |
| Full Idea: One might be tempted to the view that there are as many different propositions as there are thoughts that could be thought and sentences that could be uttered. | |
| From: Jonathan Tallant (Metaphysics: an introduction [2011], 04.5.3) | |
| A reaction: A fairly orthodox view I take to be crazy. I think it is a view designed for logic, rather than for how the world is. Why tie propositions to what can be thought, and then introduce unthought propositions? Why no unthinkable propositions? |
| 2058 | God must be the epitome of goodness, and we can only approach a divine state by being as good as possible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible for God to be immoral and not to be the acme of morality; and the only way any of us can approximate to God is to become as moral as possible. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 176c) |
| 2057 | There must always be some force of evil ranged against good [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The elimination of evil is impossible, Theodorus; there must always be some force ranged against good. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 176a) |