186 ideas
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 14912 | There is no test for metaphysics, except devising alternative theories [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The metaphysician has no test for the truth of her beliefs except that other metaphysicians can't think of obviously superior alternative beliefs. (They can always think of possibly superior ones, in profusion). | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.7) | |
| A reaction: [they cite Van Fraassen for this view] At least this seems to concede that some metaphysical views can be rejected by the observation of beliefs that are superior. Almost everyone has rejected Lewis on possible worlds for this reason. |
| 14904 | Metaphysics builds consilience networks across science [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics is the enterprise of critically elucidating consilience networks across the sciences. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: I don't disagree with this. The issue, I think, is how abstract you are prepared to go. At high levels of abstraction, it is very hard to keep in touch with the empirical research. There are truths, though, at that high level. It is clearest in logic. |
| 14907 | Progress in metaphysics must be tied to progress in science [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: To the extent that metaphysics is closely motivated by science, we should expect to make progress in metaphysics iff we can expect to make progress in science. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: To defer to and respect science does not necessitate that metaphysics cannot do independent work. I take there to be truths at a high-level of abstraction that are independent of the physical sciences, just as there are truths of chess or economics. |
| 14908 | Metaphysics must involve at least two scientific hypotheses, one fundamental, and add to explanation [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Principle of Naturalist Closure: A serious metaphysical claim must involve at least two scientific hypotheses, at least one from fundamental physics, and explain more than what the two hypotheses explain separately. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: [compressed, from their longer qualified version] The idea that metaphysics should add to explanation is close to my heart. I am musing over whether essences add to explanation, which would be total anathema to Ladyman and Ross. |
| 14910 | Some science is so general that it is metaphysical [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Some scientific propositions are sufficiently general as themselves to be metaphysical. Our notion of metaphysics is thus recursive, and requires no attempt to identify a boundary between metaphysical and scientific propositions. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.5 n45) | |
| A reaction: Note that this still leaves room for some metaphysics which is not science, though see Idea 14904 for their views on that. |
| 14940 | Cutting-edge physics has little to offer metaphysics [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: There is little positive by way of implications for metaphysics that we can adduce from cutting-edge physics. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.7.2) | |
| A reaction: My personal suspicion is that this will always be the case, even though there may be huge advances in physics, and I offer that as a reason why metaphysicians do not (pace Ladyman and Ross) need to study physics. They grasp 'negative' lessons. |
| 14945 | The aim of metaphysics is to unite the special sciences with physics [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The demand to unify the special sciences with physics is, according to us, the motivation for having any metaphysics at all. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: The crunch question is whether metaphysicians are allowed to develop their own concepts for this task, or whether they can only make links between the concepts employed by the scientists. I vote for the former. |
| 14898 | Modern metaphysics pursues aesthetic criteria like story-writing, and abandons scientific truth [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The criteria of adequacy for metaphysics have come apart from anything to do with truth. Rather they are internal and peculiar to philosophy, they are semi-aesthetic, and they have more in common with the virtues of story-writing than with science. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.2.1) | |
| A reaction: Part of a sustained polemic against contemporary analytic metaphysics. I love metaphysics, but they may be right. Writers like Sider, Fine, Lowe, Lewis, Stalnaker, Kripke, Armstrong, Dummett seem to tell independent stories, that really are works of art. |
| 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. |
| 14899 | Why think that conceptual analysis reveals reality, rather than just how people think? [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Why should we think that the products of conceptual analysis reveal anything about the deep structure of reality, rather than telling us about how some class of people think about and categorize reality? | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.2.2) | |
| A reaction: One line, associated with Jackson, is that analysis tells you not about reality, but about what to make of your experiences of reality when you have them. It would be a foolish scientist who paid no attention to his or her conceptual scheme. |
| 14936 | A metaphysics based on quantum gravity could result in almost anything [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: We cannot say what the metaphysical implications of quantum gravity are, but they range from eleven dimensions to two, from continuous fundamental structure to a discrete one, and from universal symmetries to no symmetries. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.7.2) | |
| A reaction: I offer this observation as a good reason for doubting whether the project of building our metaphysics directly onto our fundamental physics has much prospect of success. Quantum gravity is the unified theory they are all hoping for. |
| 14905 | The supremacy of science rests on its iterated error filters [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The epistemic supremacy of science rests on repeated iteration of institutional error filters. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: You could add repeated iteration of institutional error filters to journals about astrology, but it wouldn't thereby acquire epistemic supremacy. It is the tangible nature of the evidence which bestows the authority. |
| 14897 | We should abandon intuitions, especially that the world is made of little things, and made of something [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Abandoning intuitions is usually regarded as a cost rather than a benefit. By contrast, as naturalists we are not concerned with preserving intuitions at all (especially that the world is composed of little things, and that it must be made of something). | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.2.1) |
| 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) |
| 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'. |
| 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. |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 14943 | Maybe mathematical logic rests on information-processing [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: It is claimed that mathematical logic can be understood in terms of information-processing. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.7.5) | |
| A reaction: [They cite Chaitin 1987] I don't understand how this would work, but it is still worth quoting. This would presumably make logic rest on processes rather than on entities. I quite like that. |
| 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 |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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) |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 14942 | Only admit into ontology what is explanatory and predictive [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: We reject any grounds other than explanatory and predictive utility for admitting something into our ontology. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.7.3) | |
| A reaction: Now you are talking. This is something like my thesis (which I take to be Aristotelian) - that without the drive for explanation we wouldn't even think of metaphysics, and so metaphysics should be understood in that light. |
| 14948 | To be is to be a real pattern [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: To be is to be a real pattern. ....Real patterns carry information about other real patterns. ...It's patterns all the way down. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: I've plucked these bleeding from context, but they are obviously intended as slogans. Is there pattern 'inside' an electron? Are electrons all exterior? |
| 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) |
| 14947 | Any process can be described as transfer of measurable information [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Reference to transfer of some (in principle) quantitatively measurable information is a highly general way of describing any process. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: That does not, of course, mean that that is what a process is. A waterfall is an archetypal process, but it is a bit more than a bunch of information. Actually its complexity may place its information beyond measurement. |
| 14941 | We say there is no fundamental level to ontology, and reality is just patterns [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The tentative metaphysical hypothesis of this book, which is open to empirical falsification, is that there is no fundamental level, that the real patterns criterion of reality is the last word in ontology. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.7.3) | |
| A reaction: I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for the empirical falsification to arrive (or vanish). Their commitment to real patterns (or structures) leaves me a bit baffled. |
| 10493 | If concrete is spatio-temporal and causal, and abstract isn't, the distinction doesn't suit physics [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: It is said that concrete objects have causal powers while abstract ones do not, or that concrete objects exist in space and time while abstract ones do not, but these categories seem crude and inappropriate for modern physics. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.6) | |
| A reaction: I don't find this convincing. He gives example of peculiar causation, but I don't believe modern physics proposes any entities which are totally acausal and non-spatiotemporal. Maybe the distinction needs a defence. |
| 14934 | Concrete and abstract are too crude for modern physics [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The categories of concrete and abstract seem crude and inappropriate for modern physics. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.6) | |
| A reaction: They don't persuade me of this idea. At some point physicists need to decide the ontological status of the basic stuffs they are investigating. I'll give them a thousand years, and then I want an answer. Do they only deal in 'ideal' entities? |
| 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) |
| 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. |
| 14909 | Physicalism is 'part-whole' (all parts are physical), or 'supervenience/levels' (dependence on physical) [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: There is part-whole physicalism, that everything is exhausted by basic constituents that are themselves physical, or supervenience or levels physicalism, that the putatively non-physical is dependent on the physical. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: The cite Hüttemann and Papineau 2005. I am not convinced by this distinction. Ladyman and Ross oppose the first one. I'm thinking the second one either collapses into the first one, or it isn't physicalism. Higher levels are abstractions. |
| 14926 | Relations without relata must be treated as universals, with their own formal properties [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The best sense that can be made of a relation without relata is the idea of a universal. Thus the relation 'larger than' has formal properties that are independent of the contingencies of their instantiation. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: Russell was keen on the idea that relations are universals, and presumably for this reason. I struggle to grasp uninstantiated but nevertheless real 'greater than' relations. They are abstractions from things, not separate universals. |
| 14929 | A belief in relations must be a belief in things that are related [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Many philosophers say that one cannot intelligibly subscribe to the reality of relations unless one is also committed to the fact of some things that are related. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: Ladyman and Ross try to argue against this view, but the idea makes a strong impression on me. Your ontology seems to be rather strange if you have a set of structural relations that await things to slot into the structure. |
| 14925 | The normal assumption is that relations depend on properties of the relata [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The idea that there could be relations which do not supervene on the properties of their relata runs counter to a deeply entrenched way of thinking. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: Ladyman and Ross are trying to defend the idea of 'structure' which is independent of the objects that occupy the nodes of the structure. Tricky. |
| 14931 | That there are existent structures not made of entities is no stranger than the theory of universals [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Is the main metaphysical idea we propose (of existent structures that are not composed out of more basic entities) any more obscure or bizarre than the instantiation relation in the theory of universals? | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: No, it is not more bizarre than that, but that isn't much of a reason to believe their theory. See Idea 8699, and many ideas about structure in mathematics. Ladyman and Ross still smack of platonism, even if they are rooted in particle physics. |
| 14932 | Causal essentialism says properties are nothing but causal relations [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Causal essentialism is the doctrine that the causal relations that properties bear to other properties exhaust their natures. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.5 n50) | |
| A reaction: [They cite Shoemaker, Mumford and Bird for this] Personally I don't see this view as offering relations as fundamental. The whole point is to explain everything. The only plausible primitive notion is of a power - which then generates the relations. |
| 14920 | If science captures the modal structure of things, that explains why its predictions work [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: If theorists are able sometimes to capture the objective modal structure of the world then it is no surprise that successful novel prediction sometimes works. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 2.4) | |
| A reaction: This is a rather important idea, particularly for my approach. I say we should demand more explanations, and explanations of successful prediction are far from obvious in a regularity account of nature. |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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. |
| 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) |
| 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. |
| 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) |
| 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. |
| 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) |
| 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. |
| 14952 | Things are constructs for tracking patterns (and not linguistic, because animals do it) [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Individual things are constructs built for second-best tracking of real patterns. They are not necessarily linguistic constructions, since some non-human animals almost certainly cognitively construct them. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: Delighted to see animals making an appearance. Fans of language-based metaphysics please note. If they are fictional constructs, why do they do such a good job of tracking? What generates the 'superficial' appearance that there are objects? |
| 14950 | Maybe individuation can be explained by thermodynamic depth [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Scientists have developed principles for understanding individuation in terms of the production of thermodynamic depth. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: [They cite J.Collier for this view] Interesting, even though I don't really understand 'thermodynamic depth'. Ladyman and Ross reject it, but there is a whiff of a theory of individuation from within physics. |
| 14927 | Physics seems to imply that we must give up self-subsistent individuals [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: There is growing convergence among philosophers of physics that physics motivates abandonment of a metaphysics that posits fundamental self-subsistent individuals. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: They cite fermions as an example, which only seem to be given an identity by the relations into which they enter. It is a bit cheeky to simultaneously offer this idea, and despise van Inwagen and Merricks for the same object nihilism. |
| 14944 | There is no single view of individuals, because different sciences operate on different scales [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: There is no single account of what individuals there are because, we argue, the special sciences may disagree about the bounds and status of individuals since they describe the world at different scales. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.8) | |
| A reaction: This seems to deny that nature has actual joints, and so seems to me to be a form of anti-realism (which they would deny). Why shouldn't there be a single view which unites all of these special sciences? |
| 14946 | There are no cats in quantum theory, and no mountains in astrophysics [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: At the quantum scale there are no cats; at scales appropriate for astrophysics there are no mountains. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: I don't find this convincing. Since cats are made of quantised entities, they do exist in that world, but are of little interest when trying to understand it. Similarly, astrophysicists hardly deny the existence of mountains! |
| 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. |
| 14928 | Things are abstractions from structures [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Individual things are locally focused abstractions from modal structure. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: I am a fan of the role of abstraction in our understanding of the world, despite my limited progress in trying to explicate the idea. I can't decide whether or not there are any things. A bit basic, that! |
| 14892 | The idea of composition, that parts of the world are 'made of' something, is no longer helpful [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: It is no longer helpful to conceive of either the world, or particular systems of the world that we study in partial isolation, as 'made of' anything at all. …Our target here is the metaphysical idea of composition. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: This is argued by them from the point of view of fundamental physics as the provider of our basic metaphysics about the world. Personally I really really want to know what electrons are made of, but I know no one is going to tell me. They may even laugh. |
| 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. |
| 14949 | A sum of things is not a whole if the whole does not support some new generalisation [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: A nostril, a city and a trumpet solo is not a real pattern, because identification of it supports no generalisations not supported by identification of the three conjuncts considered separately. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice try at offering a criterion for unity, but I doubt whether it will work, because an ingenious person could come up with wild generalisations. These three combined make possible a charming new line of poetry. |
| 14951 | We treat the core of a pattern as an essence, in order to keep track of it [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: We focus on diagnostic features of real patterns that we can treat as 'core', which reliably predict that our attention is still tracking the same real pattern. These are Locke's 'essence of particulars', or Putnam's 'hidden structures'. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: They seemed to be ashamed of themselves for proposing this, and call it a 'second-best' epistemological device. They seem to imply that they are useful fictions, but why shouldn't the hidden structures be real? They might both identify and explain. |
| 14958 | A continuous object might be a type, with instances at each time [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Why should not 'Napoleon' be a type, of which 'Napoleon in 1805' and 'Napoleon in 1813' are instances? | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 5.6) | |
| A reaction: That is very nice. That might be a view that suits presentism, where the timed instances never co-exist, and so have the sort of abstract existence that we associate with types. |
| 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. |
| 14903 | Quantum mechanics seems to imply single-case probabilities [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Quantum mechanics seems to imply single-case probabilities. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.2.3) | |
| A reaction: I know they keep telling us about such things, but I remain cautious. I think all the physicists have done is delved a bit deeper into something they don't understand. |
| 14923 | In quantum statistics, two separate classical states of affairs are treated as one [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: In quantum statistics, what would be regarded as two possible states of affairs classically is treated as one possible state of affairs. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.1) |
| 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) |
| 14955 | Rats find some obvious associations easier to learn than less obvious ones [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Contrary to early behaviourist dogma, associations are not all equally learnable. Rats learn to associate eating with nausea, and a flash with a shock, much more easily than either complementary pairing. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: That looks like an argue for some sort of innate knowledge, but experiments to disentangle eating from nausea must be rather hard to set up. |
| 14918 | The doctrine of empiricism does not itself seem to be empirically justified [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: If to be an empiricist is to believe that 'experience is the sole source of information about the world', the problem is that this does not itself seem to be justifiable by experience. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 2.3.1) | |
| A reaction: [The quotation is from Van Fraassen 1985 p.253] This is the classic 'turning the tables' move in argument, invented by the Greeks. It is hard to offer anything other than intuition in the first move of any metaphysical theory. |
| 14891 | There is no reason to think our intuitions are good for science or metaphysics [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: There is no reason to imagine that our habitual intuitions and inferential responses are well designed for science or for metaphysics. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.1) |
| 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. |
| 14915 | The theory of evolution was accepted because it explained, not because of its predictions [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Darwin's theory of evolution was accepted by the scientific community because of its systematizing and explanatory power, and in spite of its lack of novel predictive success. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 2.1.3) | |
| A reaction: I am keen on the centrality of explanation to all of our thinking, metaphysical as well as physical, so I like this one. In general I like accounts of science that pay more attention to biology, and less to physics. |
| 14916 | What matters is whether a theory can predict - not whether it actually does so [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: We suggest a modal account of novel prediction. That a theory could predict some unknown phenomenon is what matters, not whether it actually did so predict. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 2.1.3) | |
| A reaction: They also emphasise predicting new types of thing, rather than particular items. Some theories are powerful on explanation, but not so concerned with prediction. See Idea 14915. |
| 14922 | The Ramsey sentence describes theoretical entities; it skips reference, but doesn't eliminate it [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: It is a mistake to think that the Ramsey sentence allows us to eliminate theoretical entities, for it still states that they exist. It is just that they are referred to not directly, by means of theoretical terms, but by description. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 2.4.1) |
| 14921 | The Ramsey-sentence approach preserves observations, but eliminates unobservables [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: If one replaces the assertions of a first-order theory with its Ramsey sentence (giving a quantified predicate variable for a theoretical term), the observational consequences are carried over, but direct reference to unobservables is eliminated. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 2.4.1) | |
| A reaction: Thus this rewriting of theories is popular with empiricists, and this draws attention to the way you can change the ontological commitments simply by paraphrase. ...However, see Idea 14922. |
| 14953 | Induction is reasoning from the observed to the unobserved [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Induction is any form of reasoning that proceeds from claims about observed phenomena to claims about unobserved phenomena. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: Most accounts of induction seem to imply that they lead to generalisations, rather than just some single unobserved thing. This definition is in line with David Lewis's. |
| 14914 | Inductive defences of induction may be rule-circular, but not viciously premise-circular [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The inductive defence of induction may be circular but not viciously so, because it is rule circular (defending the rule being used) but not premise circular (where the conclusion is in one of the premises). | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 2.1.2) | |
| A reaction: [They cite Braithwaite 1953 and Carnap 1952 for this] This strikes me as clutching at straws, when the whole procedure of induction is inescapably precarious. It is simply all we have available. |
| 14913 | We explain by deriving the properties of a phenomenon by embedding it in a large abstract theory [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Theoretical explanation is the derivation of the properties of a relatively concrete and observable phenomenon by means of an embedding into some larger, relatively abstract and unobservable theoretical structure. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 2.1.1) | |
| A reaction: [they are citing Michael Friedman 1981 p.1] This sounds like covering law explanation, but the theoretical structure will be a set of intersecting laws, rather than a single law. How do you explain the theoretical structure? |
| 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. |
| 14930 | Maybe the only way we can think about a domain is by dividing it up into objects [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Speculating cautiously about psychology, it is possible that dividing a domain up into objects is the only way we can think about it. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: Typical physicists - they speculate about psychology instead of studying it. Have they no respect for science? Neverthless my speculative psychology agrees with theirs. This fact may well be the key to all of metaphysics. |
| 14939 | Two versions of quantum theory say that the world is deterministic [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: In the Bohm version of quantum theory, and the Everett approach, the world comes out deterministic after all. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.7.2) | |
| A reaction: This is just in case anyone wants to trumpet the idea that quantum theory has established indeterminism. It is particularly daft to think that quantum indeterminacy makes free will possible (or even actual). |
| 14911 | Science is opposed to downward causation [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: When someone pronounces for downward causation they are in opposition to science. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.6 n54) | |
| A reaction: Downward causation is the key issue in any debate about whether minds exhibit excitingly 'emergent' properties that somehow put them outside the realm of normal physics. I take that to be nonsense, and I side with science here. |
| 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? |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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'. |
| 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'? |
| 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'? |
| 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'. |
| 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? |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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. |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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. |
| 14956 | Explanation by kinds and by clusters of properties just express the stability of reality [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers sometimes invoke natural kinds as if they explain the possibility of explanation. This is characteristically neo-scholastic. That anything can be explained, and that properties cluster together, express one fact: reality is relatively stable. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 5.6) | |
| A reaction: Odd idea. I would have thought that if there are indeed kinds and clusters, this would explain a great deal more than mere stability. Or, more accurately, they would invite a more substantial explanation than mere stability would seem to need. |
| 14957 | There is nothing more to a natural kind than a real pattern in nature [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Everything that a naturalist could legitimately want from the concept of a natural kind can be had simply by reference to real patterns. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 5.6) | |
| A reaction: I think I agree with this, and with the general idea that natural kinds are overrated. There are varying degrees of stability in nature, and where there is a lot of stability our inductive reasoning can get to work. And that's it. |
| 14954 | Causation is found in the special sciences, but may have no role in fundamental physics [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The idea of causation, as it is used in science, finds its exemplars in the special sciences, and it is presently open empirical question whether that notion will have any ultimate role to play in fundamental physics. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: Note that they seem to always have a notion of 'ultimate' physics hovering over their account. I wonder. There is nothing in this idea to make me think that I should eliminate the idea of causation from my metaphysics. |
| 14902 | Science may have uninstantiated laws, inferred from approaching some unrealised limit [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: It is possible that uninstantiated laws can be established in science, and consequently bear explanatory weight, ..if we need reasons for thinking that the closer conditions get to some limit, the more they approximate to some ideal. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.2.3) | |
| A reaction: [The cite Hüttemann 2004] I am dubious about laws, but I take this to be a point in favour of inference to the best explanation, and against accounts of laws as supervenient of how things actually are. |
| 14937 | That the universe must be 'made of' something is just obsolete physics [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: It is a metaphysical residue of obsolete physics to suppose that the universe is 'made of' anything. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.7.2) | |
| A reaction: They quote Smolin as saying that it is 'processes' which are fundamental. And yet surely there must be something there to undergo a process? Surely we don't have eternal platonic processes? |
| 14900 | In physics, matter is an emergent phenomenon, not part of fundamental ontology [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Physics has taught us that matter in the sense of extended stuff is an emergent phenomenon that has no counterpart in fundamental ontology. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.2.3) | |
| A reaction: They contrast this point with futile debates among philosopher between atomists (partless particles) and gunkists (parts all the way down). |
| 14901 | Spacetime may well be emergent, rather than basic [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Contemporary physics takes very seriously the idea that spacetime itself is emergent from some more fundamental structure. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.2.3) |
| 14924 | If spacetime is substantial, what is the substance? [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: It is fair to ask: if spacetime is a substance, what is the substance in question? | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: Personally I love the question 'If it exists, what is it made of?', though physicists seem to think that this reveals a gormless misunderstanding. To my question Keith Hossack retorted 'What are the atoms made of?' |
| 14938 | A fixed foliation theory of quantum gravity could make presentism possible [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: It has been pointed out that presentism is an open question in so far as a fixed foliation theory of quantum gravity has not been ruled out. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.7.2 n75) | |
| A reaction: [They cite B.Monton for this point] I don't understand this idea, but I'll have it anyway. Google 'fixed foliation' for me, as I'm too busy. |
| 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 |
| 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) |
| 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) |