15 ideas
| 192 | Only one thing can be contrary to something [Plato] |
| Full Idea: To everything that admits of a contrary there is one contrary and no more. | |
| From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 332c) | |
| A reaction: The sort of thing for which a modern philosopher would demand a proof (and then reject when the proof couldn't be found), where a Greek is happy to assert it as self-evident. I can't think of a counterexample. |
| 190 | If asked whether justice itself is just or unjust, you would have to say that it is just [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If someone asked me 'Is justice itself just or unjust?' I should answer that it was just, wouldn't you? I agree. | |
| From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 330c) |
| 20185 | The most important things in life are wisdom and knowledge [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It would be shameful indeed to say that wisdom and knowledge are anything but the most powerful forces in human activity. | |
| From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 352d) | |
| A reaction: He lumps wisdom and knowledge together, and I think we can take 'knowledge' to mean something like understanding, because obviously mere atomistic propositional knowledge can be utterly trivial. |
| 20184 | The only real evil is loss of knowledge [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The only real kind of faring ill is the loss of knowledge. | |
| From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 345b) | |
| A reaction: This must crucially involve the intellectualist view (of Socrates) that virtuos behaviour results from knowledge, and moral wickedness is the result of ignorance. It is hard to see how forgetting a phone number is evil. |
| 191 | Everything resembles everything else up to a point [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Everything resembles everything else up to a point. | |
| From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 331d) |
| 20082 | Bodily movements are not actions, which are really the tryings within bodily movement [Hornsby, by Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: Hornsby claims the basic description of action is in terms of trying, that all actions (even means of doing other actions) are actions of trying, and that tryings (and therefore actions) are interior to bodily movements (which are thus not essential). | |
| From: report of Jennifer Hornsby (Actions [1980]) by Rowland Stout - Action 9 'Trying' | |
| A reaction: [compression of his summary] There is no regress with explaining the 'action' of trying, because it is proposed that trying is the most basic thing in all actions. If you are paralysed, your trying does not result in action. Too mentalistic? |
| 203 | Courage is knowing what should or shouldn't be feared [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Knowledge of what is and is not to be feared is courage. | |
| From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 360d) |
| 202 | No one willingly and knowingly embraces evil [Plato] |
| Full Idea: No one willingly goes to meet evil, or what he thinks is evil. | |
| From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 358d) | |
| A reaction: Presumably people who actively choose satanism can override this deep-seated attitude. But their adherence to evil usually seems to be rather restrained. A danger of tautology with ideas like this. |
| 193 | Some things are good even though they are not beneficial to men [Plato] |
| Full Idea: 'Do you mean by good those things that are beneficial to men?' 'Not only those. I call some things which are not beneficial good as well'. | |
| From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 333e) | |
| A reaction: Examples needed, but this would be bad news for utilitarians. Good health is not seen as beneficial if it is taken for granted. Not being deaf. |
| 197 | Some pleasures are not good, and some pains are not evil [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There are some pleasures which are not good, and some pains which are not evil. | |
| From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 351d) | |
| A reaction: Sadism and child birth. Though Bentham (I think) says that there is nothing good about the pain, since the event would obviously be better without it. |
| 200 | People tend only to disapprove of pleasure if it leads to pain, or prevents future pleasure [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The only reason the common man disapproves of pleasures is if they lead to pain and deprive us of future pleasures. | |
| From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 354a) | |
| A reaction: Plato has a strong sense that some pleasures are just innately depraved and wicked. If those pleasure don't hurt anyone, it is very hard to pinpoint what is wrong with them. |
| 188 | Socrates did not believe that virtue could be taught [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Socrates: I do not believe that virtue can be taught. | |
| From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 320b) |
| 204 | Socrates is contradicting himself in claiming virtue can't be taught, but that it is knowledge [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Socrates is contradicting himself by saying virtue is not teachable, and yet trying to demonstrate that every virtue is knowledge. | |
| From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 361b) |
| 189 | If we punish wrong-doers, it shows that we believe virtue can be taught [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Athenians inflict punishment on wrong-doers, which shows that they too think it possible to impart and teach goodness. | |
| From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 324c) |
| 10246 | The limit of science is isomorphism of theories, with essences a matter of indifference [Weyl] |
| Full Idea: A science can determine its domain of investigation up to an isomorphic mapping. It remains quite indifferent as to the 'essence' of its objects. The idea of isomorphism demarcates the self-evident boundary of cognition. | |
| From: Hermann Weyl (Phil of Mathematics and Natural Science [1949], 25-7), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics | |
| A reaction: Shapiro quotes this in support of his structuralism, but it is a striking expression of the idea that if there are such things as essences, they are beyond science. I take Weyl to be wrong. Best explanation reaches out beyond models to essences. |