65 ideas
| 23890 | For Plato true wisdom is supernatural [Plato, by Weil] |
| Full Idea: It is evident that Plato regards true wisdom as something supernatural. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Simone Weil - God in Plato p.61 | |
| A reaction: Taken literally, I assume this is wrong, but we can empathise with the thought. Wisdom has the feeling of rising above the level of mere knowledge, to achieve the overview I associate with philosophy. |
| 3060 | Plato never mentions Democritus, and wished to burn his books [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Plato, who mentions nearly all the ancient philosophers, nowhere speaks of Democritus; he wished to burn all of his books, but was persuaded that it was futile. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.7.8 |
| 23891 | Two contradictories force us to find a relation which will correlate them [Plato, by Weil] |
| Full Idea: Where contradictions appear there is a correlation of contraries, which is relation. If a contradiction is imposed on the intelligence, it is forced to think of a relation to transform the contradiction into a correlation, which draws the soul higher. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Simone Weil - God in Plato p.70 | |
| A reaction: A much better account of the dialectic than anything I have yet seen in Hegel. For the first time I see some sense in it. A contradiction is not a falsehood, and it must be addressed rather than side-stepped. A kink in the system, that needs ironing. |
| 12442 | 'Mickey Mouse is a fictional mouse' is true without a truthmaker [Azzouni] |
| Full Idea: 'Mickey Mouse is a fictional mouse' can be taken as true without have any truthmaker. | |
| From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: There might be an equivocation over 'true' here. 'What, really really true that he IS a fictional mouse?' |
| 12439 | Truth is dispensable, by replacing truth claims with the sentence itself [Azzouni] |
| Full Idea: No truth predicate is ever indispensable, because Tarski biconditionals, the equivalences between sentences and explicit truth ascriptions to those sentences, allow us to replace explicit truth ascriptions with the sentences themselves. | |
| From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Holding a sentence to be true isn't the same as saying that it is true, and it isn't the same as saying the sentence, because one might say it in an ironic tone of voice. |
| 12437 | Truth lets us assent to sentences we can't explicitly exhibit [Azzouni] |
| Full Idea: My take on truth is a fairly deflationary one: The role of the truth predicate is to enable us to assent to sentences we can't explicitly exhibit. | |
| From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Clearly this is a role for truth, as in 'I forget what he said, but I know it was true', but it isn't remotely what most people understand by true. We use 'true' about totally explicit sentences all the time. |
| 12446 | Names function the same way, even if there is no object [Azzouni] |
| Full Idea: Names function the same way (semantically and grammatically) regardless of whether or not there's an object that they refer to. | |
| From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Ch.3 n55) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be a fairly clear rebuttal of the 'Fido'-Fido view of names (that the meaning of the name IS the dog), which never seems to quite go away. A name is a peg on which description may be hung, seems a good slogan to me. |
| 21382 | Things get smaller without end [Anaxagoras] |
| Full Idea: Of the small there is no smallest, but always a smaller. | |
| From: Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B03), quoted by Gregory Vlastos - The Physical Theory of Anaxagoras II | |
| A reaction: Anaxagoras seems to be speaking of the physical world (and probably writing prior to the emergence of atomism, which could have been a rebellion against he current idea). |
| 481 | Nothing is created or destroyed; there is only mixing and separation [Anaxagoras] |
| Full Idea: No thing comes into being or passes away, but it is mixed together or separated from existing things. Thus it would be correct if coming into being was called 'mixing', and passing away 'separation-off''. | |
| From: Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B17), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 163.20 |
| 21822 | Anaxagoras's concept of supreme Mind has a simple First and a multiple One [Anaxagoras, by Plotinus] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras, in his assertion of a Mind pure and unmixed, affirms a simplex First and a sundered One, though writing long ago he failed in precision. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.09 | |
| A reaction: The crunch question is whether the supreme One or Mind is part of Being, or is above and beyond Being. Plotinus claims that Anaxagoras was on his side (with Plato, against Parmenides). |
| 12447 | That all existents have causal powers is unknowable; the claim is simply an epistemic one [Azzouni] |
| Full Idea: If the argument isn't that, metaphysically speaking, anything that exists must have causal powers - how on earth would we show that? - rather, the claim is an epistemic one. Any thing we're in a position to know about we must causally interact with. | |
| From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: A very good point. I am attracted to causal power as a criterion for existence, but Azzouni's distinction is vital. Maybe there is just no point in even talking about things which exist but have no causal powers. |
| 17995 | Basic is the potentially perceptible, then comes the contrary qualities, and finally the 'elements' [Anaxagoras] |
| Full Idea: We must recognise three 'originative sources': first that which is potentially perceptible body, secondly the contrarities (e.g hot and cold), and thirdly Fire, Water, and the like. Only thirdly, however, for these bodies change into one another. | |
| From: Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]), quoted by Aristotle - The History of Animals 529a34 | |
| A reaction: The 'potentially perceptible' seems to be matter. The surprise here is that the contraries are more basic than the elements, rather than being properties of them. Reality is modes of matter, it seems. |
| 12445 | If fictional objects really don't exist, then they aren't abstract objects [Azzouni] |
| Full Idea: It's robustly part of common sense that fictional objects don't exist in any sense at all, and this means they aren't abstracta either. | |
| From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Nice. It is so easy to have some philosopher dilute and equivocate over the word 'object' until you find yourself committed to all sorts of daft things as somehow having objectual existence. We can discuss things which don't exist in any way at all. |
| 12449 | Modern metaphysics often derives ontology from the logical forms of sentences [Azzouni] |
| Full Idea: It is widespread in contemporary metaphysics to extract commitments to various types of object on the basis of the logical form of certain sentences. | |
| From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: I'm with Azzouni in thinking that this procedure is a very bad idea. I'm increasingly inclined towards the wild view that people are only ontologically committed to things if they explicitly say that they are so committed. |
| 12440 | If objectual quantifiers ontologically commit, so does the metalanguage for its semantics [Azzouni] |
| Full Idea: The argument that objectual quantifiers are ontologically committing has the crucial and unnoticed presupposition that the language in which the semantics for the objectual quantifiers is couched (the 'metalanguage') also has quantifiers with commitment. | |
| From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: That is, presumably we find ourselves ontologically committed to the existence of quantifiers, and are also looking at an infinite regress. See Idea 12439. |
| 12438 | In the vernacular there is no unequivocal ontological commitment [Azzouni] |
| Full Idea: There are no linguistic devices, no idioms (not 'there is', not 'exists') that unequivocally indicate ontological commitment in the vernacular. | |
| From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, since people talk in such ways about soap opera, while understanding the ontological situation perfectly well. Presumably Quine is seeking higher standards than the vernacular, if we are doing science. |
| 12441 | We only get ontology from semantics if we have already smuggled it in [Azzouni] |
| Full Idea: A slogan: One can't read ontological commitments from semantic conditions unless one has already smuggled into those semantic conditions the ontology one would like to read off. | |
| From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: The arguments supporting this are subtle, but it's good enough for me, as I never thought anyone was ontologically committed just because they used the vagueries of language to try to say what's going on around here. |
| 14502 | Plato's idea of 'structure' tends to be mathematically expressed [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: 'Structure' tends to be characterized by Plato as something that is mathematically expressed. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects V.3 iv | |
| A reaction: [Koslicki is drawing on Verity Harte here] |
| 3039 | When Diogenes said he could only see objects but not their forms, Plato said it was because he had eyes but no intellect [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: When Diogenes told Plato he saw tables and cups, but not 'tableness' and 'cupness', Plato replied that this was because Diogenes had eyes but no intellect. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 06.2.6 |
| 20906 | Platonists argue for the indivisible triangle-in-itself [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The Platonists, on the basis of purely logical arguments, posit the existence of an indivisible 'triangle in itself'. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 316a15 | |
| A reaction: A helpful confirmation that geometrical figures really are among the Forms (bearing in mind that numbers are not, because they contain one another). What shape is the Form of the triangle? |
| 17948 | Plato's Forms meant that the sophists only taught the appearance of wisdom and virtue [Plato, by Nehamas] |
| Full Idea: Plato's theory of Forms allowed him to claim that the sophists and other opponents were trapped in the world of appearance. What they therefore taught was only apparent wisdom and virtue. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Alexander Nehamas - Eristic,Antilogic,Sophistic,Dialectic p.118 |
| 556 | If there is one Form for both the Form and its participants, they must have something in common [Aristotle on Plato] |
| Full Idea: If there is the same Form for the Forms and for their participants, then they must have something in common. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 991a |
| 563 | If gods are like men, they are just eternal men; similarly, Forms must differ from particulars [Aristotle on Plato] |
| Full Idea: We say there is the form of man, horse and health, but nothing else, making the same mistake as those who say that there are gods but that they are in the form of men. They just posit eternal men, and here we are not positing forms but eternal sensibles. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 997b |
| 565 | The Forms cannot be changeless if they are in changing things [Aristotle on Plato] |
| Full Idea: The Forms could not be changeless if they were in changing things. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 998a |
| 557 | A Form is a cause of things only in the way that white mixed with white is a cause [Aristotle on Plato] |
| Full Idea: A Form is a cause of things only in the way that white mixed with white is a cause. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 991a |
| 9607 | The greatest discovery in human thought is Plato's discovery of abstract objects [Brown,JR on Plato] |
| Full Idea: The greatest discovery in the history of human thought is Plato's discovery of abstract objects. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by James Robert Brown - Philosophy of Mathematics Ch. 2 | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 2860! Given the diametrically opposed views, it is clearly likely that Plato's central view is the most important idea in the history of human thought, even if it is wrong. |
| 12448 | Things that don't exist don't have any properties [Azzouni] |
| Full Idea: Things that don't exist don't have any properties. | |
| From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: Sounds reasonable! I totally agree, but that is because my notion of properties is sparse and naturalistic. If you identify properties with predicates (which some weird people seem to), then non-existents can have properties like 'absence' or 'nullity'. |
| 13263 | We can grasp whole things in science, because they have a mathematics and a teleology [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Due to the mathematical nature of structure and the teleological cause underlying the creation of Platonic wholes, these wholes are intelligible, and are in fact the proper objects of science. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.3 | |
| A reaction: I like this idea, because it pays attention to the connection between how we conceive objects to be, and how we are able to think about objects. Only examining these two together enables us to grasp metaphysics. |
| 13261 | Plato sees an object's structure as expressible in mathematics [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: The 'structure' of an object tends to be characterised by Plato as something that is mathematically expressible. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.3 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be pure Pythagoreanism (see Idea 644). Plato is pursuing Pythagoras's research programme, of trying to find mathematics buried in every aspect of reality. |
| 13265 | Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the source of unity in a complex object [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the project of how to account, in completely general terms, for the source of unity within a mereologically complex object. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.5 | |
| A reaction: Plato seems to have simply asserted that some sort of harmony held things together. Aristotles puts the forms [eidos] within objects, rather than external, so he has to give a fuller account of what is going on in an object. He never managed it! |
| 593 | Plato's holds that there are three substances: Forms, mathematical entities, and perceptible bodies [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Plato's doctrine was that the Forms and mathematicals are two substances and that the third substance is that of perceptible bodies. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1028b |
| 13260 | Plato says wholes are either containers, or they're atomic, or they don't exist [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Plato considers a 'container' model for wholes (which are disjoint from their parts) [Parm 144e3-], and a 'nihilist' model, in which only wholes are mereological atoms, and a 'bare pluralities' view, in which wholes are not really one at all. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2 | |
| A reaction: [She cites Verity Harte for this analysis of Plato] The fourth, and best, seems to be that wholes are parts which fall under some unifying force or structure or principle. |
| 11237 | Only universals have essence [Plato, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Plato argues that only universals have essence. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.4 |
| 11238 | Plato and Aristotle take essence to make a thing what it is [Plato, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Plato and Aristotle have a shared general conception of essence: the essence of a thing is what that thing is simply in virtue of itself and in virtue of being the very thing it is. It answers the question 'What is this very thing?' | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.4 |
| 20802 | Snow is not white, and doesn't even appear white, because it is made of black water [Anaxagoras, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras not only denied that snow was white, but because he knew that the water from which it was composed was black, even denied that it appeared white to himself. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica II.100 | |
| A reaction: Not ridiculous. Can you deny that red and yellow balls look orange from a distance? A failure of discrimination on your part. It sounds okay to say 'what I am really perceiving is red and yellow'. [see 'Anaxagoras' poem by D.H.Lawrence!] |
| 13257 | The senses are too feeble to determine the truth [Anaxagoras] |
| Full Idea: Owing to the feebleness of the sense, we are not able to determine the truth. | |
| From: Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B21), quoted by Patricia Curd - Anaxagoras 5.1 | |
| A reaction: Anaxagoras offers a corresponding elevation of the power of mind (Idea 13256), so I now realise that he is, along with Pythagoras and Parmenides, one of the fathers of rationalism in philosophy. They probably overrate reason. |
| 22761 | We reveal unreliability in the senses when we cannot discriminate a slow change of colour [Anaxagoras, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: Our lack of sureness in the senses is shown if we take two colours, back and white, and pour one into the other drop by drop, we are unable to distinguish the gradual alterations although they subsist as actual facts. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Logicians (two books) I.090 | |
| A reaction: [Sextus calls Anaxagoras 'the greatest of the physicists'] I'm not sure what this proves. People with bad eyesight can distinguish very little, but that doesn't prove scepticism. And there are things too small for anyone to see. |
| 17085 | A good explanation totally rules out the opposite explanation (so Forms are required) [Plato, by Ruben] |
| Full Idea: For Plato, an acceptable explanation is one such that there is no possibility of there being the opposite explanation at all, and he thought that only explanations in terms of the Forms, but never physical explanations, could meet this requirement. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by David-Hillel Ruben - Explaining Explanation Ch 2 | |
| A reaction: [Republic 436c is cited] |
| 13256 | Nous is unlimited, self-ruling and pure; it is the finest thing, with great discernment and strength [Anaxagoras] |
| Full Idea: Nous is unlimited and self-ruling and has been mixed with no thing, but is alone itself by itself. ...For it is the finest of all things and the purest, and indeed it maintains all discernment about everything and has the greatest strength. | |
| From: Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B12), quoted by Patricia Curd - Anaxagoras 3.3 | |
| A reaction: Anaxagoras seems to have been a pioneer in elevating the status of the mind, which is a prop to the rationalist view, and encourages dualism. More naturalistic accounts are, in my view, much healthier. |
| 13784 | Mind is self-ruling, pure, ordering and ubiquitous [Anaxagoras, by Plato] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras says that mind is self-ruling, mixes with nothing else, orders the things that are, and travels through everything. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Plato - Cratylus 413c | |
| A reaction: This elevation of the mind in the natural scheme of things by Anaxagoras looks increasingly significant in western culture to me. Without this line of thought, Descartes and Kant are inconceivable. |
| 5118 | Anaxagoras says mind remains pure, and so is not affected by what it changes [Anaxagoras, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras says that intellect (which is a cause of change) is not affected by or mixed in with anything else; for this is the only way in which it can cause change, while being itself changeless, and control things without mixing with them. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 256b24 | |
| A reaction: I suggest that this is the germ of the original concept of freewill - of the mind as somehow outside the causal processes of the world, so that it can initiate change without itself being affected by other causes. Aristotle says he's right; I disagree. |
| 1651 | Plato wanted to somehow control and purify the passions [Vlastos on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato put high on his agenda a project which did not figure in Socrates' programme at all: the hygienic conditioning of the passions. This cannot be an intellectual process, as argument cannot touch them. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.88 | |
| A reaction: This is the standard traditional view of any thinker who exaggerates the importance and potential of reason in our lives. |
| 3324 | Plato's whole philosophy may be based on being duped by reification - a figure of speech [Benardete,JA on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato is liable to the charge of having been duped by a figure of speech, albeit the most profound of all, the trope of reification. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.12 | |
| A reaction: That might be a plausible account if his view was ridiculous, but given how many powerful friends Plato has, especially in the philosophy of mathematics, we should assume he was cleverer than that. |
| 7503 | Plato never refers to examining the conscience [Plato, by Foucault] |
| Full Idea: Plato never speaks of the examination of conscience - never! | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Michel Foucault - On the Genealogy of Ethics p.276 | |
| A reaction: Plato does imply some sort of self-evident direct knowledge about that nature of a healthy soul. Presumably the full-blown concept of conscience is something given from outside, from God. In 'Euthyphro', Plato asserts the primacy of morality (Idea 337). |
| 2173 | As religion and convention collapsed, Plato sought morals not just in knowledge, but in the soul [Williams,B on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Once gods and fate and social expectation were no longer there, Plato felt it necessary to discover ethics inside human nature, not just as ethical knowledge (Socrates' view), but in the structure of the soul. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Shame and Necessity II - p.43 | |
| A reaction: anti Charles Taylor |
| 9274 | Plato's legacy to European thought was the Good, the Beautiful and the True [Plato, by Gray] |
| Full Idea: Plato's legacy to European thought was a trio of capital letters - the Good, the Beautiful and the True. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by John Gray - Straw Dogs 2.8 | |
| A reaction: It seems to have been Baumgarten who turned this into a slogan (Idea 8117). Gray says these ideals are lethal, but I identify with them very strongly, and am quite happy to see the good life as an attempt to find the right balance between them. |
| 94 | Pleasure is better with the addition of intelligence, so pleasure is not the good [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Plato says the life of pleasure is more desirable with the addition of intelligence, and if the combination is better, pleasure is not the good. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics 1172b27 | |
| A reaction: It is obvious why we like pleasure, but not why intelligence makes it 'better'. Maybe it is just because we enjoy intelligence? |
| 17947 | Plato decided that the virtuous and happy life was the philosophical life [Plato, by Nehamas] |
| Full Idea: Plato came to the conclusion that virtue and happiness consist in the life of philosophy itself. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Alexander Nehamas - Eristic,Antilogic,Sophistic,Dialectic p.117 | |
| A reaction: This view is obviously ridiculous, because it largely excludes almost the entire human race, which sees philosophy as a cul-de-sac, even if it is good. But virtue and happiness need some serious thought. |
| 6015 | Plato, unusually, said that theoretical and practical wisdom are inseparable [Plato, by Kraut] |
| Full Idea: Two virtues that are ordinarily kept distinct - theoretical and practical wisdom - are joined by Plato; he thinks that neither one can be fully possessed unless it is combined with the other. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Richard Kraut - Plato | |
| A reaction: I get the impression that this doctrine comes from Socrates, whose position is widely reported as 'intellectualist'. Aristotle certainly held the opposite view. |
| 18231 | Anaxagoras said a person would choose to be born to contemplate the ordered heavens [Anaxagoras] |
| Full Idea: When Anaxagoras was asked what it was for which a person would choose to be born rather than not, he said it would be to apprehend the heavens and the order in the whole universe. | |
| From: Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], 1216), quoted by Aristotle - Eudemian Ethics 8 'Finality' | |
| A reaction: [Anaxagoras, quoted by Aristotle, quoted by Korsgaard, quoted by me, and then quoted by you, perhaps] |
| 2912 | Plato is boring [Nietzsche on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato is boring. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Twilight of the Idols 9.2 |
| 631 | For Anaxagoras the Good Mind has no opposite, and causes all movement, for a higher reason [Anaxagoras, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras says the good is a principle as the source of movement, in the form of Mind. However it does it for the sake of something else, which is a further factor. And he allows no opposite to the good Mind. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1075b |
| 22727 | Mind creates the world from a mixture of pure substances [Anaxagoras, by ] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras assumed that Mind, which is God, is the efficient principle, and the multi-mixture of homoeomeries is the material principle. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by - I.6 | |
| A reaction: The choice of homoeomeries as basic is a good one. They are much better candidates than materials which are made of parts of a quite different kind, where the parts are a better candidate than the whole. |
| 550 | Anaxagoras said that the number of principles was infinite [Anaxagoras, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras said that the number of principles was infinite. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 984a |
| 21383 | The ultimate constituents of reality are the homoeomeries [Anaxagoras, by Vlastos] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras contrasts with other thinkers in the formula that his 'elements' were not the air of Anaximenes or the fire of Heraclitus or the roots of Empedocles or the atoms of Leucippus, but the infinite variety of homoiomereia. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - The Physical Theory of Anaxagoras III | |
| A reaction: Not sure about the 'roots' of Empedocles. Anaxagoras is particularly thinking of the basic stuffs that make up the body, such as hair, bone and blood. It is plausible to reduce everything to stuffs that seem to have no further structure. |
| 13208 | Anaxagoreans regard the homoeomeries as elements, which compose earth, air, fire and water [Anaxagoras, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The followers of Anaxagoras regard the 'homoeomeries' as 'simple' and elements, whilst they affirm that Earth, Fire, Water and Air are composite; for each of these is (according to them) a 'common seminary' of all the homoeomeries. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 314a28 | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 13207. Aristotle is amused that the followers of Empedocles and of Anaxagoras have precisely opposite views on this subject. |
| 367 | Anaxagoras says mind produces order and causes everything [Anaxagoras, by Plato] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras asserted that it is mind that produces order and is the cause of everything. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Plato - Phaedo 097d |
| 1526 | Almost everyone except Plato thinks that time could not have been generated [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: With a single exception (Plato) everyone agrees about time - that it is not generated. Democritus says time is an obvious example of something not generated. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 251b14 |
| 12450 | The periodic table not only defines the elements, but also excludes other possible elements [Azzouni] |
| Full Idea: The periodic table not only governs what elements there can be, with their properties, but also explicitly excludes others sorts of elements, because the elements are individuated by the number of discrete protons in their nuclei. | |
| From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: It has to be central to the thesis of scientific essentialism that the possibilities in nature are far more restricted than is normally thought, and this observation illustrates the view nicely. He makes a similar point about subatomic particles. |
| 21381 | Germs contain microscopic organs, which become visible as they grow [Anaxagoras] |
| Full Idea: In the germ there are hair, nails, arteries, sinews, bones, which are not manifest because of the smallness of their parts, but become distinct little by little as they grow. For how could hair come from not-hair, or flesh from non-flesh. | |
| From: Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B10), quoted by Gregory Vlastos - The Physical Theory of Anaxagoras I | |
| A reaction: Compare Aristotle's apparent view that the physical world has no microscopic structure, and Democritus's view that hair can come from not-hair by the organisation of atoms. Is this the first suggestion that we need to know what is microscopic? |
| 22726 | When things were unified, Mind set them in order [Anaxagoras] |
| Full Idea: All things were together, and Mind came and set them in order. | |
| From: Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) | |
| A reaction: This is presumably the source for the passionate belief of Plato in the importance of order. Existence seems like chaos, with order residing beneath it, but we can wonder whether if we go even deeper it is chaos again. |
| 2629 | Anaxagoras was the first to say that the universe is directed by an intelligence [Anaxagoras, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras, pupil of Anaximenes, was the first to maintain that the form and motion of the universe was determined and directed by the power and purpose of an infinite intelligence. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.26 |
| 480 | Past, present and future, and the movements of the heavens, were arranged by Mind [Anaxagoras] |
| Full Idea: Whatever was then in existence which is not now, and all things that now exist, and whatever shall exist - all were arranged by Mind, as also the revolution followed now by the stars, the sun and the moon. | |
| From: Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B12), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 164.24 |
| 5956 | Anaxagoras was charged with impiety for calling the sun a lump of stone [Anaxagoras, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras was charged with impiety because he called the sun a lump of stone. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Plutarch - 14: Superstition §9 | |
| A reaction: The point is that he was supposed to say that the sun is a god. |
| 7488 | Anaxagoras was the first recorded atheist [Anaxagoras, by Watson] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras was the first recorded atheist. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Peter Watson - Ideas Ch.25 | |
| A reaction: He was a very lively character, right in the middle of the Athenian golden age. |