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 |
| 3822 | Theory involves accepting conclusions, and so is a special case of practical reason [Searle] |
| Full Idea: Theoretical reason is typically a matter of accepting a conclusion or hypothesis on the basis of argument or evidence, and is thus a special case of practical reason. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.VII) |
| 3811 | Entailment and validity are relations, but inference is a human activity [Searle] |
| Full Idea: We must distinguish between entailment and validity as logical relations on the one hand, and inferring as a voluntary human activity on the other. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.1.II) |
| 3812 | Rationality is the way we coordinate our intentionality [Searle] |
| Full Idea: The constraints of rationality ought to be thought of adverbially; they are a matter of the way in which we coordinate our intentionality. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.1.II) |
| 3806 | Rationality is built into the intentionality of the mind, and its means of expression [Searle] |
| Full Idea: Constraints of rationality are built into the structure of mind and language, specifically into the structure of intentionality and speech acts. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Int xiv) |
| 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. |
| 3809 | If complex logic requires rules, then so does basic logic [Searle] |
| Full Idea: If you think you need a rule to infer q from 'p and (if p then q)', then you would also need a rule to infer p from p. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.1.II) |
| 3810 | In real reasoning semantics gives validity, not syntax [Searle] |
| Full Idea: In real-life reasoning it is the semantic content that guarantees the validity of the inference, not the syntactical rule. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.1.II) |
| 3841 | Users of 'supervenience' blur its causal and constitutive meanings [Searle] |
| Full Idea: I am no fan of the concept of supervenience. Its uncritical use is a sign of philosophical confusion, because the concept oscillates between causal supervenience and constitutive supervenience. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.9 n5) | |
| A reaction: I don't see why you shouldn't assert the supervenience of one thing on another, while saying that you are not sure whether it is causal or constitutive. The confusion seems to me to be in understandings of the causal version. |
| 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] |
| 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? |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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. |
| 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 |
| 6019 | If someone squashed a horse to make a dog, something new would now exist [Mnesarchus] |
| Full Idea: If, for the sake of argument, someone were to mould a horse, squash it, then make a dog, it would be reasonable for us on seeing this to say that this previously did not exist but now does exist. | |
| From: Mnesarchus (fragments/reports [c.120 BCE]), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 179.11 | |
| A reaction: Locke would say it is new, because the substance is the same, but a new life now exists. A sword could cease to exist and become a new ploughshare, I would think. Apply this to the Ship of Theseus. Is form more important than substance? |
| 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 |
| 3833 | A belief is a commitment to truth [Searle] |
| Full Idea: A belief is a commitment to truth. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.4.III) |
| 3837 | We can't understand something as a lie if beliefs aren't commitment to truth [Searle] |
| Full Idea: If I lie and say "It is raining", my utterance is intelligible to me as a lie precisely because I understand that the utterance commits me to the truth of a proposition I do not believe to be true. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.6.II) |
| 3816 | Our beliefs are about things, not propositions (which are the content of the belief) [Searle] |
| Full Idea: The terminology of "propositional attitudes" is confused, because it suggests that a belief is an attitude towards a propositions, …but the proposition is the content, not the object, of my belief. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.2) |
| 3828 | Thinking must involve a self, not just an "it" [Searle] |
| Full Idea: We should not say "It thinks" in preference to "I think". If thinking is an active, voluntary process, there must be a self who thinks. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.IX) |
| 3831 | Reasons can either be facts in the world, or intentional states [Searle] |
| Full Idea: Both reasons and the things they are reasons for can be either facts in the world or intentional states such as beliefs, desires, and intentions. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.4.I) | |
| A reaction: One might point out that beliefs, desires and intentions are facts in the world too. Implicit dualism. One can ask, what turns a fact into a reason? |
| 3830 | In the past people had a reason not to smoke, but didn't realise it [Searle] |
| Full Idea: For a long time people had a reason not to smoke cigarettes, without knowing that they had such a reason. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: What does 'had' a reason mean here? If I wish you dead, there is a reason why you should be dead, but you don't 'have' the reason, and never will have. There's probably a reason why I should never have been born. |
| 3832 | Causes (usually events) are not the same as reasons (which are never events) [Searle] |
| Full Idea: Causes are typically events, reasons are never events. You can give a reason by stating a cause, but it does not follow that the reason and the cause are the same thing. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.4.I) | |
| A reaction: This is against Davidson. I'm with Searle here; my having a reason to do something is not the cause of my doing it. I don't, unlike Searle, believe in free will, but doing something for a reason is not just the operation of the reason. |
| 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] |
| 3823 | Being held responsible for past actions makes no sense without personal identity [Searle] |
| Full Idea: I am held responsible now for things that I did in the distant past. But that only makes sense if there is some entity that is both the agent of the action in the past and me now. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.VII) | |
| A reaction: A possible response, of course, is that you are held responsible for your past deeds, but you shouldn't be. The idea that you are the same as when you committed the crime is a convenient fiction for people who desire revenge. Responsibility fades. |
| 3821 | Giving reasons for action requires reference to a self [Searle] |
| Full Idea: The requirement that I state reasons that I acted on requires a reference to the self. …Only for a self can something be a reason for an action. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.VII) | |
| A reaction: Why can't we just say that this reason, given this desire and this belief, led to this action, and never mention the self? Admittedly leaving out 'I' is an odd circumlocution, but I don't find this particular argument very convincing. |
| 3824 | A 'self' must be capable of conscious reasonings about action [Searle] |
| Full Idea: In order to be a self the entity that acts as an agent must also be capable of conscious reasoning about its actions. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.VIII) | |
| A reaction: I can't accept this all-or-nothing account. A chimpanzee is some sort of 'agent', and there are bad chimpanzees you wouldn't want in your colony. Why does Searle want to cut us off in some special compound where our actions are totally different? |
| 3834 | An intentional, acting, rational being must have a self [Searle] |
| Full Idea: Selfhood in my sense comes for free once you have a conscious intentional being capable of engaging in free actions on the basis of reasons. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.5.II) | |
| A reaction: The concept of an 'action' is probably the thing that most clearly needs a self, because it implies co-ordination and purpose, and there must be some item which benefits. Personally I think you can drop 'free actions' and still have a self. |
| 3825 | Action requires a self, even though perception doesn't [Searle] |
| Full Idea: It is a formal requirement on rational action that there must be a self who acts, in a way that it is not a formal requirement on perception that there be an agent or a self who perceives. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.IX) | |
| A reaction: I don't find this persuasive. I don't see how we can rule out a priori the possibility of a set of desires and reasons within an organism which generate an action, without any intervening 'self' to add something. Ockham's Razor. |
| 3829 | Selfs are conscious, enduring, reasonable, active, free, and responsible [Searle] |
| Full Idea: A self is conscious, persists through time, operates with reasons, carries out free actions, and is responsible. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.X) | |
| A reaction: Personally I would substitute 'makes decisions' for 'carries out free actions', but otherwise I agree, though he seems to miss a key aspect, which is that the self is in charge of the mind, and directs its focus and co-ordinates its inputs and outputs. |
| 3826 | A self must at least be capable of consciousness [Searle] |
| Full Idea: The first condition on the self is that it should be capable of consciousness. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.IX) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a stipulative definition. It raises the question of whether it is possible that a lizard (say) is not actually conscious, but has some sort of propriotreptic awareness, and a 'central controller' for its decision-making. |
| 3827 | The self is neither an experience nor a thing experienced [Searle] |
| Full Idea: The self is not an experience, nor is it an object that is experienced. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.IX) | |
| A reaction: A nice dichotomy, that draws attention to the unique position of the self. Thanks to Descartes for focusing our attention on it. Personally I would say that the self is an object, which cannot be experienced by itself, but can be inferred by others. |
| 3820 | The bundle must also have agency in order to act, and a self to act rationally [Searle] |
| Full Idea: Agency must be added to the bundle to account for how embodied bundles engage in free actions, and selfhood must be added to account for how agents can act rationally. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.VII) | |
| A reaction: I don't buy much of this, but I am inclined to say that a will must be added to the bundle to explain why it acts consistently and coherently. It is certainly ridiculous to rest with the picture of a person as a completely unstructured bundle. |
| 3817 | Free will is most obvious when we choose between several reasons for an action [Searle] |
| Full Idea: The most dramatic manifestation of the free will gap is that when one has several reasons for performing an action, one may act on only one of them; one may select which reason one acts on. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.II) |
| 3808 | Rational decision making presupposes free will [Searle] |
| Full Idea: In order to engage in rational decision making we have to presuppose free will. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.1.II) |
| 3818 | We freely decide whether to make a reason for action effective [Searle] |
| Full Idea: Where free rational action is concerned, all effective reasons are made effective by the agent. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.II) |
| 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. |
| 3814 | Preferences can result from deliberation, not just precede it [Searle] |
| Full Idea: A well-ordered set of preferences is typically the result of successful deliberation, and is not its precondition. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.1.II) |
| 3840 | We don't accept practical reasoning if the conclusion is unpalatable [Searle] |
| Full Idea: If I desire to get rid of my flu symptoms, and believe the only way to do it is death, I am committed to desiring my death. …there is no plausible logic of practical reason. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.8.II) |
| 3815 | The essence of humanity is desire-independent reasons for action [Searle] |
| Full Idea: The single greatest difference between humans and other animals as far as rationality is concerned is our ability to create, recognise and act on desire-independent reasons for action. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.1.II) |
| 3839 | Only an internal reason can actually motivate the agent to act [Searle] |
| Full Idea: Only an internal reason can actually motivate the agent to act. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.6 App) |
| 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 |
| 3835 | If it is true, you ought to believe it [Searle] |
| Full Idea: To say that something is true is already to say that you ought to believe it. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.5.II) | |
| A reaction: I'm sure what Einstein said is true, but I don't understand it. The truth is the thought of how things actually are, but why should I not prefer my private fantasies? I see the point, though. |
| 3836 | If this is a man, you ought to accept similar things as men [Searle] |
| Full Idea: From the fact that an object is truly described as "a man", it follows that you ought to accept relevantly similar objects as men. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.5.IV) | |
| A reaction: 'Similar' rather begs the question. Common speech distinguishes sharply between a man and a 'real man'. You only accept them as men if you see them as men, not as similar to something else. Interesting. |
| 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. |
| 3838 | Promises hold because I give myself a reason, not because it is an institution [Searle] |
| Full Idea: The obligation to keep a promise does not derive from the institution of promising, ..but from the fact that in promising I freely and voluntarily create a reason for myself. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.6.IV) |
| 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. |
| 3813 | 'Ought' implies that there is a reason to do something [Searle] |
| Full Idea: To say that someone 'ought' to do something is to imply that there is a reason for him to do it. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.1.II) |
| 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 |
| 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 |