45 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 |
| 17713 | After 1903, Husserl avoids metaphysical commitments [Mares] |
| Full Idea: In Husserl's philosophy after 1903, he is unwilling to commit himself to any specific metaphysical views. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 08.2) |
| 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. |
| 17715 | The truth of the axioms doesn't matter for pure mathematics, but it does for applied [Mares] |
| Full Idea: The epistemological burden of showing that the axioms are true is removed if we are only studying pure mathematics. If, however, we want to look at applied mathematics, then this burden returns. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 11.4) | |
| A reaction: One of those really simple ideas that hits the spot. Nice. The most advanced applied mathematics must rest on counting and measuring. |
| 17716 | Mathematics is relations between properties we abstract from experience [Mares] |
| Full Idea: Aristotelians treat mathematical facts as relations between properties. These properties, moreover, are abstracted from our experience of things. ...This view finds a natural companion in structuralism. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 11.7) | |
| A reaction: This is the view of mathematics that I personally favour. The view that we abstract 'five' from a group of five pebbles is too simplistic, but this is the right general approach. |
| 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] |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 594 | Speusippus suggested underlying principles for every substance, and ended with a huge list [Speussipus, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Speusippus suggested principles for each substance, including principles for numbers, magnitude and the soul. He thus arrived at no mean list of substances. | |
| From: report of Speussipus (thirty titles (lost) [c.367 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 |
| 17703 | Light in straight lines is contingent a priori; stipulated as straight, because they happen to be so [Mares] |
| Full Idea: It seems natural to claim that light rays moving in straight lines is contingent but a priori. Scientists stipulate that they are the standard by which we measure straightness, but their appropriateness for this task is a contingent feature of the world. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 02.9) | |
| A reaction: This resembles the metre rule in Paris. It is contingent that something is a certain way, so we make being that way a conventional truth, which can therefore be known via the convention, rather than via the contingent fact. |
| 17714 | Aristotelians dislike the idea of a priori judgements from pure reason [Mares] |
| Full Idea: Aristotelians tend to eschew talk about a special faculty of pure reason that is responsible for all of our a priori judgements. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 08.9) | |
| A reaction: He is invoking Carrie Jenkins's idea that the a priori is knowledge of relations between concepts which have been derived from experience. Nice idea. We thus have an empirical a priori, integrated into the natural world. Abstraction must be involved. |
| 17705 | Empiricists say rationalists mistake imaginative powers for modal insights [Mares] |
| Full Idea: Empiricist critiques of rationalism often accuse rationalists of confusing the limits of their imaginations with real insight into what is necessarily true. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 03.01) | |
| A reaction: See ideas on 'Conceivable as possible' for more on this. You shouldn't just claim to 'see' that something is true, but be willing to offer some sort of reason, truthmaker or grounding. Without that, you may be right, but you are on weak ground. |
| 17700 | The most popular view is that coherent beliefs explain one another [Mares] |
| Full Idea: In what is perhaps the most popular version of coherentism, a system of beliefs is a set of beliefs that explain one another. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 01.5) | |
| A reaction: These seems too simple. My first response would be that explanations are what result from coherence sets of beliefs. I may have beliefs that explain nothing, but at least have the virtue of being coherent. |
| 17704 | Operationalism defines concepts by our ways of measuring them [Mares] |
| Full Idea: The central claim of Percy Bridgman's theory of operational definitions (1920s), is that definitions of certain scientific concepts are given by the ways that we have to measure them. For example, a straight line is 'the path of a light ray'. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 02.9) | |
| A reaction: It is often observed that this captures the spirit of Special Relativity. |
| 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] |
| 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. |
| 17710 | Aristotelian justification uses concepts abstracted from experience [Mares] |
| Full Idea: Aristotelian justification is the process of reasoning using concepts that are abstracted from experience (rather than, say, concepts that are innate or those that we associate with the meanings of words). | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 08.1) | |
| A reaction: See Carrie Jenkins for a full theory along these lines (though she doesn't mention Aristotle). This is definitely my preferred view of concepts. |
| 17706 | The essence of a concept is either its definition or its conceptual relations? [Mares] |
| Full Idea: In the 'classical theory' a concept includes in it those concepts that define it. ...In the 'theory theory' view the content of a concept is determined by its relationship to other concepts. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 03.10) | |
| A reaction: Neither of these seem to give an intrinsic account of a concept, or any account of how the whole business gets off the ground. |
| 17701 | Possible worlds semantics has a nice compositional account of modal statements [Mares] |
| Full Idea: Possible worlds semantics is appealing because it gives a compositional analysis of the truth conditions of statements about necessity and possibility. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 02.2) | |
| A reaction: Not sure I get this. Is the meaning composed by the gradual addition of worlds? If not, how is meaning composed in the normal way, from component words and phrases? |
| 17702 | Unstructured propositions are sets of possible worlds; structured ones have components [Mares] |
| Full Idea: An unstructured proposition is a set of possible worlds. ....Structured propositions contain entities that correspond to various parts of the sentences or thoughts that express them. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 02.3) | |
| A reaction: I am definitely in favour of structured propositions. It strikes me as so obvious as to be not worth discussion - so I am obviously missing something here. Mares says structured propositions are 'more convenient'. |
| 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. |
| 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 |
| 17708 | Maybe space has points, but processes always need regions with a size [Mares] |
| Full Idea: One theory is that space is made up of dimensionless points, but physical processes cannot take place in regions of less than a certain size. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 06.7) | |
| A reaction: Thinkers in sympathy with verificationism presumably won't like this, and may prefer Feynman's view. |
| 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 |
| 2632 | Speusippus said things were governed by some animal force rather than the gods [Speussipus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Speusippus, following his uncle Plato, held that all things were governed by some kind of animal force, and tried to eradicate from our minds any notion of the gods. | |
| From: report of Speussipus (thirty titles (lost) [c.367 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.33 |