Combining Texts

All the ideas for '67: Platonic Questions', 'Against the Ethicists (one book)' and 'Analogy of Religion'

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10 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 9. Limits of Reason
22752 Reasoning is impossible without a preconception [Sext.Empiricus]
     Full Idea: It is not possible either to seek or to doubt without a preconception.
     From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.22)
     A reaction: [Sextus quotes this from 'the sapient Epicurus'] I think this may be a message across the centuries to Hegel, who attempted this impossible feat. My picture of philosophy is a continual shift of the preconceptions, to explore thoroughly.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 9. Sameness
21315 A tree remains the same in the popular sense, but not in the strict philosophical sense [Butler]
     Full Idea: When a man swears to the same tree having stood for fifty years in the same place, he means ...not that the tree has been all that time the same in the strict philosophical sense of the word. ...In a loose and popular sense they are said to be the same.
     From: Joseph Butler (Analogy of Religion [1736], App.1)
     A reaction: A helpful distinction which we should hang on. Of course, by the standards of modern physics, nothing is strictly the same from one Planck time to the next. All is flux. So we either drop the word 'same' (for objects) or relax a bit.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 2. Psuche
5960 When the soul is intelligent and harmonious, it is part of god and derives from god [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: The soul, when it has partaken of intelligence and reason and concord, is not merely a work but also a part of god and has come to be not by his agency but both from him as source and out of his substance.
     From: Plutarch (67: Platonic Questions [c.85], II.1001)
     A reaction: A most intriguing shift of view from earlier concepts of the psuché. How did this come about? This man is a pagan. The history is in the evolution of Platonism. See 'The Middle Platonists' by John Dillon. Davidson is also very impressed by reason.
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 4. Presupposition of Self
21317 Despite consciousness fluctuating, we are aware that it belongs to one person [Butler]
     Full Idea: Though the successive consciousnesses which we have of our own existence are not the same, yet they are consciousnesses of one and the same thing or object; of the same person, self, or living agent.
     From: Joseph Butler (Analogy of Religion [1736], App.1)
     A reaction: Butler's arguments seems to be that he appears to be the same person, so he is the same person. He is explicitly disagreeing with Locke.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / a. Memory is Self
21313 If consciousness of events makes our identity, then if we have forgotten them we didn't exist then [Butler]
     Full Idea: Though consciousness of what is past does ascertain our personal identity to ourselves, yet to say that it makes personal identity, or is necessary to our being the same persons is to say a person has not existed a single moment but what he can remember.
     From: Joseph Butler (Analogy of Religion [1736], App.1)
     A reaction: An over-cautious scepticism has crept in about the reliability of bodily identity. Now we can have photographs and CCTV to prove that we experienced events we have forgotten. Butler is right.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / c. Inadequacy of mental continuity
21314 Consciousness presupposes personal identity, so it cannot constitute it [Butler]
     Full Idea: One would think it really self-evident that consciousness of personal identity presupposes, and therefore cannot constitute, personal identity, any more than knowledge can presuppose truth, which it presupposes.
     From: Joseph Butler (Analogy of Religion [1736], App.1)
     A reaction: It rather begs the question to dogmatically assert that mere consciousness presupposes a self, especially after Hume's criticisms. That consciousness implies a subject to experience needs arguing for. Is it the best explanation?
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 5. Concerns of the Self
21318 If the self changes, we have no responsibilities, and no interest in past or future [Butler]
     Full Idea: If personality is a transient thing ...then it follows that it is a fallacy to charge ourselves with any thing we did, or to imagine our present selves interested in any thing which befell us yesterday, or what will befall us tomorrow.
     From: Joseph Butler (Analogy of Religion [1736], App.1)
     A reaction: We seem to care about the past and future of our children, without actually being our children. Can't my future self be my descendant, a close one, instead of me?
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / a. Form of the Good
22754 Saying the good is useful or choiceworth or happiness-creating is not the good, but a feature of it [Sext.Empiricus]
     Full Idea: Asserting that the good is 'the useful', or 'what is choiceworthy for its own sake', or 'that which contributes to happiness', does not teach us what good is but states its accidental property.
     From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.35)
     A reaction: This seems to be a pretty accurate statement of Moore's famous Open Question argument. I read it in an Aristotelian way - that that quest is always for the essential nature of the thing itself, not for its role or function or use.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / b. Types of good
22755 Like a warming fire, what is good by nature should be good for everyone [Sext.Empiricus]
     Full Idea: Just as fire which is warmth-giving by nature warms all men, and does not chill some of them, so what is good by nature ought to be good for all, and not good for some but not good for others.
     From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.69)
     A reaction: This is going to confine the naturally good to the basics of life, which we all share. Is a love of chess a natural good? It seems to capture an aspect of human nature, without appealing to everyone. Sextus says nothing is good for everyone.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / d. Routes to happiness
22756 If a desire is itself desirable, then we shouldn't desire it, as achieving it destroys it [Sext.Empiricus]
     Full Idea: If the desire for wealth or health is desirable, we ought not to purse wealth or health, lest by acquiring them we cease to desire them any longer.
     From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.81)
     A reaction: He is investigating whether desires can be desirable, and if so which ones. Roots of this are in Plato's 'Gorgias' on drinking water. Similar to 'if compassion is the highest good then we need lots of suffering'. Desire must be a means, not an end.