4 ideas
9138 | An infinite series of sentences asserting falsehood produces the paradox without self-reference [Yablo, by Sorensen] |
Full Idea: Banning self-reference is too narrow to avoid the liar paradox. With 1) all the subsequent sentences are false, 2) all the subsequent sentences are false, 3) all the subsequent... the paradox still arises. Self-reference is a special case of this. | |
From: report of Stephen Yablo (Paradox without Self-Reference [1993]) by Roy Sorensen - Vagueness and Contradiction 11.1 | |
A reaction: [Idea 9137 pointed out that the ban was too narrow. Sorensen p.168 explains why this one is paradoxical] This is a nice example of progress in philosophy, since the Greeks would have been thrilled with this idea (unless they knew it, but it was lost). |
3032 | I can form no notion of what the good is [Amphis] |
Full Idea: What the good is I no more can form a notion of, than of the good of Plato. | |
From: Amphis (comedies (frags) [c.350 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 03.1.22 | |
A reaction: It was evidently a running joke in the ancient world that no one could define Plato's Form of the Good. He was said to have written a book on it, now lost. |
13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes. | |
From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078 | |
A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book. |
20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness. | |
From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42 | |
A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them. |