5 ideas
18988 | Behind the bare phenomenal facts there is nothing [Wright,Ch] |
Full Idea: Behind the bare phenomenal facts, as my tough-minded old friend Chauncey Wright, the great Harvard empiricist of my youth, used to say, there is nothing. | |
From: Chauncey Wright (talk [1870]), quoted by William James - Pragmatism - eight lectures Lec 7 | |
A reaction: This is the best slogan for strong phenomenalism ever coined! It also seems to fit David Lewis's approach to philosophy, as the pure study of the mosaic of experiences. |
22439 | There are only duties if there are rights, so truth is only for those with a right to it [Constant] |
Full Idea: A duty is that on the part of one being which corresponds to the rights of another. Where there are no rights there are no duties. To tell the truth is therefore a duty, but only to the one who has the right to the truth. | |
From: Benjamin Constant (On Political Reactions [1797], p.123), quoted by Immanuel Kant - On a supposed right to lie p.28 | |
A reaction: We can't claim a right to have all questions answered truthfully (because there is a right to privacy), but we might claim a right not to be lied to (as long as we accept a refusal to answer). Kant rejected this idea. |
22440 | Unconditional truth-telling makes a society impossible [Constant] |
Full Idea: The moral principle 'it is a duty to tell the truth' would, if taken unconditionally and singly, make any society impossible. | |
From: Benjamin Constant (On Political Reactions [1797], p.124), quoted by Immanuel Kant - On a supposed right to lie p.28 | |
A reaction: He gives the well known example of the murderer at the door asking if your friend is inside. Compare everyone becoming perfectly telepathic. Our society would collapse, but a new society would learn to live with it. |
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. |