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20771
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Six parts: dialectic, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics, theology [Cleanthes, by Diog. Laertius]
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Full Idea:
Cleanthes says there are six parts: dialectic, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics, and theology.
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From:
report of Cleanthes (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.41
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A reaction:
This was a minority view, as most stoics agreed with Zeno and Chrysippus that there are three main topics. Nowadays there is little discussion of the 'parts' of philosophy, but the recent revival of meta-philosophy should encourage it.
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6028
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Bodies interact with other bodies, and cuts cause pain, and shame causes blushing, so the soul is a body [Cleanthes, by Nemesius]
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Full Idea:
Cleanthes says no incorporeal interacts with a body, but one body interacts with another body; the soul interacts with the body when it is sick and being cut, and the body feels shame and fear, and turns red or pale, so the soul is a body.
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From:
report of Cleanthes (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by Nemesius - De Natura Hominis 78,7
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A reaction:
This is precisely the interaction problem with dualism, or, as we might now say, the problem of mental causation. The standard Stoic view is that the soul is a sort of rarefied fire, which disperses at death.
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20062
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If a desire leads to a satisfactory result by an odd route, the causal theory looks wrong [Chisholm]
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Full Idea:
If someone wants to kill his uncle to inherit a fortune, and having this desire makes him so agitated that he loses control of his car and kills a pedestrian, who turns out to be his uncle, the conditions of the causal theory seem to be satisfied.
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From:
Roderick Chisholm (Freedom and Action [1966]), quoted by Rowland Stout - Action 6 'Deviant'
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A reaction:
This line of argument has undermined all sorts of causal theories that were fashionable in the 1960s and 70s. Explanation should lead to understanding, but a deviant causal chain doesn't explain the outcome. The causal theory can be tightened.
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20054
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There has to be a brain event which is not caused by another event, but by the agent [Chisholm]
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Full Idea:
There must be some event A, presumably some cerebral event, which is not caused by any other event, but by the agent.
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From:
Roderick Chisholm (Freedom and Action [1966], p.20), quoted by Rowland Stout - Action 4 'Agent'
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A reaction:
I'm afraid this thought strikes me as quaintly ridiculous. What kind of metaphysics can allow causation outside the natural nexus, yet occuring within the physical brain? This is a relic of religious dualism. Let it go.
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