4 ideas
6581 | Hume thought (unlike Locke) that property is a merely conventional relationship [Hume, by Fogelin] |
Full Idea: Hume thought (in contrast to Locke) that property reflects a conventional (rather than natural) relationship determined by the laws that protect people from having things taken from them. | |
From: report of David Hume (Nine political essays [1741]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.3 | |
A reaction: It seems pretty obvious that the idea of property was invented by the powerful, to protect their gains against the weak. I suspect that you might till a piece of land simply in order to assert ownership of it, just as you might bring in colonists. |
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. |
19035 | General Relativity allows substantivalism about space-time - that it has independent properties [Hoefer] |
Full Idea: General Relativity describes space-time in a way that allows it to exist with determinate properties not reducible to the properties and relations of its material contents. Hence nearly all physicists and philosophers writing on GR are substantivalists. | |
From: Carl Hoefer (The Metaphysics of Space-Time Substantivalism [1996], p.5), quoted by Barbara Vetter - Potentiality 7.3 | |
A reaction: I'm encouraged by this, as I instinctly favour substantivalism. Imagine removing all the objects from space-time, one by one. What happens as you approach the end of the task? Once they are removed, can they be replaced? |
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. |