Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks' and 'Reply to Fifth Objections'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts


8 ideas

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / a. Substance
Knowing the attributes is enough to reveal a substance [Descartes]
     Full Idea: I have never thought that anything more is required to reveal a substance than its various attributes.
     From: René Descartes (Reply to Fifth Objections [1641], 360)
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 3. Innate Knowledge / a. Innate knowledge
Our thinking about external things doesn't disprove the existence of innate ideas [Descartes]
     Full Idea: You can't prove that Praxiteles never made any statues on the grounds that he did not get from within himself the marble from which he sculpted them.
     From: René Descartes (Reply to Fifth Objections [1641], 362)
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 2. Origin of Concepts / c. Nativist concepts
A blind man may still contain the idea of colour [Descartes]
     Full Idea: How do you know that there is no idea of colour in a man born blind?
     From: René Descartes (Reply to Fifth Objections [1641], 363)
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 5. Existence-Essence
It is absurd to think you can change your own essence, like a garment [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: Man is necessity down to his last fibre, and totally 'unfree', that is if one means by freedom the foolish demand to be able to change one's 'essentia' arbitrarily, like a garment.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks [1873], p.7), quoted by Brian Leiter - Nietzsche On Morality 2 'Realism'
     A reaction: This is the big difference between the existentialism of Nietzsche and the more famous Sartrean approach, where the idea of being able to remake your essence is the most exciting and glamorous proposal. I'm with Nietzsche.
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles
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.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / d. Time as measure
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.
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / a. Ontological Proof
Necessary existence is a property which is uniquely part of God's essence [Descartes]
     Full Idea: In the case of God necessary existence is in fact a property in the strictest sense of the term, since it applies to him alone and forms a part of his essence as it does of no other thing
     From: René Descartes (Reply to Fifth Objections [1641], 383)
Possible existence is a perfection in the idea of a triangle [Descartes]
     Full Idea: Possible existence is a perfection in the idea of a triangle, just as necessary existence is a perfection in the idea of God.
     From: René Descartes (Reply to Fifth Objections [1641], 383)