4 ideas
| 18091 | Infinitesimals are ghosts of departed quantities [Berkeley] |
| Full Idea: The infinitesimals are the ghosts of departed quantities. | |
| From: George Berkeley (The Analyst [1734]), quoted by David Bostock - Philosophy of Mathematics 4.3 | |
| A reaction: [A famous phrase, but as yet no context for it] |
| 20344 | Music is not an expressive art, because it expresses no familiar emotions [Hanslick, by Wollheim] |
| Full Idea: Hanslick concluded from the fact that music doesn't express definite feelings like piety, love, joy, or sadness, that it isn't an art of expression. | |
| From: report of Eduard Hanslick (The Beautiful in Music [1854]) by Richard Wollheim - Art and Its Objects 48 | |
| A reaction: Whether music is 'expressive' (which it may not be) should not be confused with whether it is emotional, which it clearly is, even in its coolest examples. Hanslick viewed music as a code, not a language. |
| 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. |