Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'A General Principle to Explain Laws of Nature' and 'Confessions of a Philosopher'

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5 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 2. Invocation to Philosophy
Philosophy is sanctified, because it flows from God [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Philosophy is sanctified by having its streams flow from the fountain of God's attributes.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (A General Principle to Explain Laws of Nature [1687], p.69)
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 1. Concept of Identity
Inequality can be brought infinitely close to equality [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Equality may be considered as an infinitely small inequality, and we may make inequality approach equality as much as we wish.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (A General Principle to Explain Laws of Nature [1687], p.67)
     A reaction: An interesting response to David Lewis's brusque dismissal of the problem of identity, as all-or-nothing...end of story.
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 3. Limits of Introspection
Why don't we experience or remember going to sleep at night? [Magee]
     Full Idea: As a child it was incomprehensible to me that I did not experience going to sleep, and never remembered it. When my sister said 'Nobody remembers that', I just thought 'How does she know?'
     From: Bryan Magee (Confessions of a Philosopher [1997], Ch.I)
     A reaction: This is actually evidence for something - that we do not have some sort of personal identity which is separate from consciousness, so that "I am conscious" would literally mean that an item has a property, which it can lose.
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.