4 ideas
9218 | Maybe what distinguishes philosophy from science is its pursuit of necessary truths [Sider] |
Full Idea: According to one tradition, necessary truth demarcates philosophical from empirical inquiry. Science identifies contingent aspects of the world, whereas philosophical inquiry reveals the essential nature of its objects. | |
From: Theodore Sider (Reductive Theories of Modality [2003], 1) | |
A reaction: I don't think there is a clear demarcation, and I would think that lots of generalizations about contingent truths are in philosophical territory, but I quite like this idea - even if it does make scientists laugh at philosophers. |
20444 | If paintings could be perfectly duplicated, it would be a multiple art form [Currie, by Bacharach] |
Full Idea: Currie claims that, in principle, all art forms are multiple. A superxerox machine, duplicating a painting molecule by molecule, would show that paintings are singular only contingently. | |
From: report of Gregory Currie (An Ontology of Art [1988]) by Sondra Bacharach - Arthur C. Danto 3 | |
A reaction: This strikes me as correct. An original painting would then have the same status as the manuscript of a poem, giving it an authority, and being moving by its personal contact with the artist. But worth far less than current original paintings. |
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. |