5 ideas
18776 | Contextual definitions eliminate descriptions from contexts [Linsky,B] |
Full Idea: A 'contextual' definition shows how to eliminate a description from a context. | |
From: Bernard Linsky (Quantification and Descriptions [2014], 2) | |
A reaction: I'm trying to think of an example, but what I come up with are better described as 'paraphrases' than as 'definitions'. |
18774 | Definite descriptions, unlike proper names, have a logical structure [Linsky,B] |
Full Idea: Definite descriptions seem to have a logical structure in a way that proper names do not. | |
From: Bernard Linsky (Quantification and Descriptions [2014], 1.1.1) | |
A reaction: Thus descriptions have implications which plain names do not. |
23217 | All of our happiness and misery arises entirely from the brain [Hippocrates] |
Full Idea: Men ought to know that from the brain, and from the brain alone, arise our pleasures, joys, laughter and jests, as well as our sorrow, pains, griefs and tears. | |
From: Hippocrates (Hippocrates of Cos on the mind [c.430 BCE], p.32) | |
A reaction: If this could be assertedly so confidently at that date, why was the fact so slow to catch on? Brain injuries should have convinced everyone. |
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. |