26 ideas
2653 | If the parts of the universe are subject to the law of nature, the whole universe must also be subject to it [Cicero] |
Full Idea: If the parts of the universe are subject to the law of nature, then the universe itself must be subject to this law. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.86) |
2628 | Why would mind mix with matter if it didn't need it? [Cicero] |
Full Idea: If the gods have no need of the sensible world, why mix up mind with water and water with mind, if mind can exist by itself without any need of matter? | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.24) | |
A reaction: This question migrates into our puzzles about why a separate mental substance would be produced by evolution. If it is device physical systems use to promote themselves, mental substance is reduced to an inferior and dependent role. |
20814 | Eloquence educates, exhorts, comforts, distracts and unites us, and raises us from savagery [Cicero] |
Full Idea: How wonderful is the power of eloquence! It enables us to learn and to teach. We use it to exhort and persuade, to comfort the unfortunate, to distract the timid and calm the passionate. It unites us in law and society, and raises us from savagery. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], 2.147) | |
A reaction: [compressed] Cicero would have been well aware of the doubts about rhetoric felt by Socrates (and possibly Plato). Cicero was probably the greatest Roman orator. |
20416 | By 1790 aestheticians were mainly trying to explain individual artistic genius [Kemp] |
Full Idea: By 1790 the idea that a central task for the aesthetician was to explain or at least adequately to describe the phenomenon of the individual artistic genius had definitely taken hold. | |
From: Gary Kemp (Croce and Collingwood [2012], Intro) | |
A reaction: Hence when Kant and Hegel write about art, though are only really thinking of the greatest art (which might be in touch with the sublime or Spirit etc.). Nowadays I think we expect accounts of art to cover modest amateur efforts as well. |
20417 | Expression can be either necessary for art, or sufficient for art (or even both) [Kemp] |
Full Idea: Seeing art as expression has two components: 1) if something is a work of art, then it is expressive, 2) if something is expressive, then it is a work of art. So expression can be necessary or sufficient for art. (or both, for Croce and Collingwood). | |
From: Gary Kemp (Croce and Collingwood [2012], 1) | |
A reaction: I take the idea that art 'expresses' the feelings of an artist to be false. Artists are more like actors. Nearly all art has some emotional impact, which is of major importance, but I don't think 'expression' is a very good word for that. |
20418 | The horror expressed in some works of art could equallly be expressed by other means [Kemp] |
Full Idea: The horror or terror of Edvard Much's 'The Scream' could in principle be expressed by different paintings, or even by works of music. | |
From: Gary Kemp (Croce and Collingwood [2012], 1) | |
A reaction: A very good simple point against the idea that the point of art is expression. It leaves out the very specific nature of each work of art! |
20419 | We don't already know what to express, and then seek means of expressing it [Kemp] |
Full Idea: One cannot really know, or be conscious of, what it is that one is going to express, and then set about expressing it; indeed if one is genuinely conscious of it then one has already expressed it. | |
From: Gary Kemp (Croce and Collingwood [2012], 1) | |
A reaction: That pretty conclusively demolishes the idea that art is expression. I picture Schubert composing at the piano: he doesn't feel an emotion, and then hunt for its expression on the keyboard; he seeks out expressive phrases by playing. |
2640 | We have the death penalty, but still have thousands of robbers [Cicero] |
Full Idea: We have robbers by the thousand, although they have the penalty of death before their eyes. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.86) |
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. |
2652 | Some regard nature simply as an irrational force that imparts movement [Cicero] |
Full Idea: Some regard nature as an irrational force which merely imparts a mechanical motion to material bodies. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.81) |
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. |
2645 | Why shouldn't the gods fear their own destruction? [Cicero] |
Full Idea: Why should the gods not be apprehensive of their own possible dissolution? | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.114) |
2627 | I wonder whether loss of reverence for the gods would mean the end of all virtue [Cicero] |
Full Idea: I do not know whether, if our reverence for the gods were lost, we should not also see the end of good faith, of human brotherhood, and even of justice itself, which is the keystone of all the virtues. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.3) |
2651 | God doesn't obey the laws of nature; they are subject to the law of God [Cicero] |
Full Idea: God is not subject to obey the laws of nature. It is nature that is subject to the laws of God. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.77) |
2634 | It seems clear to me that we have an innate idea of the divine [Cicero] |
Full Idea: Let us take it as agreed that we have a preconception or "an innate idea" (as I have called it) or a prior knowledge of the divine. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.44) |
2636 | Many primitive people know nothing of the gods [Cicero] |
Full Idea: There must be many wild and primitive peoples who have no idea of the gods at all. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.62) |
2647 | It is obvious from order that someone is in charge, as when we visit a gymnasium [Cicero] |
Full Idea: If one comes into a gymnasium and sees everything properly arranged and carried on in order, one does not imagine these arrangements to be accidental, but infers that there is someone in command whose orders are obeyed. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.15) |
2650 | If a person cannot feel the power of God when looking at the stars, they are probably incapable of feeling [Cicero] |
Full Idea: If any man cannot feel the power of God when he looks upon the stars, then I doubt whether he is capable of any feeling at all. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.55) |
2655 | If the barbarians of Britain saw a complex machine, they would be baffled, but would know it was designed [Cicero] |
Full Idea: If someone were to take the celestial globe of Posidonius and show it to the people of Britain, would a single one of those barbarians fail to see that it was the product of a conscious intelligence? | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.88) |
2656 | Chance is no more likely to create the world than spilling lots of letters is likely to create a famous poem [Cicero] |
Full Idea: If someone thinks chance made the world, he should also think that if an infinite number of the letters of the alphabet were shaken together and poured out on the ground it would be possible for them to spell out the whole 'Annals' of Ennius. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.93) |
2657 | If everything with regular movement and order is divine, then recurrent illnesses must be divine [Cicero] |
Full Idea: Are we to find a divinity in every regular movement and in everything which happens in a constant order? If so, we shall have to say that tertian and quartan agues are divine because their course and recurrence is absolutely uniform. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], III.24) |
2638 | Either the gods are identical, or one is more beautiful than another [Cicero] |
Full Idea: Are the gods all exactly the same? If not, then one must be more beautiful than another. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.80) |
2635 | The gods are happy, so virtuous, so rational, so must have human shape [Cicero] |
Full Idea: We agree the gods are happy, and no happiness is possible without virtue: there is no virtue without reason: and reason is associated only with the human form: then it must follow that the gods themselves have human shape. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.48) |
2641 | Why believe in gods if you have never seen them? [Cicero] |
Full Idea: Did you ever actually see a god? Then why do you believe that gods exist? | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.88) |
2659 | The lists of good men who have suffered and bad men who have prospered are endless [Cicero] |
Full Idea: Time would fail me if I tried to list all the good men for whom things have turned out badly. So it would if I tried to mention all the wicked who have prospered. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], III.80) |
2658 | The gods blame men for having vices, but they could have given us enough reason to avoid them [Cicero] |
Full Idea: You gods say that the fault lies in the vices of mankind. But you could have endowed men with reason in a form which would exclude all vice and crime. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], III.76) |