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5893
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A wise man has integrity, firmness of will, nobility, consistency, sobriety, patience [Cicero]
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Full Idea:
The wise man does nothing of which he can repent, nothing against his will, does everything nobly, consistently, soberly, rightly, not looking forward to anything as bound to come, is not astonished at any novel occurrence, abides by his own decisions.
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From:
M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], V.xxviii)
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A reaction:
Notice that the wise man never exhibits weakness of will (an Aristotelian virtue), and is consistent (as Kant proposed), and is patient (as the Stoics proposed). But Cicero doesn't think he should busy himself maximising happiness.
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16620
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A chair is wood, and its shape is the form; it isn't 'compounded' of the matter and form [Hobbes]
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Full Idea:
Nothing can be compounded of matter and form. The matter of a chair is wood; the form is the figure it has, apt for the intended use. Does his Lordship think the chair compounded of the wood and the figure?
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From:
Thomas Hobbes (Letter to Bramhall [1650], 4:302), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 07.1
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A reaction:
Aristotle does use the word 'shape' [morphe] when he is discussing hylomorphism, and the statue example seems to support it, but elsewhere the form is a much deeper principle of individuation.
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16622
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Essence is just an artificial word from logic, giving a way of thinking about substances [Hobbes]
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Full Idea:
Essence and all other abstract names are words artificial belonging to the art of logic, and signify only the manner how we consider the substance itself.
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From:
Thomas Hobbes (Letter to Bramhall [1650], 4:308), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671
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A reaction:
I sympathise quite a lot with this view, but not with its dismissive tone. The key question I take to be: if you reject essences entirely (having read too much physics), how are we going to think about entities in the world in future?
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5884
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How can one mind perceive so many dissimilar sensations? [Cicero]
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Full Idea:
Why is it that, using the same mind, we have perception of things so utterly unlike as colour, taste, heat, smell and sound?
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From:
M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], I.xx.47)
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A reaction:
This leaves us with the 'binding problem', of how the dissimilar sensations are pulled together into one field of experience. It is a nice simple objection, though, to anyone who simplistically claims that the mind is self-evidently unified.
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5887
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The soul has a single nature, so it cannot be divided, and hence it cannot perish [Cicero]
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Full Idea:
In souls there is no mingling of ingredients, nothing of two-fold nature, so it is impossible for the soul to be divided; impossible, therefore, for it to perish either; for perishing is like the separation of parts which were maintained in union.
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From:
M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], I.xxix.71)
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A reaction:
Cicero knows he is pushing his luck in asserting that perishing is a sort of division. Why can't something be there one moment and gone the next? He appears to be in close agreement with Descartes about being a 'thinking thing'.
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5886
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Like the eye, the soul has no power to see itself, but sees other things [Cicero]
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Full Idea:
The soul has not the power of itself to see itself, but, like the eye, the soul, though it does not see itself, yet discerns other things.
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From:
M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], I.xxvii)
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A reaction:
The soul is a complex item which contributes many layers of interpretation to what it sees, so there is scope for parts of the soul seeing other parts. Somewhere in the middle Cicero seems to be right - there is an elusive something we can't get at.
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5885
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Souls contain no properties of elements, and elements contain no properties of souls [Cicero]
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Full Idea:
No beginnings of souls can be found on earth; there is no combination in souls that could be born from earth, nothing that partakes of moist or airy or fiery; for in those elements there is nothing to possess the power of memory, thought, or reflection.
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From:
M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], I.xxvi.66)
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A reaction:
Interesting, but I think magnetism is an instructive analogy, which has weird properties which we never perceive in elements (though it is there, buried deep - suggesting panpsychism). Cicero would be disconcerted to find that fire isn't an element.
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