7 ideas
22752 | Reasoning is impossible without a preconception [Sext.Empiricus] |
Full Idea: It is not possible either to seek or to doubt without a preconception. | |
From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.22) | |
A reaction: [Sextus quotes this from 'the sapient Epicurus'] I think this may be a message across the centuries to Hegel, who attempted this impossible feat. My picture of philosophy is a continual shift of the preconceptions, to explore thoroughly. |
6981 | Determinism clashes with free will, as the past determines action, and is beyond our control [Inwagen, by Jackson] |
Full Idea: I find compelling Peter van Ingwagen's argument that because the past is outside our control, and any action fully determined by something outside our control is not free, determinism is inconsistent with free will. | |
From: report of Peter van Inwagen (An Essay on Free Will [1983]) by Frank Jackson - From Metaphysics to Ethics Ch.2 | |
A reaction: I am puzzled by anyone who even dreamt that full blown free will (very free indeed) could be compatible with the view that past events impose a necessity on future events. So called 'compatibilists' strike me as being determinists. |
22754 | Saying the good is useful or choiceworth or happiness-creating is not the good, but a feature of it [Sext.Empiricus] |
Full Idea: Asserting that the good is 'the useful', or 'what is choiceworthy for its own sake', or 'that which contributes to happiness', does not teach us what good is but states its accidental property. | |
From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.35) | |
A reaction: This seems to be a pretty accurate statement of Moore's famous Open Question argument. I read it in an Aristotelian way - that that quest is always for the essential nature of the thing itself, not for its role or function or use. |
22755 | Like a warming fire, what is good by nature should be good for everyone [Sext.Empiricus] |
Full Idea: Just as fire which is warmth-giving by nature warms all men, and does not chill some of them, so what is good by nature ought to be good for all, and not good for some but not good for others. | |
From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.69) | |
A reaction: This is going to confine the naturally good to the basics of life, which we all share. Is a love of chess a natural good? It seems to capture an aspect of human nature, without appealing to everyone. Sextus says nothing is good for everyone. |
22756 | If a desire is itself desirable, then we shouldn't desire it, as achieving it destroys it [Sext.Empiricus] |
Full Idea: If the desire for wealth or health is desirable, we ought not to purse wealth or health, lest by acquiring them we cease to desire them any longer. | |
From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.81) | |
A reaction: He is investigating whether desires can be desirable, and if so which ones. Roots of this are in Plato's 'Gorgias' on drinking water. Similar to 'if compassion is the highest good then we need lots of suffering'. Desire must be a means, not an end. |
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. |