12 ideas
| 12036 | Xenophanes began the concern with knowledge [Annas] |
| Full Idea: Xenophanes begins a long concern with knowledge and its grounds. | |
| From: Julia Annas (Ancient Philosophy: very short introduction [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Having that on his cv ought to make Xenophanes more famous than he is. |
| 12046 | Plato was the first philosopher who was concerned to systematize his ideas [Annas] |
| Full Idea: In the ancient world Plato was seen as a pivotal figure, the first philosopher who was concerned to systematize his ideas. | |
| From: Julia Annas (Ancient Philosophy: very short introduction [2000], Ch.6) |
| 12766 | Logical space is abstracted from the actual world [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Logical space is not given independently of the individuals that occupy it, but is abstracted from the world as we find it. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Anti-essentialism [1979], p.85) | |
| A reaction: I very much like the second half of this idea, and am delighted to find Stalnaker endorsing it. I take the logical connectives to be descriptions of how things behave, at a high level of generality. |
| 12764 | For the bare particular view, properties must be features, not just groups of objects [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: If we are to make sense of the bare particular theory, a property must be not just a rule for grouping individuals, but a feature of individuals in virtue of which they may be grouped. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Anti-essentialism [1979], p.76) | |
| A reaction: He is offering an objection to the thoroughly extensional account of properties that is found in standard possible worlds semantics. Quite right too. We can't give up on the common sense notion of a property. |
| 12761 | An essential property is one had in all the possible worlds where a thing exists [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: If necessity is explained in terms of possible worlds, ...then an essential property is a property that a thing has in all possible worlds in which it exists. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Anti-essentialism [1979], p.71) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me to be a quite shocking confusion of necessary properties with essential properties. The point is that utterly trivial properties can be necessary, but in no way part of the real essence of something. |
| 12763 | Necessarily self-identical, or being what it is, or its world-indexed properties, aren't essential [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: We can remain anti-essentialist while allowing some necessary properties: those essential to everything (self-identity), relational properties (being what it is), and world-indexed properties (being snub-nosed-only-in-Kronos). | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Anti-essentialism [1979], p.73) | |
| A reaction: [a summary] He defined essential properties as necessary properties (Idea 12761), and now backpeddles. World-indexed properties are an invention of Plantinga, as essential properties to don't limit individuals. But they are necessary, not essential! |
| 12762 | Bare particular anti-essentialism makes no sense within modal logic semantics [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: I argue that one cannot make semantical sense out of bare particular anti-essentialism within the framework of standard semantics for modal logic. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Anti-essentialism [1979], p.71) | |
| A reaction: Stalnaker characterises the bare particular view as ANTI-essentialist, because he has defined essence in terms of necessary properties. The bare particular seems to allow the possibility of Aristotle being a poached egg. |
| 12765 | Why imagine that Babe Ruth might be a billiard ball; nothing useful could be said about the ball [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: I cannot think of any point in making the counterfactual supposition that Babe Ruth is a billiard ball; there is nothing I can say about him in that imagined state that I could not just as well say about billiard balls that are not him. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Anti-essentialism [1979], p.79) | |
| A reaction: A bizarrely circumspect semanticists way of saying that Ruth couldn't possibly be a billiard ball! Would he say the same about a group of old men in wheelchairs, one of whom IS Babe Ruth? |
| 12037 | Euripides's Medea is a key case of reason versus the passions [Annas] |
| Full Idea: Euripides's Medea has remained a key case for discussion of reason and the passions. | |
| From: Julia Annas (Ancient Philosophy: very short introduction [2000], Ch.1) |
| 12040 | Virtue is a kind of understanding of moral value [Annas] |
| Full Idea: There is a widespread view in ancient ethics that virtue is a kind of understanding of moral value. | |
| From: Julia Annas (Ancient Philosophy: very short introduction [2000], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: In Aristotle's case, this coincides with his apparent view that 'understanding' is the aim of all areas of human thought. See Idea 12038. |
| 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. |