16 ideas
343 | The unexamined life is not worth living for men [Socrates] |
Full Idea: The unexamined life is not worth living for men. | |
From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - The Apology 38a | |
A reaction: I wonder why? I can see Nietzsche offering aristocratic heroes and dancers as counterexamples. Compare Idea 3798. |
15395 | Give up objects necessitating truths, and say their natures cause the truths? [Cameron] |
Full Idea: We could abandon the view that truthmakers necessitate the truth of that which makes them true, and say that an object makes a truth when its intrinsic nature suffices for that truth. The object would have a different intrinsic nature if the truth failed. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Intrinsic and Extrinsic Properties [2009], 'Truthmakers') | |
A reaction: [He cites Josh Parsons 1999, 2005 for this] This approach seems closely related to Kit Fine's proposal that necessities arise from the natures of things. It sounds to me as if an object with that intrinsic nature would necessitate that truth. |
15394 | Truthmaker requires a commitment to tropes or states of affairs, for contingent truths [Cameron] |
Full Idea: The most popular view is that an object is a truthmaker if the object couldn't exist and the truth be false. But contingent predications are also held to need truthmakers. Socrates is not necessarily snub-nosed, so a trope or state of affairs is needed. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Intrinsic and Extrinsic Properties [2009], 'Truthmakers') | |
A reaction: Cameron calls this 'some heavy ontological commitments'. If snub-nosedness is necessitated by the trope of 'being snub-nosed', what is the truthmaker for Socrates having that trope? |
15401 | Essentialists say intrinsic properties arise from what the thing is, irrespective of surroundings [Cameron] |
Full Idea: The essentialist approach would be to say that an intrinsic property is one such that it is no part of what it is to instantiate that property that the bearer stands in some relation to its surroundings. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Intrinsic and Extrinsic Properties [2009], 'Analysis') | |
A reaction: This is offered as an alternative to the David Lewis account in terms of duplicates across possible worlds. You will have gathered by now, if you have spent days poring over my stuff, that I favour the essentialist approach. |
15393 | An object's intrinsic properties are had in virtue of how it is, independently [Cameron] |
Full Idea: Intrinsic properties are those that an object has solely in virtue of how it is, independently of its surroundings. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Intrinsic and Extrinsic Properties [2009], 'Intro') | |
A reaction: Better not mention quantum mechanics and fields if you want to talk of objects being independent of their surroundings. Am I 'independent' of gravity, or is gravity 'independent' of me? |
15396 | Most criteria for identity over time seem to leave two later objects identical to the earlier one [Cameron] |
Full Idea: Criteria for identity across times have proven hard to give. Whatever criteria we lay down, it seems that there are possible situations in which two later objects bear the relevant relation to one earlier object, though only one of them can be identical. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Intrinsic and Extrinsic Properties [2009], 'Personal') | |
A reaction: We only have to think of twins, amoebae that fission, and the Ship of Theseus. We seem to end up inventing a dubious criterion in order to break the tie. |
339 | Men fear death as a great evil when it may be a great blessing [Socrates] |
Full Idea: No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils. | |
From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - The Apology 29a | |
A reaction: As a neutral observer, I see little sign of it being a blessing, except as a relief from misery. It seem wrong to view such a natural thing as evil, but it is the thing most of us least desire. |
344 | If death is like a night of dreamless sleep, such nights are very pleasant [Socrates] |
Full Idea: If death is like a night of dreamless sleep it is an advantage, for such nights are very pleasant, and eternity would seem like a single night. | |
From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - The Apology 40d | |
A reaction: Dreamless sleep is only pleasant if being awake is unpleasant. Very quiet days are only pleasant if the active days are horrible. A desire for a totally quiet life is absurd. |
2 | We should not even harm someone who harms us [Socrates] |
Full Idea: One should never return an injustice nor harm another human being no matter what one suffers at their hands. | |
From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Crito 49c | |
A reaction: Jesus of Nazareth was not the first person to make this suggestion. |
345 | A good man cannot be harmed, either in life or in death [Socrates] |
Full Idea: A good man cannot be harmed, either in life or in death. | |
From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - The Apology 41d |
346 | One ought not to return a wrong or injury to any person, whatever the provocation [Socrates] |
Full Idea: One ought not to return a wrong or an injury to any person, whatever the provocation is. | |
From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Crito 49b | |
A reaction: The same as the essential moral teachings of Jesus (see Idea 6288) and Lao Tzu (Idea 6324). The big target is not to be corrupted by the evil of other people. |
341 | Wealth is good if it is accompanied by virtue [Socrates] |
Full Idea: Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men. | |
From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - The Apology 30b |
347 | Will I stand up against the law, simply because I have been unjustly judged? [Socrates] |
Full Idea: Do I intend to destroy the laws, because the state wronged me by passing a faulty judgement at my trial? | |
From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Crito 50c |
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. |
338 | Socrates is accused of denying the gods, saying sun is stone and moon is earth [Socrates, by Plato] |
Full Idea: Socrates denies the gods, because he says the sun is stone and the moon is earth. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]) by Plato - The Apology 26d |