5 ideas
6570 | Imagine millions made happy on condition that one person suffers endless lonely torture [James] |
Full Idea: Consider a case in which millions could be made permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torture. | |
From: William James (The Will to Believe [1896], p.188), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.2 | |
A reaction: This seems to be one of the earliest pinpointings of a key problem with utilitiarianism, which is that other values than happiness (in this case, fairness) seem to be utterly overruled. If we ignore fairness, why shouldn't we ignore happiness? |
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. |
15150 | The properties of an electron can't be explained just as 'clustering' [Chakravartty on Boyd] |
Full Idea: Boyd's homeostatic mechanisms are not responsible for the co-instantiation of the mass, charge and spin of an electron. | |
From: comment on Richard Boyd (Homeostasis, Species and Higher Taxa [1999]) by Anjan Chakravarrty - Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences 3 | |
A reaction: I would have thought that no one has the foggiest idea (unless I have missed something?) about why electrons have those three properties. What is it about electrons that makes them do that? Explanations always run out somewhere. Substratum! |
15149 | Properties cluster together, either because of intrinsic relations, or because of an underlying process [Boyd, by Chakravartty] |
Full Idea: Boyd analyses 'sociability' between properties in terms of 'homeostasis', as causal relations between properties that favour clustering, or underlying processes that favour coinstantiation, or both. | |
From: report of Richard Boyd (Homeostasis, Species and Higher Taxa [1999]) by Anjan Chakravarrty - Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences 3 | |
A reaction: Chakravarty criticises this claim, but Boyd is clearly onto something. If, like me, you think natural kinds are overrated, you have to like his view. |
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. |