47 ideas
5896 | Speak the truth, for this alone deifies man [Pythagoras, by Porphyry] |
Full Idea: Pythagoras advised above all things to speak the truth, for this alone deifies man. | |
From: report of Pythagoras (reports [c.530 BCE]) by Porphyry - Life of Pythagoras §41 | |
A reaction: Idea 4421 (of Nietzsche) stands in contrast to this. I am not quite sure why speaking the truth has such a high value. I am inclined to a minimalist view, which is just that philosophy is an attempt to speak the truth, as fishermen try to catch fish. |
3051 | Pythagoras discovered the numerical relation of sounds on a string [Pythagoras, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Pythagoras discovered the numerical relation of sounds on a string. | |
From: report of Pythagoras (reports [c.530 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 08.1.11 |
22864 | Philosophy is the study and criticsm of cultural beliefs, to achieve new possibilities [Dewey] |
Full Idea: Philosophy is criticism of the influential beliefs that underlie culture, tracking them to their generating conditions and results, and considering their mutual compatibility. This terminates in a new perspective, which leads to new possibilities. | |
From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 6:19), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey Intro | |
A reaction: [compressed] This would make quite a good manifesto for French thinkers of the 1960s. Foucault could hardly disagree. An excellent idea. |
12027 | There must be a plausible epistemological theory alongside any metaphysical theory [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: No metaphysical account which renders it impossible to give a plausible epistemological theory is to be countenanced. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 9.1) | |
A reaction: It is hard to object to this principle, though we certainly don't want to go verificationist, and thus rule out speculations about metaphysics which are beyond any possible knowledge. Some have tried to prove that something must exist (e.g. Jacquette). |
12005 | The symbol 'ι' forms definite descriptions; (ιx)F(x) says 'the x which is such that F(x)' [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: We use the symbol 'ι' (Greek 'iota') to form definite descriptions, reading (ιx)F(x) as 'the x which is such that F(x)', or simply as 'the F'. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 4.1) | |
A reaction: Compare the lambda operator in modal logic, which picks out predicates from similar formulae. |
22873 | Liberalism should improve the system, and not just ameliorate it [Dewey] |
Full Idea: Liberalism must become radical in the sense that, instead of using social power to ameliorate the evil consequences of the existing system, it shall use social power to change the system. | |
From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 11:287), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 4 'Dewey' | |
A reaction: Conservative liberals ask what people want, and try to give it to them. Radical liberals ask what people actually need, and try to make it possible. The latter is bound to be a bit paternalistic, but will probably create a better world. |
12010 | Is the meaning of 'and' given by its truth table, or by its introduction and elimination rules? [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: The typical semantic account of validity for propositional connectives like 'and' presupposes that meaning is given by truth-tables. On the natural deduction view, the meaning of 'and' is given by its introduction and elimination rules. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 4.4) |
7485 | For Pythagoreans 'one' is not a number, but the foundation of numbers [Pythagoras, by Watson] |
Full Idea: For Pythagoreans, one, 1, is not a true number but the 'essence' of number, out of which the number system emerges. | |
From: report of Pythagoras (reports [c.530 BCE], Ch.8) by Peter Watson - Ideas Ch.8 | |
A reaction: I think this is right! Counting and numbers only arise once the concept of individuality and identity have arisen. Counting to one is no more than observing the law of identity. 'Two' is the big adventure. |
12023 | Vagueness problems arise from applying sharp semantics to vague languages [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: It is very plausible that the sorites paradoxes arose from the application of a semantic apparatus appropriate only for sharp predicates to languages containing vague predicates (rather than from deficiency of meaning, or from incoherence). | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 7.3) | |
A reaction: Sounds wrong. Of course, logic has been designed for sharp predicates, and natural languages are awash with vagueness. But the problems of vagueness bothered lawyers long before logicians like Russell began to worry about it. |
12017 | In all instances of identity, there must be some facts to ensure the identity [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: For each instance of identity or failure of identity, there must be facts in virtue of which that instance obtains. ..Enough has been said to lend this doctrine some plausibility. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 5.5) | |
A reaction: Penelope Mackie picks this out from Forbes as a key principle. It sounds to be in danger of circularity, unless the 'facts' can be cited without referring to, or implicitly making use of, identities - which seems unlikely. |
12024 | If we combined two clocks, it seems that two clocks may have become one clock. [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: If we imagine a possible world in which two clocks in a room make one clock from half the parts of each, the judgement 'these two actual clocks could have been a single clock' does not seem wholly false. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 7.4) | |
A reaction: You would, of course, have sufficient parts left over to make a second clock, so they look like a destroyed clock, so I don't think I find Forbes's intuition on this one very persuasive. |
11885 | Only individual essences will ground identities across worlds in other properties [Forbes,G, by Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: Forbes argues that, unless we posit individual essences, we cannot guarantee that identities across possible worlds will be appropriately grounded in other properties. | |
From: report of Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 2.4 | |
A reaction: There is a confrontation between Wiggins, who says identity is primitive, and Forbes, who says identity must be grounded in other properties. I think I side with Forbes. |
12014 | An individual essence is a set of essential properties which only that object can have [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: An individual essence of an object x is a set of properties I which satisfies the following conditions: i. every property P in I is an essential property of x; ii. it is not possible that some object y distinct from x has every member of I. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 5.1) | |
A reaction: I am coming to the view that stable natural kinds (like electrons or gold) do not have individual essences, but complex kinds (like tigers or tables) do. The view is based on the idea that explanatory power is what individuates an essence. |
12015 | Non-trivial individual essence is properties other than de dicto, or universal, or relational [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: A non-trivial individual essence is properties other than a) those following from a de dicto truth, b) properties of existence and self-identity (or their cognates), c) properties derived from necessities in some other category. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 5.1) | |
A reaction: [I have compressed Forbes] Rather than adding all these qualificational clauses to our concept, we could just tighten up on the notion of a property, saying it is something which is causally efficacious, and hence explanatory. |
12013 | Essential properties depend on a category, and perhaps also on particular facts [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: The essential properties of a thing will typically depend upon what category of thing it is, and perhaps also on some more particular facts about the thing itself. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 5.1) | |
A reaction: I see no way of dispensing with the second requirement, in the cases of complex entities like animals. If all samples are the same, then of course we can define a sample's essence through its kind, but not if samples differ in any way. |
12012 | Essential properties are those without which an object could not exist [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: An essential property of an object x is a property without possessing which x could not exist. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 5.1) | |
A reaction: This is certainly open to question. See Joan Kung's account of Aristotle on essence. I am necessarily more than eight years old (now), and couldn't exist without that property, but is the property part of my essence? |
12022 | Same parts does not ensure same artefact, if those parts could constitute a different artefact [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: Sameness of parts is not sufficient for identity of artefacts at a world, since the very same parts may turn up at different times as the parts of artefacts with different designs and functions. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 7.2) | |
A reaction: Thus the Ship of Theseus could be dismantled and turned into a barn (as happened with the 'Mayflower'). They could then be reconstituted as the ship, which would then have two beginnings (as Chris Hughes has pointed out). |
12025 | Artefacts have fuzzy essences [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: Artefacts can be ascribed fuzzy essences. ...We might say that it is essential to an artefact to have 'most' of its parts. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 7.6) | |
A reaction: I think I prefer to accept the idea that essences are unstable things, in all cases. For all we know, electrons might subtly change their general character, or cease to be uniform, tomorrow. Essences explain, and what needs explaining changes. |
12020 | An individual might change their sex in a world, but couldn't have differed in sex at origin [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: In the time of a single world, the same individual can undergo a change of sex, but it is less clear that an individual of one sex could have been, from the outset, an individual of another. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 6.5) | |
A reaction: I don't find this support for essentiality of origin very persuasive. I struggle with these ideas. Given my sex yesterday, then presumably I couldn't have had a different sex yesterday. Given that pigs can fly, pigs can fly. What am I missing? |
11888 | Identities must hold because of other facts, which must be instrinsic [Forbes,G, by Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: Forbes has two principles of identity, which we can call the No Bare Identities Principle (identities hold in virtue of other facts), and the No Extrinsic Determination Principle (that only intrinsic facts of a thing establish identity). | |
From: report of Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 127-8) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 2.7 | |
A reaction: The job of the philosopher is to prise apart the real identities of things from the way in which we conceive of identities. I take these principles to apply to real identities, not conceptual identities. |
12003 | De re modal formulae, unlike de dicto, are sensitive to transworld identities [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: The difference between de re and de dicto formulae is a difference between formulae which are, and formulae which are not, sensitive to the identities of objects at various worlds. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 3.1) |
12028 | De re necessity is a form of conceptual necessity, just as de dicto necessity is [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: De re necessity does not differ from de dicto necessity in respect of how it arises: it is still a form of conceptual necessity. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 9.4) | |
A reaction: [Forbes proceeds to argue for this claim] Forbes defends a form of essentialism, but takes the necessity to arise from a posteriori truths because of the a priori involvement of other concepts (rather as Kripke argues). |
12008 | Unlike places and times, we cannot separate possible worlds from what is true at them [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: There is no means by which we might distinguish a possible world from what is true at it. ...Whereas our ability to separate a place, or a time, from its occupier is crucial to realism about places and times, as is a distance relation. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 4.2) | |
A reaction: He is objecting to Lewis's modal realism. I'm not fully convinced. It depends whether we are discussing real ontology or conceptual space. In the latter I see no difference between times and possible worlds. In ontology, a 'time' is weird. |
12009 | The problem with possible worlds realism is epistemological; we can't know properties of possible objects [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: The main objection to realism about worlds is from epistemology. Knowledge of properties of objects requires experience of these objects, which must be within the range of our sensory faculties, but only concrete actual objects achieve that. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 4.2) | |
A reaction: This pinpoints my dislike of the whole possible worlds framework, ontologically speaking. I seem to be an actualist. I take possibilities to be inferences to the best explanation from the powers we know of in the actual world. We experience potentiality. |
12007 | Possible worlds are points of logical space, rather like other times than our own [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: Someone impressed by the parallel between tense and modal operators ...might suggest that just as we can speak of places and times forming their own manifolds or spaces, so we can say that worlds are the points of logical space. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 4.2) | |
A reaction: I particularly like the notion of worlds being "points of logical space", and am inclined to remove it from this context and embrace it as the correct way to understand possible worlds. We must understand logical or conceptual space. |
12011 | Transworld identity concerns the limits of possibility for ordinary things [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: An elucidation of transworld identity can be regarded as an elucidation of the boundaries of possibility for ordinary things. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 5.1) | |
A reaction: I presume that if we don't search for some such criterion, we just have to face the possibility that Aristotle could have been a poached egg in some possible world. To know the bounds of possibility, study the powers of actual objects. |
12016 | The problem of transworld identity can be solved by individual essences [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: The motivation for investigating individual essences should be obvious, since if every object has such an essence, the problem of elucidating transworld identity can be solved. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 5.1) | |
A reaction: It is important that, if necessary, the identities be 'individual', and not just generic, by sortal, or natural kind. We want to reason about (and explain) truths at the fine-grained level of the individual, not just at the broad level of generalisation. |
12004 | Counterpart theory is not good at handling the logic of identity [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: The outstanding technical objection to counterpart-theoretic semantics concerns its handling of the logic of identity. In quantified S5 (the orthodox semantics) a = b → □(a = b) is valid, but 'a' must not attach to two objects. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 3.5) |
12021 | Haecceitism attributes to each individual a primitive identity or thisness [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: Haecceitism attributes to each individual a primitive identity or thisness, as opposed to the sort of essentialism that gives non-trivial conditions sufficient for transworld identity. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 6.6) | |
A reaction: 'Haecceitism' is the doctrine that things have primitive identity. A 'haecceity' is a postulated property which actually does the job. The key point of the view is that whatever it is is 'primitive', and not complex, or analysable. I don't believe it. |
12029 | We believe in thisnesses, because we reject bizarre possibilities as not being about that individual [Forbes,G] |
Full Idea: The natural response to an unreasonable hypothesis of possibility for an object x, that in such a state of affairs it would not be x which satisfies the conditions, is evidence that we do possess concepts of thisness for individuals. | |
From: Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 9.4) | |
A reaction: We may have a 'concept' of thisness, but we needn't be committed to the 'existence' of a thisness. There is a fairly universal intuition that cessation of existence of an entity when it starts to change can be a very vague matter. |
22869 | Knowledge is either the product of competent enquiry, or it is meaningless [Dewey] |
Full Idea: Knowledge, as an abstract term, is a name for the product of competent enquiries. Apart from this relation, its meaning is so empty that any content or filling may be arbitrarily poured into it. | |
From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 12:16), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 2 'Knowledge' | |
A reaction: What is the criterion of 'competent'? Danger of tautology, if competent enquiry is what produces knowledge. |
22867 | The quest for certainty aims for peace, and avoidance of the stress of action [Dewey] |
Full Idea: The quest for certainty is a quest for a peace which is assured, an object which is unqualified by risk and the shadow of fear which action costs. | |
From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 4:7), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 2 'Intro' | |
A reaction: This is a characteristic pragmatist account. I think Dewey and Peirce offer us the correct attitude to certainty. It is just not available to us, and can only be a delusion. That doesn't mean we don't know anything, however! |
22870 | No belief can be so settled that it is not subject to further inquiry [Dewey] |
Full Idea: The attainment of settled beliefs is a progressive matter; there is no belief so settled as not to be exposed to further inquiry. | |
From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 12:16), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 2 'Knowledge' | |
A reaction: A nice pragmatist mantra, but no scientists gets a research grant to prove facts which have been securely established for a very long time. It is neurotic to keep returning to check that you have locked your front door. Dewey introduced 'warranted'. |
22866 | Mind is never isolated, but only exists in its interactions [Dewey] |
Full Idea: Mind is primarily a verb. ...Mind never denotes anything self-contained, isolated from the world of persons and things, but is always used with respect to situations, events, objects, persons and groups. | |
From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 10:267), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 1 'emerge' | |
A reaction: I strongly agree with the idea that mind is a process, not a thing. Certain types of solitary introspection don't seem to quite fit his account, but in general he is right. |
3053 | Pythagoras taught that virtue is harmony, and health, and universal good, and God [Pythagoras, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Pythagoras taught that virtue is harmony, and health, and universal good, and God. | |
From: report of Pythagoras (reports [c.530 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 08.1.19 | |
A reaction: I like the link with health, because I consider that a bridge over the supposed fact-value gap. Very Pythagorean to think that virtue is harmony. Plato liked that thought. |
5244 | For Pythagoreans, justice is simply treating all people the same [Pythagoras, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Some even think that what is just is simple reciprocity, as the Pythagoreans maintained, because they defined justice simply as having done to one what one has done to another. | |
From: report of Pythagoras (reports [c.530 BCE], 28) by Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics 1132b22 | |
A reaction: One wonders what Pythagoreans made of slavery. Aristotle argues that officials, for example, have superior rights. The Pythagorean idea makes fairness the central aspect of justice, and that must at least be partly right. |
22872 | Liberals aim to allow individuals to realise their capacities [Dewey] |
Full Idea: Liberalism is committed to …the liberation of individuals so that realisation of their capacities may be the law of their life. | |
From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 11:41), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 4 'Dewey' | |
A reaction: Capacity expression as the main aim of politics is precisely the idea developed more fully in modern times by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. It strikes me as an excellent proposal. Does it need liberalism, or socialism? |
22880 | The things in civilisation we prize are the products of other members of our community [Dewey] |
Full Idea: The things in civilisation we most prize are not of ourselves. They exist by grace of the doings and sufferings of the continuous human community in which we are a link | |
From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 9:57), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 7 'Reconstruct' | |
A reaction: Dewey defends liberalism, but he has strong communitarian tendencies. What is the significance of an enduring community losing touch with its own achievements? |
375 | When musical harmony and rhythm were discovered, similar features were seen in bodily movement [Pythagoras, by Plato] |
Full Idea: When our predecessors discovered musical scales, they also discovered similar features in bodily movement, which should also be measured numerically, and called 'tempos' and 'measures'. | |
From: report of Pythagoras (reports [c.530 BCE]) by Plato - Philebus 17d |
638 | Pythagoreans define timeliness, justice and marriage in terms of numbers [Pythagoras, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: The Pythagoreans offered definitions of a limited range of things on the basis of numbers; examples are timeliness, justice and marriage. | |
From: report of Pythagoras (reports [c.530 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1078b |
553 | Pythagoreans think mathematical principles are the principles of all of nature [Pythagoras, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: The Pythagoreans thought that the principles of mathematical entities were the principles of all entities. | |
From: report of Pythagoras (reports [c.530 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 985b |
554 | Pythagoreans say things imitate numbers, but Plato says things participate in numbers [Pythagoras, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Pythagoreans said that entities existed by imitation of the numbers, whereas Plato said that it was by participation. | |
From: report of Pythagoras (reports [c.530 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 987b |
644 | For Pythagoreans the entire universe is made of numbers [Pythagoras, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: For Pythagoreans the entire universe is constructed of numbers. | |
From: report of Pythagoras (reports [c.530 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1080b |
22879 | 'God' is an imaginative unity of ideal values [Dewey] |
Full Idea: 'God' represents a unification of ideal values that is essentially imaginative in origin. | |
From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 9:29), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 7 'Construct' | |
A reaction: This seems to have happened when a flawed God like Zeus is elevated to be the only God, and is given supreme power and wisdom. |
22877 | We should try attaching the intensity of religious devotion to intelligent social action [Dewey] |
Full Idea: One of the few experiments in the attachment of emotion to ends that mankind has not tried is that of devotion (so intense as to be religious) to intelligence as a force in social action. | |
From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 9:53), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 7 'Intro' | |
A reaction: An interesting thought that religious emotions such as devotion are so distinctive that they can be treated as valuable, even in the absence of belief. He seems to be advocating Technocracy. |
22878 | Religions are so shockingly diverse that they have no common element [Dewey] |
Full Idea: There is only a multitude of religions …and the differences between them are so great and so shocking that any common element that can be extracted is meaningless. | |
From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 9:7), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 7 'Construct' | |
A reaction: Religion is for Dewey what a game was for Wittgenstein, as an anti-essentialist example. I would have thought that they all involved some commitment to a realm of transcendent existence. |
7467 | The modern idea of an immortal soul was largely created by Pythagoras [Pythagoras, by Watson] |
Full Idea: The modern concept of the immortal soul is a Greek idea, which owes much to Pythagoras. | |
From: report of Pythagoras (reports [c.530 BCE]) by Peter Watson - Ideas Ch.5 | |
A reaction: You can see why it caught on - it is a very appealing idea. Watson connects the 'modern' view with the ideas of heaven and hell. Obviously the idea of an afterlife goes a long way back (judging from the contents of ancient graves). |