14 ideas
| 22138 | Science rests on scholastic metaphysics, not on Hume, Kant or Carnap [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: The metaphysical principles that allow the scientist to learn from experience are scholastic, not Humean or Kantian or those of twentieth-century positivism. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 2) | |
| A reaction: Love this. Most modern philosophers of science would be deeply outraged by this, but I reckon that careful and open-minded interviews with scientists would prove it to be correct. We want to know the essential nature of electrons. |
| 22134 | Thoughts are general, but the world isn't, so how can we think accurately? [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: Our thoughts are full of generalities, but the world contains no generalities. So how can our thoughts accurately represent the world? This is the problem of universals. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 1) | |
| A reaction: I so love it when someone comes up with a really clear explanation of a problem, and this is a beauty from Stephen Boulter. Only a really clear explanation can motivate philosophical issues for non-philosophers. |
| 22150 | Logical possibility needs the concepts of the proposition to be adequate [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: One can only be sure that a proposition expresses a genuine logical possibility if one can be sure that one's concepts are adequate to things referred to in the proposition. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 4) | |
| A reaction: Boulter says this is a logical constraint place on logical possibility by the scholastics which tends to be neglected by modern thinkers, who only worry about whether the proposition implies a contradiction. So we now use thought experiments. |
| 22139 | Experiments don't just observe; they look to see what interventions change the natural order [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: Experiments differ from observational studies in that experiments usually involve intervening in some way in the natural order to see if altering something about that order causes a change in the response of that order. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 2) | |
| A reaction: Not convinced by this. Lots of experiments isolate a natural process, rather than 'intervening'. Chemists constantly purify substances. Particle accelerators pick out things to accelerate. Does 'intervening' in nature even make sense? |
| 22136 | Science begins with sufficient reason, de-animation, and the importance of nature [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: Three assumptions needed for the emergence of science are central to medieval thought: that the natural order is subject to the principle of sufficient reason, that nature is de-animated, and that it is worthy of study. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 2) | |
| A reaction: A very illuminating and convincing observation. Why did Europe produce major science? The answer is likely to be found in Christianity. |
| 22135 | Our concepts can never fully capture reality, but simplification does not falsify [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: While the natural order is richer than our conceptual representations of it, nonetheless our concepts can be adequate to real singulars because simplification is not falsification. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 1) | |
| A reaction: I don't know if 'simplification' is one of the faculties I am trying to identify. I suspect it is a common factor among most of our intellectual faculties. I love 'simplification is not falsification'. Vagueness isn't falsification either. |
| 2170 | Homer does not distinguish between soul and body [Homer, by Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Homer's descriptions of people did without a dualistic distinction between soul and body. | |
| From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Shame and Necessity II - p.23 |
| 22152 | Aristotelians accept the analytic-synthetic distinction [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle and the scholastics accept the analytic/synthetic distinction, but do not take it to be particularly significant. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 5) | |
| A reaction: I record this because I'm an Aristotelian, and need to know what I'm supposed to think. Luckily, I accept the distinction. |
| 2171 | The 'will' doesn't exist; there is just conclusion, then action [Homer, by Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Homer left out another mental action lying between coming to a conclusion and acting on it; and he did well, since there is no such action, and the idea is the invention of bad philosophy. | |
| From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Shame and Necessity II - p.37 | |
| A reaction: This is a characteristically empiricist view, which is found in Hobbes. The 'will' seems to have a useful role in folk psychology. We can at least say that coming to a conclusion that I should act, and then actually acting, are not the same thing. |
| 22156 | The facts about human health are the measure of the values in our lives [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: The objective facts relating to human health broadly construed are the facts that measure the moral value of our actions, policies and institutions. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 6) | |
| A reaction: This is the Aristotelian approach to facts and values, which I thoroughly endorse. To say there is nothing instrinsically wrong with being unhealthy is an absurd attitude. |
| 15998 | Perfect love is not in spite of imperfections; the imperfections must be loved as well [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: To love another in spite of his weaknesses and errors and imperfections is not perfect love. No, to love is to find him lovable in spite of, and together with, his weaknesses and errors and imperfections. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Works of Love [1847], p.158) | |
| A reaction: A true romantic at heart, Kierkegaard ideally posits perfect love as unconditional love, and not just of good attributes, predicates and conditions. However, the real question for both me and Kierkegaard is, is perfect love desirable or even possible?[SY] |
| 21819 | Plato says the Good produces the Intellectual-Principle, which in turn produces the Soul [Homer, by Plotinus] |
| Full Idea: In Plato the order of generation is from the Good, the Intellectual-Principle; from the Intellectual-Principle, the Soul. | |
| From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE], 509b) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08 | |
| A reaction: The doctrine of Plotinus merely echoes Plato, in that case, except that the One replaces the Form of the Good. Does this mean that what is first in Plotinus is less morally significant, and more concerned with reason and being? |
| 11388 | Let there be one ruler [Homer] |
| Full Idea: The rule of many is not good; let there be one ruler. | |
| From: Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE], 2.204), quoted by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 8.9 | |
| A reaction: [Quoted by Aristotle at Metaphysics 1076a04] |
| 14829 | Homer so enjoys the company of the gods that he must have been deeply irreligious [Homer, by Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Homer is so at home among his gods, and takes such delight in them as a poet, that he surely must have been deeply irreligious. | |
| From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Human, All Too Human 125 | |
| A reaction: Blake made a similar remark about where the true allegiance of Milton lay in 'Paradise Lost'. |