64 ideas
13773 | For the truth you need Prodicus's fifty-drachma course, not his one-drachma course [Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates: If I'd attended Prodicus's fifty-drachma course, I could tell you the truth about names straightway, but as I've only heard the one-drachma course, I don't know the truth about it. | |
From: Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Cratylus 384b |
7421 | A philosopher is one who cares about what other people care about [Socrates, by Foucault] |
Full Idea: Socrates asks people 'Are you caring for yourself?' He is the man who cares about the care of others; this is the particular position of the philosopher. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Michel Foucault - Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom p.287 | |
A reaction: Priests, politicians and psychiatrists also care quite intensely about the concerns of other people. Someone who was intensely self-absorbed with the critical task of getting their own beliefs right would count for me as a philosopher. |
1649 | Socrates opened philosophy to all, but Plato confined moral enquiry to a tiny elite [Vlastos on Socrates] |
Full Idea: To confine, as Plato does in 'Republic' IV-VII, moral inquiry to a tiny elite, is to obliterate the Socratic vision which opens up the philosophic life to all. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.18 | |
A reaction: This doesn't mean that Plato is necessarily 'elitist'. It isn't elitist to point out that an activity is very difficult. |
5842 | Philosophical discussion involves dividing subject-matter into categories [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: Self-discipline and avoidance of pleasure makes people most capable of philosophical discussion, which is called 'discussion' (dialegesthai - sort out) because people divide their subject-matter into categories. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 4.5.12 | |
A reaction: This could be the original slogan for analytical philosophy, as far as I am concerned. I don't think philosophy aims at complete and successful analysis (cf. Idea 2958), but at revealing the structure and interconnection of ideas. This is wisdom. |
648 | Socrates began the quest for something universal with his definitions, but he didn't make them separate [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Socrates began the quest for something universal in addition to the radical flux of perceptible particulars, with his definitions. But he rightly understood that universals cannot be separated from particulars. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1086b |
164 | It is legitimate to play the devil's advocate [Socrates] |
Full Idea: It is legitimate to play the devil's advocate. | |
From: Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Phaedrus 272c |
115 | Socrates was pleased if his mistakes were proved wrong [Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates: I'm happy to have a mistaken idea of mine proved wrong. | |
From: Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Gorgias 458a |
22099 | The method of Socrates shows the student is discovering the truth within himself [Socrates, by Carlisle] |
Full Idea: Socrates tended to prefer the method of questioning, for this made it clear that the student was discovering the truth within himself. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 7 | |
A reaction: Sounds like it will only facilitate conceptual analysis, and excludes empirical knowledge. Can you say to Socrates 'I'll just google that'? |
5844 | Socrates always proceeded in argument by general agreement at each stage [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: When Socrates was setting out a detailed argument, he used to proceed by such stages as were generally agreed, because he thought that this was the infallible method of argument. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 4.6.16 | |
A reaction: This sounds right, and shows how strongly Socrates perceived philosophy to be a group activity, of which I approve. It seems to me that philosophy is clearly a spoken subject before it is a written one. The lonely speculator comes much later. |
1647 | In Socratic dialogue you must say what you believe, so unasserted premises are not debated [Vlastos on Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates' rule of "say only what you believe"….excluded debate on unasserted premises, thereby distinguishing Socratic from Zenonian and earlier dialectics. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.14 |
11389 | Socrates sought essences, which are the basis of formal logic [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: It is not surprising that Socrates sought essences. His project was to establish formal reasoning, of whose syllogisms essences are the foundations. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1078b22 | |
A reaction: This seems to reinforce the definitional view of essences, since definitions seem to be at the centre of most of Socrates's quests. |
12442 | 'Mickey Mouse is a fictional mouse' is true without a truthmaker [Azzouni] |
Full Idea: 'Mickey Mouse is a fictional mouse' can be taken as true without have any truthmaker. | |
From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: There might be an equivocation over 'true' here. 'What, really really true that he IS a fictional mouse?' |
12439 | Truth is dispensable, by replacing truth claims with the sentence itself [Azzouni] |
Full Idea: No truth predicate is ever indispensable, because Tarski biconditionals, the equivalences between sentences and explicit truth ascriptions to those sentences, allow us to replace explicit truth ascriptions with the sentences themselves. | |
From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: Holding a sentence to be true isn't the same as saying that it is true, and it isn't the same as saying the sentence, because one might say it in an ironic tone of voice. |
12437 | Truth lets us assent to sentences we can't explicitly exhibit [Azzouni] |
Full Idea: My take on truth is a fairly deflationary one: The role of the truth predicate is to enable us to assent to sentences we can't explicitly exhibit. | |
From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Intro) | |
A reaction: Clearly this is a role for truth, as in 'I forget what he said, but I know it was true', but it isn't remotely what most people understand by true. We use 'true' about totally explicit sentences all the time. |
639 | Socrates developed definitions as the basis of syllogisms, and also inductive arguments [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Socrates aimed to establish formal logic, of whose syllogisms essences are the foundations. He developed inductive arguments and also general definitions. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1078b |
12446 | Names function the same way, even if there is no object [Azzouni] |
Full Idea: Names function the same way (semantically and grammatically) regardless of whether or not there's an object that they refer to. | |
From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Ch.3 n55) | |
A reaction: I take this to be a fairly clear rebuttal of the 'Fido'-Fido view of names (that the meaning of the name IS the dog), which never seems to quite go away. A name is a peg on which description may be hung, seems a good slogan to me. |
12447 | That all existents have causal powers is unknowable; the claim is simply an epistemic one [Azzouni] |
Full Idea: If the argument isn't that, metaphysically speaking, anything that exists must have causal powers - how on earth would we show that? - rather, the claim is an epistemic one. Any thing we're in a position to know about we must causally interact with. | |
From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: A very good point. I am attracted to causal power as a criterion for existence, but Azzouni's distinction is vital. Maybe there is just no point in even talking about things which exist but have no causal powers. |
12445 | If fictional objects really don't exist, then they aren't abstract objects [Azzouni] |
Full Idea: It's robustly part of common sense that fictional objects don't exist in any sense at all, and this means they aren't abstracta either. | |
From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: Nice. It is so easy to have some philosopher dilute and equivocate over the word 'object' until you find yourself committed to all sorts of daft things as somehow having objectual existence. We can discuss things which don't exist in any way at all. |
12449 | Modern metaphysics often derives ontology from the logical forms of sentences [Azzouni] |
Full Idea: It is widespread in contemporary metaphysics to extract commitments to various types of object on the basis of the logical form of certain sentences. | |
From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Ch.7) | |
A reaction: I'm with Azzouni in thinking that this procedure is a very bad idea. I'm increasingly inclined towards the wild view that people are only ontologically committed to things if they explicitly say that they are so committed. |
12440 | If objectual quantifiers ontologically commit, so does the metalanguage for its semantics [Azzouni] |
Full Idea: The argument that objectual quantifiers are ontologically committing has the crucial and unnoticed presupposition that the language in which the semantics for the objectual quantifiers is couched (the 'metalanguage') also has quantifiers with commitment. | |
From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: That is, presumably we find ourselves ontologically committed to the existence of quantifiers, and are also looking at an infinite regress. See Idea 12439. |
12438 | In the vernacular there is no unequivocal ontological commitment [Azzouni] |
Full Idea: There are no linguistic devices, no idioms (not 'there is', not 'exists') that unequivocally indicate ontological commitment in the vernacular. | |
From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Intro) | |
A reaction: This seems right, since people talk in such ways about soap opera, while understanding the ontological situation perfectly well. Presumably Quine is seeking higher standards than the vernacular, if we are doing science. |
12441 | We only get ontology from semantics if we have already smuggled it in [Azzouni] |
Full Idea: A slogan: One can't read ontological commitments from semantic conditions unless one has already smuggled into those semantic conditions the ontology one would like to read off. | |
From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: The arguments supporting this are subtle, but it's good enough for me, as I never thought anyone was ontologically committed just because they used the vagueries of language to try to say what's going on around here. |
1652 | Socrates did not consider universals or definitions as having separate existence, but Plato made Forms of them [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Socrates did not regard the universals or the objects of definitions as separate existents, while Plato did separate them, and called this sort of entity ideas/forms. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1078b30 |
12448 | Things that don't exist don't have any properties [Azzouni] |
Full Idea: Things that don't exist don't have any properties. | |
From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: Sounds reasonable! I totally agree, but that is because my notion of properties is sparse and naturalistic. If you identify properties with predicates (which some weird people seem to), then non-existents can have properties like 'absence' or 'nullity'. |
6230 | If the soul were a tabula rasa, with no innate ideas, there could be no moral goodness or justice [Cudworth] |
Full Idea: The soul is not a mere rasa tabula, a naked and passive thing, with no innate furniture of its own, nor any thing in it, but what was impressed upon it without; for then there could not possibly be any such thing as moral good and evil, just and unjust. | |
From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Bk IV Ch 6.4) | |
A reaction: He goes on to quote Hobbes saying there is no good in objects themselves. I don't see why we must have an innate moral capacity, provided that we have a capacity to make judgements. |
6228 | Senses cannot judge one another, so what judges senses cannot be a sense, but must be superior [Cudworth] |
Full Idea: The sight cannot judge of sounds, nor the hearing of light and colours; wherefore that which judges of all the senses and their several objects, cannot be itself any sense, but something of a superior nature. | |
From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.II.VI.1) | |
A reaction: How nice to find a seventeenth century English writer rebelling against empiricism! |
1650 | For Socrates our soul, though hard to define, is our self [Vlastos on Socrates] |
Full Idea: For Socrates our soul is our self - whatever that might turn out to be. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.55 | |
A reaction: The problem with any broad claim like this is that we seem to be able to distinguish between essential and non-essential aspects of the self or of the soul. |
6229 | Sense is fixed in the material form, and so can't grasp abstract universals [Cudworth] |
Full Idea: Sense which lies flat and grovelling in the individuals, and is stupidly fixed in the material form, is not able to rise up or ascend to an abstract universal notion. | |
From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.III.III.2) | |
A reaction: This still strikes me as being one of the biggest problems with reductive physicalism, that a lump of meat in your head can grasp abstractions (whatever they are) and universal concepts. Personally I am a physicalist, but it is weird. |
23252 | Socrates first proposed that we are run by mind or reason [Socrates, by Frede,M] |
Full Idea: It would seem that historically the decisive step was taken by Socrates in conceiving of human beings as being run by a mind or reason.. …He postulated an entity whose precision nature and function then was a matter of considerable debate. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Intro to 'Rationality in Greek Thought' p.19 | |
A reaction: This is, for me, a rather revelatory idea. I am keen on the fact the animals make judgements which are true and false, and also that we exhibit rationality when walking across uneven ground. So pure rationality is a cultural construct! |
195 | No one willingly commits an evil or base act [Socrates] |
Full Idea: I am fairly certain that no wise man believes anyone sins willingly or willingly perpetrates any evil or base act. | |
From: Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Protagoras 345e |
5843 | People do what they think they should do, and only ever do what they think they should do [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: There is no one who knows what they ought to do, but thinks that they ought not to do it, and no one does anything other than what they think they ought to do. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 4.6.6 | |
A reaction: This is Socrates' well-known rejection of the possibility of weakness of will (akrasia - lit. 'lack of control'). Aristotle disagreed, and so does almost everyone else. Modern smokers seem to exhibit akrasia. I have some sympathy with Socrates. |
5253 | Socrates was shocked by the idea of akrasia, but observation shows that it happens [Aristotle on Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates thought it a shocking idea that when a man actually has knowledge in him something else should overmaster it, ..but this is glaringly inconsistent with the observed facts. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics 1145b24 | |
A reaction: Aristotle seems very confident, but it is not at all clear (even to the agent) what is going on when apparent weakness of will occurs (e.g. breaking a diet). What exactly does the agent believe at the moment of weakness? |
199 | The common belief is that people can know the best without acting on it [Socrates] |
Full Idea: Most people think there are many who recognise the best but are unwilling to act on it. | |
From: Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Protagoras 352d |
1653 | Socrates did not accept the tripartite soul (which permits akrasia) [Vlastos on Socrates] |
Full Idea: Xenophon indirectly indicates that he does not associate Socrates in any way with the tripartite psychology of the 'Republic', for within that theory akrasia would be all too possible. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.102 |
5839 | For Socrates, wisdom and prudence were the same thing [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: Socrates did not distinguish wisdom from prudence, but judged that the man who recognises and puts into practice what is truly good, and the man who knows and guards against what is disgraceful, are both wise and prudent. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 3.9.3 | |
A reaction: Compare Aristotle, who separates them, claiming that prudence is essential for moral virtue, but wisdom is pursued at a different level, closer to the gods than to society. |
5867 | For Socrates, virtues are forms of knowledge, so knowing justice produces justice [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Socrates thought that the virtues were all forms of knowledge, and therefore once a man knew justice, he would be a just man. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Aristotle - Eudemian Ethics 1216b07 | |
A reaction: The clearest possible statement of Socrates' intellectualism. Aristotle rejected the Socrates view, but I find it sympathetic. Smokers who don't want to die seem to be in denial. To see the victims is to condemn the crime. |
5069 | Socrates was the first to base ethics upon reason, and use reason to explain it [Taylor,R on Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates was the first significant thinker to try basing ethics upon reason, and to try uncovering its natural principles solely by the use of reason. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Richard Taylor - Virtue Ethics: an Introduction Ch.7 | |
A reaction: Interesting. It seems to me that Socrates overemphasised reason, presumably because it was a novelty. Hence his view that akrasia is impossible, and that virtue is simply knowledge. Maybe action is not just rational, but moral action is. |
5836 | All human virtues are increased by study and practice [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: If you consider the virtues that are recognised among human beings, you will find that they are all increased by study and practice. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 2.6.41 | |
A reaction: 'Study' is the intellectualist part of this remark; the reference to 'practice' fits with Aristotle view that virtue is largely a matter of good habits. The next question would be how theoretical the studies should be. Philosophy, or newspapers? |
5840 | The wise perform good actions, and people fail to be good without wisdom [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: It is the wise who perform truly good actions, and those who are not wise cannot, and, if they try to, fail. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 3.9.6 | |
A reaction: The essence of Socrates' intellectualism, with which Aristotle firmly disagreed (when he assert that only practical reason was needed for virtuous actions, rather than wisdom or theory). Personally I side more with Socrates than with Aristotle on this. |
185 | Socrates despised good looks [Socrates, by Plato] |
Full Idea: Socrates despises good looks to an almost inconceivable extent. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Plato - The Symposium 216e |
5070 | Socrates conservatively assumed that Athenian conventions were natural and true [Taylor,R on Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates' moral philosophy was essentially conservative. He assumed that the principles the Athenians honoured were true and natural, so there was little possibility of conflict between nature and convention in his thinking. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Richard Taylor - Virtue Ethics: an Introduction Ch.8 | |
A reaction: Taylor contrasts Socrates with Callicles, who claims that conventions oppose nature. This fits with Nietzsche's discontent with Socrates, as the person who endorses conventional good and evil, thus constraining the possibilities of human nature. |
6227 | Keeping promises and contracts is an obligation of natural justice [Cudworth] |
Full Idea: To keep faith and perform covenants is that which natural justice obligeth to absolutely. | |
From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.II.4) | |
A reaction: A nice example of an absolute moral intuition, but one which can clearly be challenged. Covenants (contracts) wouldn't work unless everyone showed intense commitment to keeping them, even beyond the grave, and we all benefit from good contracts. |
5838 | A well-made dung basket is fine, and a badly-made gold shield is base, because of function [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: A dung-basket is fine, and a golden shield contemptible, if the one is finely and the other badly constructed for carrying out its function. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 3.8.6 | |
A reaction: This is the basis of a key idea in Aristotle, that virtue (or excellence) arises directly from function. I think it is the most important idea in virtue theory, and seems to have struck most Greeks as being self-evident. |
5837 | Things are both good and fine by the same standard [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: Things are always both good and fine by the same standard. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 3.8.5 | |
A reaction: This begs many questions, but perhaps it leads to what we call intuitionism, which is an instant ability is perceive a fine action (even in an enemy). This leads to the rather decadent view that the aim of life is the production of beauty. |
3017 | The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance [Socrates, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: There is only one good, namely knowledge, and there is only one evil, namely ignorance. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.4.14 | |
A reaction: Ignorance of how to commit evil sounds quite good. |
1646 | Socrates was the first to put 'eudaimonia' at the centre of ethics [Socrates, by Vlastos] |
Full Idea: Socrates' true place in the development of Greek thought is that he is the first to establish the eudaimonist foundation of ethical theory, which became the foundation of the schools which sprang up around him. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.10 | |
A reaction: I suspect that he was the first to fully articulate a widely held Greek belief. The only ethical question that they asked was about the nature of a good human life. |
1663 | By 'areté' Socrates means just what we mean by moral virtue [Vlastos on Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates uses the word 'areté' to mean precisely what we mean by moral virtue. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.200 |
4323 | Socrates is torn between intellectual virtue, which is united and teachable, and natural virtue, which isn't [PG on Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates worries about the unity and teachability of virtue because he is torn between virtue as intellectual (unified and teachable) and virtue as natural (plural and unteachable). | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
A reaction: Admittedly virtue could be natural but still unified and teachable, but Socrates clearly had a dilemma, and this seems to make sense of it. |
8003 | Socrates agrees that virtue is teachable, but then denies that there are teachers [Socrates, by MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: Socrates' great point of agreement with the sophists is his acceptance of the thesis that areté is teachable. But paradoxically he denies that there are teachers. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.3 | |
A reaction: This is part of Socrates's presentation of himself as 'not worthy'. Virtue would be teachable, if only anyone knew what it was. He's wrong. Lots of people have a pretty good idea of virtue, and could teach it. The problem is in the pupils. |
126 | We should ask what sort of people we want to be [Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates: What sort of person should one be? | |
From: Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Gorgias 487e |
4111 | Socrates believed that basically there is only one virtue, the power of right judgement [Socrates, by Williams,B] |
Full Idea: Socrates believed that basically there is only one virtue, the power of right judgement. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Ch.1 | |
A reaction: Which links with Aristotle's high place for 'phronesis' (prudence?). The essence of Socrates' intellectualism. Robots and saints make very different judgements, though. |
7808 | Socrates made the civic values of justice and friendship paramount [Socrates, by Grayling] |
Full Idea: In Socrates' thought, the expressly civic values of justice and friendship became paramount. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by A.C. Grayling - What is Good? Ch.2 | |
A reaction: This is the key move in ancient ethics, away from heroism, and towards the standard Aristotelian social virtues. I say this is the essence of what we call morality, and the only one which can be given a decent foundational justification (social health). |
23907 | Courage is scientific knowledge [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Socrates thought that courage is scientific knowledge. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Aristotle - Eudemian Ethics 1230a06 | |
A reaction: Aristotle himself says that reason produces courage, but he also says it arises from natural youthful spirits. I favour the view that there is a strong rational component in true courage. |
7585 | Socrates emphasises that the knower is an existing individual, with existence his main task [Socrates, by Kierkegaard] |
Full Idea: The infinite merit of the Socratic position was precisely to accentuate the fact that the knower is an existing individual, and that the task of existing is his essential task. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Søren Kierkegaard - Concluding Unscientific Postscript 'Inwardness' | |
A reaction: Always claim Socrates as the first spokesman for your movement! It is true that Socrates is always demanding the views of his interlocutors, and not just abstract theories. See Idea 1647. |
5841 | Obedience to the law gives the best life, and success in war [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: A city in which the people are most obedient to the laws has the best life in time of peace and is irresistible in war. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 4.4.15 | |
A reaction: This is a conservative view, with the obvious problem case of bad laws, but in general it seems to me clearly right. This is why it is so vital that nothing should be done to bring the law into disrepute, such as petty legislation or prosecution. |
6225 | Obligation to obey all positive laws is older than all laws [Cudworth] |
Full Idea: Obligation to obey all positive laws is older than all laws. | |
From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.II.3) | |
A reaction: Clearly villains can pass wicked laws, so there can't be an obligation to obey all laws (even if they are 'positive', which seems to beg the question). Nevertheless this is a good reason why laws cannot be the grounding of morality. |
1661 | Socrates was the first to grasp that a cruelty is not justified by another cruelty [Vlastos on Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates was the first Greek to grasp the truth that if someone has done a nasty thing to me, this does not give the slightest moral justification for doing anything nasty to him. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.190 |
5846 | A lover using force is a villain, but a seducer is much worse, because he corrupts character [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: The fact that a lover uses not force but persuasion makes him more detestable, because a lover who uses force proves himself a villain, but one who uses persuasion ruins the character of the one who consents. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Symposium 8.20 | |
A reaction: A footnote says that this distinction was enshrined in Athenian law, where seduction was worse than rape. This is a startling and interest contrast to the modern view, which enshrines rights and freedoms, and says seduction is usually no crime at all. |
12450 | The periodic table not only defines the elements, but also excludes other possible elements [Azzouni] |
Full Idea: The periodic table not only governs what elements there can be, with their properties, but also explicitly excludes others sorts of elements, because the elements are individuated by the number of discrete protons in their nuclei. | |
From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Ch.7) | |
A reaction: It has to be central to the thesis of scientific essentialism that the possibilities in nature are far more restricted than is normally thought, and this observation illustrates the view nicely. He makes a similar point about subatomic particles. |
6224 | An omnipotent will cannot make two things equal or alike if they aren't [Cudworth] |
Full Idea: Omnipotent will cannot make things like or equal one to another, without the natures of likeness and equality. | |
From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.II.I) | |
A reaction: This is one of the many classic 'paradoxes of omnipotence'. The best strategy is to define omnipotence as 'being able to do everything which it is possible to do'. Anything beyond that is inviting paradoxical disaster. |
1657 | Socrates holds that right reason entails virtue, and this must also apply to the gods [Vlastos on Socrates] |
Full Idea: It is essential to Socrates' rationalist programme in theology to assume that the entailment of virtue by wisdom binds gods no less than men. He would not tolerate one moral standard for me and another for gods. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.164 |
1662 | A new concept of God as unswerving goodness emerges from Socrates' commitment to virtue [Vlastos on Socrates] |
Full Idea: Undeviating beneficent goodness guides Socrates' thought so deeply that he applies it even to the deity; he projects a new concept of god as a being that can cause only good, never evil. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.197 |
6223 | If the will and pleasure of God controls justice, then anything wicked or unjust would become good if God commanded it [Cudworth] |
Full Idea: If the arbitrary will and pleasure of God is the first and only rule of good and justice, it follows that nothing can be so grossly wicked or unjust but if it were commanded by this omnipotent Deity, it must forthwith become holy, just and righteous. | |
From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.I.I.5) | |
A reaction: This is the strong (Platonic) answer to the Euthyphro Question (Idea 336). One answer is that God would not command in such a way - but why not? We may say that God and goodness merge into one, but we are interested in ultimate authority. |
6226 | The requirement that God must be obeyed must precede any authority of God's commands [Cudworth] |
Full Idea: If it were not morally good and just in its own nature before any positive command of God, that God should be obeyed by his creatures, the bare will of God himself could not beget any obligation upon anyone. | |
From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.II.3) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as a self-evident truth, and a big problem for anyone who wants to make God the source of morality. You don't have to accept anyone's authority just because they are powerful or clever (though they do bestow a certain natural authority!). |