5 ideas
6294 | In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God [John] |
Full Idea: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God. | |
From: St John (04: Gospel of St John [c.95], 01.01) | |
A reaction: 'Word' translates the Greek word 'logos', which has come a long way since Heraclitus. The interesting contrast is with the later Platonist view that the essence of God is the Good. So is the source of everything to be found in reason, or in value? |
8821 | Jesus said he bore witness to the truth. Pilate asked, What is truth? [John] |
Full Idea: Jesus: I came into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? | |
From: St John (04: Gospel of St John [c.95], 18:37-8) | |
A reaction: There is very little explicit discussion of truth in philosophy before this exchange (apart from Ideas 251 and 586), and there isn't any real debate prior to Russell and the pragmatists. What was Pilate's tone? Did he spit at the end of his question? |
3102 | Why don't we experience or remember going to sleep at night? [Magee] |
Full Idea: As a child it was incomprehensible to me that I did not experience going to sleep, and never remembered it. When my sister said 'Nobody remembers that', I just thought 'How does she know?' | |
From: Bryan Magee (Confessions of a Philosopher [1997], Ch.I) | |
A reaction: This is actually evidence for something - that we do not have some sort of personal identity which is separate from consciousness, so that "I am conscious" would literally mean that an item has a property, which it can lose. |
2596 | Maybe mind and body are parallel, like two good clocks [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Two clocks in perfect agreement must be by natural influence, or the control of a craftsman, or their perfect construction at the beginning. Only the third way (of "preestablished harmony" by God) is possible. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Nature and Communication of Substance [1690], p.121) | |
A reaction: Presumably 'natural influence' would cover the possibility that (unnoticed by you, apparently) one clock is attached to the other clock at the relevant points. If they are unconnected, presumably they are quite unaware of one another's existence. |
2595 | If the universe is a perfect agreement of uncommunicating substances, there must be a common source [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: The perfect agreement of so many substances which have no communication whatever with each other can only come from a common source. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Nature and Communication of Substance [1690], p.120) |