67 ideas
22733 | Epicurus accepted God in his popular works, but not in his writings on nature [Epicurus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
Full Idea: Epicurus in his popular exposition allows the existence of God, but in expounding the real nature of things he does not allow it. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Physicists (two books) I.58 | |
A reaction: Plato and Aristotle also distinguished their esoteric from their exoteric writings, but this is an indication that thei popular works may always have presented safer doctrines. |
13291 | Slavery to philosophy brings true freedom [Epicurus] |
Full Idea: To win true freedom you must be a slave to philosophy. | |
From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 008 | |
A reaction: A lovely idea. It is one thing to free the body, or to free one's social situation, but the challenge to 'free your mind' is either romantic nonsense or totally baffling, apart from the suggestion offered here. Reason is freedom. Very Kantian. |
22758 | Philosophy aims at a happy life, through argument and discussion [Epicurus] |
Full Idea: Philosophy is an activity which secures the happy life by arguments and discussions. | |
From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Ethicists (one book) VI.169 | |
A reaction: Presumably this aims at the happiness of the participant. Universal happiness would need to be much more political. If this is your aim then you can't just follow the winds of the argument, but must channel it towards happiness. No nasty truths? |
14523 | We should come to philosophy free from any taint of culture [Epicurus] |
Full Idea: I congratulate you, sir, because you have come to philosophy free of any taint of culture. | |
From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) | |
A reaction: [source: Athenaeus, 'Deipnosophists' 13 588b] No one nowadays thinks such an aspiration remotely possible, not least because the culture is embedded in your native language, but I find the idea very appealing. |
22240 | The aim of medicine is removal of sickness, and philosophy similarly removes our affections [Epicurus] |
Full Idea: Just as there is no benefit to medicine if it does not heal the sicknesses [nosos] of bodies, so too there is none to philosophy unless it expels that affections of the soul. | |
From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE], fr 221), quoted by James Allen - Soul's Virtue and the Health of the Body p.78 | |
A reaction: This sounds rather Buddhist, if the only route to happiness is to suppress the emotions. Epicurus probably refers to the more extreme desires, which only lead to harm. Galen quotes Chrysippus as endorsing this idea (see footnote 5). |
1484 | We should say nothing of the whole if our contact is with the parts [Epicurus, by Plutarch] |
Full Idea: We should make no assertion about the whole when our contact is with the parts. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes 1109e |
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? |
2670 | Epicurus despises and laughs at the whole of dialectic [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
Full Idea: Epicurus despises and laughs at the whole of dialectic. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica II.30.97 |
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? |
10405 | In the iterative conception of sets, they form a natural hierarchy [Swoyer] |
Full Idea: In the iterative conception of sets, they form a natural hierarchy. | |
From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 4.1) |
21668 | Epicurus rejected excluded middle, because accepting it for events is fatalistic [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
Full Idea: Epicurus said that not every proposition is either true or false. ...Epicurus was afraid that if he admits that every proposition is true or false he will also have to admit that all events are caused by fate (if they are so from all eternity). | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 10.21 | |
A reaction: Epicurus proposed his 'swerve' in the movements of atoms to avoid this fatalism. Epicurus is agreeing with Aristotle, who did not accept excluded middle for a future contingent sea-fight. |
10407 | Logical Form explains differing logical behaviour of similar sentences [Swoyer] |
Full Idea: 'Logical Form' is a technical notion motivated by the observation that sentences with a similar surface structure may exhibit quite different logical behaviour. | |
From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 4.2) | |
A reaction: [Swoyer goes on to give some nice examples] The tricky question is whether each sentence has ONE logical form. Pragmatics warns us of the dangers. One needs to check numerous inferences from a given sentences, not just one. |
21676 | Epicureans say disjunctions can be true whiile the disjuncts are not true [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
Full Idea: Epicureans make the impudent assertion that disjunctions consisting of contrary propositions are true, but that the statements contained in the propositions are neither of them true. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 16.36 | |
A reaction: Is that 'it is definitely one or the other, but we haven't a clue which one'? Seems to fit speculations about Goldbach's Conjecture. It doesn't sound terribly impudent to me. Or is it the crazy 'It's definitely one of them, but it's neither of them'? |
10421 | Supervenience is nowadays seen as between properties, rather than linguistic [Swoyer] |
Full Idea: Supervenience is sometimes taken to be a relationship between two fragments of language, but it is increasingly taken to be a relationship between pairs of families of properties. | |
From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 7.17) | |
A reaction: If supervenience is a feature of the world, rather than of our descriptions, then it cries out for explanation, just as any other regularities do. Personally I would have thought the best explanation of the supervenience of mind and body was obvious. |
10410 | Anti-realists can't explain different methods to measure distance [Swoyer] |
Full Idea: Anti-realists theories of measurement (like operationalism) cannot explain how we can use different methods to measure the same thing (e.g. lengths and distances in cosmology, geology, histology and atomic physics). | |
From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 4.2) | |
A reaction: Swoyer says that the explanation is that measurement aims at objective properties, the same in each of these areas. Quite good. |
10399 | If a property such as self-identity can only be in one thing, it can't be a universal [Swoyer] |
Full Idea: Some properties may not be universals, if they can only be exemplified by one thing, such as 'being identical with Socrates'. | |
From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000]) | |
A reaction: I think it is absurd to think that self-identity is an intrinsic 'property', possessed by everything. That a=a is a convenience for logicians, meaning nothing in the world. And it is relational. The sharing of properties is indeed what needs explanation. |
10416 | Can properties have parts? [Swoyer] |
Full Idea: Can properties have parts? | |
From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 6.4) | |
A reaction: If powers are more fundamental than properties, with the latter often being complexes of the underlying powers, then yes they do. But powers don't. Presumably whatever is fundamental shouldn't have parts. Why? |
10417 | There are only first-order properties ('red'), and none of higher-order ('coloured') [Swoyer] |
Full Idea: 'Elementarism' is the view that there are first-order properties, but that there are no properties of any higher-order. There are first-order properties like various shades of red, but there is no higher-order property, like 'being a colour'. | |
From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 7.1) | |
A reaction: [He cites Bergmann 1968] Interesting. Presumably the programme is naturalistic (and hence congenial to me), and generalisations about properties are conceptual, while the properties themselves are natural. |
10413 | The best-known candidate for an identity condition for properties is necessary coextensiveness [Swoyer] |
Full Idea: The best-known candidate for an identity condition for properties is necessary coextensiveness. | |
From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 6) | |
A reaction: The necessity (in all possible worlds) covers renates and cordates. It is hard to see how one could assert the necessity without some deeper explanation. What makes us deny that actually coextensive renates and cordates have different properties? |
10402 | Various attempts are made to evade universals being wholly present in different places [Swoyer] |
Full Idea: The worry that a single thing could be wholly present in widely separated locations has led to trope theory, to the claim that properties are not located in their instances, or to the view that this treats universals as if they were individuals. | |
From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 2.2) | |
A reaction: I find it dispiriting to come to philosophy in the late twentieth century and have to inherit such a ridiculous view as that there are things that are 'wholly present' in many places. |
10400 | Conceptualism says words like 'honesty' refer to concepts, not to properties [Swoyer] |
Full Idea: Conceptualists urge that words like 'honesty', which might seem to refer to properties, really refer to concepts. A few contemporary philosophers have defended conceptualism, and recent empirical work bears on it, but the view is no longer common. | |
From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 1.1) | |
A reaction: ..and that's all Swoyer says about this very interesting view! He only cites Cocchiarella 1986 Ch.3. The view leaves a lot of work to be done in explaining how nature is, and how our concepts connect to it, and arise in response to it. |
10403 | If properties are abstract objects, then their being abstract exemplifies being abstract [Swoyer] |
Full Idea: If properties are abstract objects, then the property of being abstract should itself exemplify the property of being abstract. | |
From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 2.2) | |
A reaction: Swoyer links this observation with Plato's views on self-predication, and his Third Man Argument (which I bet originated with Aristotle in the Academy!). Do we have a regress of objects, as well as a regress of properties? |
10406 | One might hope to reduce possible worlds to properties [Swoyer] |
Full Idea: One might hope to reduce possible worlds to properties. | |
From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 4.1) | |
A reaction: [He cites Zalta 1983 4.2, and Forrest 1986] I think we are dealing with nothing more than imagined possibilities, which are inferred from our understanding of the underlying 'powers' of the actual world (expressed as 'properties'). |
1823 | We can't seek for things if we have no idea of them [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: We could not seek for anything if we had not some notion of it. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.21 |
1824 | To name something, you must already have an idea of what it is [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: We could not give names to things, if we had not a preliminary notion of what the things were. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.21 |
5949 | Epicurus says colours are relative to the eye, not intrinsic to bodies [Epicurus, by Plutarch] |
Full Idea: Epicurus says that colours are not intrinsic to bodies but a result of certain arrangements and positions relative to the eye, which implies that body is no more colourless than coloured. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE], Fr 30) by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes §1110 | |
A reaction: This seems to me such a self-evident truth that I am puzzled as to why anyone would claim that colours are real features of bodies. Epicurus points out that entering a dark room we see no colour, but then colour appears after a while. |
1821 | Sensations cannot be judged, because similar sensations have equal value, and different ones have nothing in common [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Sensation is out of reach of control, because one sensation cannot judge another which resembles itself, as they have equal value, and different sensations have different objects. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.20 | |
A reaction: Scepticism about the possibility of purely empirical knowledge; an interesting comment on the question of whether perceptions contain any intrinsic knowledge. |
1820 | The criteria of truth are senses, preconceptions and passions [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: The criteria of truth are the senses, the preconceptions, and the passions. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.20 |
1822 | Reason can't judge senses, as it is based on them [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Reason cannot judge the senses, because it is based on them. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.20 |
10404 | Extreme empiricists can hardly explain anything [Swoyer] |
Full Idea: Extreme empiricists wind up unable to explain much of anything. | |
From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 2.3) | |
A reaction: This seems to be the major problem for empiricism, but I am not sure why inference to the best explanation should not be part of a sensible empirical approach. Thinking laws are just 'descriptions of regularities' illustrates the difficulty. |
4549 | Epicurus denied knowledge in order to retain morality or hedonism as the highest values [Nietzsche on Epicurus] |
Full Idea: Epicurus denied the possibility of knowledge in order to retain moral (or hedonistic) values as the highest values. | |
From: comment on Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - The Will to Power (notebooks) §578 | |
A reaction: The history of philosophy suggests that this dichotomy is unnecessary. Dogmatist place a high value on multitudes of things. |
2668 | Epicurus says if one of a man's senses ever lies, none of his senses should ever be believed [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
Full Idea: Epicurus says that if one sense has told a lie once in a man's life, no sense must ever be believed. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica II.25.79 |
1482 | If two people disagree over taste, who is right? [Epicurus, by Plutarch] |
Full Idea: If one person says the wine is dry and the other that it is sweet, and neither errs in his sensation, how is the wine any more dry than sweet? | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes 1109b |
1483 | Bath water is too hot for some, too cold for others [Epicurus, by Plutarch] |
Full Idea: In the very same bath some treat the water as too hot, others as too cold. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes 1109b |
1487 | When entering a dark room it is colourless, but colour gradually appears [Epicurus] |
Full Idea: On entering a dark room we see no colour, but do so after waiting a short time. | |
From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes 1110d |
14526 | The rational soul is in the chest, and the non-rational soul is spread through the body [Epicurus] |
Full Idea: Democritus and Epicurus say the soul has two parts, one which is rational and is situated in the chest area, and the other which is non-rational and is spread throughout the entire compound of the body | |
From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) | |
A reaction: [source Aetius 4.4.6] |
6035 | Soul is made of four stuffs, giving warmth, rest, motion and perception [Epicurus, by Aetius] |
Full Idea: Epicurus says the soul is a blend of fiery stuff (for bodily warmth), airy stuff (rest), breath (motion), and a nameless stuff (sense-perception). | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Aetius - fragments/reports 4.3.11 | |
A reaction: Obviously Epicurus thought the four stuffs were different combinations of atoms, rather than being elements. Is there no stuff which gives reason? Reason must reduce to motion, presumably. |
6018 | Epicurus was the first to see the free will problem, and he was a libertarian [Epicurus, by Long/Sedley] |
Full Idea: By posing the problem of determinism, Epicurus became arguably the first philosopher to recognise the philosophical centrality of what we call the Free Will Question. His strongly libertarian approach is strongly contrasted with Stoic determinism. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by AA Long / DN Sedley - Hellenic Philosophers commentary | |
A reaction: Epicurus introduced the rather dubious 'swerve' of the atoms to make room for free will. It seems to me more consistent to stick with the determinism of Democritus. Zeno became a determinist in reaction to Epicurus. |
20922 | Epicurus showed that the swerve can give free motion in the atoms [Epicurus, by Diogenes of Oen.] |
Full Idea: There is a free motion in the atoms, which Democritus did not discover, but which Epicurus brought to light, and which consists in a swerve, as he demonstrated on the basis of what is seen to be the case? | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes (Oen) - Wall inscription 54.II-III | |
A reaction: I presume the last bit means that we see that we have freedom of choice, and infer the swerve in the atoms as the only possible explanation. The worry for libertarians is, of course, who is in charge of the swerve. |
14516 | There is no necessity to live with necessity [Epicurus] |
Full Idea: Necessity is a bad thing, but there is no necessity to live with necessity. | |
From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE], 9) |
1909 | How can pleasure or judgement occur in a heap of atoms? [Sext.Empiricus on Epicurus] |
Full Idea: If Epicurus makes the end consist in pleasure and asserts that the soul, like all else, is composed of atoms, it is impossible to explain how in a heap of atoms there can come about pleasure, or judgement of the good. | |
From: comment on Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Outlines of Pyrrhonism III.187 | |
A reaction: This is a nice statement of the mind-body problem. Ontologically, physics still seems to present reality as a 'heap of particles', which gives no basis for the emergence of anything as strange as consciousness. But then magnetism is pretty strange. |
10408 | Intensions are functions which map possible worlds to sets of things denoted by an expression [Swoyer] |
Full Idea: Intensions are functions that assign a set to the expression at each possible world, ..so the semantic value of 'red' is the function that maps each possible world to the set of things in that world that are red. | |
From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 4.2) | |
A reaction: I am suddenly deeply alienated from this mathematical logicians' way of talking about what 'red' means! We need more psychology, not less. We call things red if we imagine them as looking red. Is imagination a taboo in analytical philosophy? |
10409 | Research suggests that concepts rely on typical examples [Swoyer] |
Full Idea: Recent empirical work on concepts says that many concepts have graded membership, and stress the importance of phenomena like typicality, prototypes, and exemplars. | |
From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 4.2) | |
A reaction: [He cites Rorsch 1978 as the start of this] I say the mind is a database, exactly corresponding to tables, fields etc. Prototypes sound good as the way we identify a given category. Universals are the 'typical' examples labelling areas (e.g. goat). |
10401 | The F and G of logic cover a huge range of natural language combinations [Swoyer] |
Full Idea: All sorts of combinations of copulas ('is') with verbs, adverbs, adjectives, determiners, common nouns, noun phrases and prepositional phrases go over into the familiar Fs and Gs of standard logical notation. | |
From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 1.2) | |
A reaction: This is a nice warning of how misleading logic can be when trying to understand how we think about reality. Montague semantics is an attempt to tackle the problem. Numbers as adjectives are a clear symptom of the difficulties. |
10420 | Maybe a proposition is just a property with all its places filled [Swoyer] |
Full Idea: Some say we can think of a proposition as a limiting case of a property, as when the two-place property '___ loves ___' can become the zero-placed property, or proposition 'that Sam loves Darla'. | |
From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 7.6) | |
A reaction: If you had a prior commitment to the idea that reality largely consists of bundles of properties, I suppose you might find this tempting. |
7814 | It was Epicurus who made the question of the will's freedom central to ethics [Epicurus, by Grayling] |
Full Idea: Epicurus was responsible for the innovatory recognition that the question of the will's freedom is central to ethics. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by A.C. Grayling - What is Good? Ch.3 | |
A reaction: Compare Ideas 7672 and 6018. Obviously ethical action needs freedom, but the idea of a 'free will' is quite different. It is a fiction, created to give some sort of arrogant ultimate responsibility to our actions, like God. |
3562 | Fine things are worthless if they give no pleasure [Epicurus] |
Full Idea: I spit on the fine and those who emptily admire it, when it doesn't make any pleasure. | |
From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Julia Annas - The Morality of Happiness Ch.16 | |
A reaction: in Athenaeus |
1840 | Pleasure is the chief good because it is the most natural, especially for animals [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Pleasure is the chief good, because all animals from the moment of their birth are delighted with pleasure and offended by pain by their natural instinct, without the employment of reason. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.29 | |
A reaction: The highest pleasure of predators is likely to be the killing of weaker animals. What all animals do isn't much of a criterion for the natural chief good. They also breathe. |
1839 | Pains of the soul are worse than pains of the body, because it feels the past and future [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: The pains of the soul are worst, for the flesh is only sensible of present affliction, but the soul feels the past, present and future. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.29 | |
A reaction: I don't think feeling extended across time is very relevant. What matters is that pains of the soul usually endure far longer than physical suffering. |
1842 | Pleasures only differ in their duration and the part of the body affected [Epicurus] |
Full Idea: If every pleasure lasted long, and affected the whole body, then there would be no difference between one pleasure and another | |
From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.31.08 | |
A reaction: This seems to miss out on intensity, which is of great importance to most pleasure seekers. Also it is a pleasure to be alive, which is lifelong, but we barely notice it. |
3557 | The end for Epicurus is static pleasure [Epicurus, by Annas] |
Full Idea: Epicurus identifies our final end with what he calls tranquillity or 'ataraxia', which is static pleasure. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Julia Annas - The Morality of Happiness Ch.7 | |
A reaction: I don't recall any Greek ever spotting that boredom is a problem. But then they didn't have privacy, so other people always hold their attention. Maybe this is a dream of privacy. |
1845 | Justice has no independent existence, but arises entirely from keeping contracts [Epicurus] |
Full Idea: Justice has no independent existence; it results from mutual contracts, and establishes itself wherever there is a mutual engagement to guard against doing or sustaining mutual injury. | |
From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.31.35 |
1841 | We choose virtue because of pleasure, not for its own sake [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: We choose the virtues for the sake of pleasure, and not on their own account. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.30 |
1829 | A wise man would be happy even under torture [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Even if the wise man were put to the torture, he would still be happy. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.26 |
1843 | Friendship is by far the most important ingredient of a complete and happy life [Epicurus] |
Full Idea: Of all the things which wisdom provides for the happiness of the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friendship. | |
From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.31.28 |
1831 | Wise men should partake of life even if they go blind [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Even though he lose his eyes, a wise man should still partake of life. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.26 |
12044 | Only Epicurus denied purpose in nature, for the whole world, or for its parts [Epicurus, by Annas] |
Full Idea: Epicurus alone among the ancient schools denies that in nature we find any teleological explanations. Nothing in nature is for anything, neither the world as a whole nor anything in it. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Julia Annas - Ancient Philosophy: very short introduction | |
A reaction: This may explain the controversial position that epicureanism held in the seventeenth century, as well as its incipient atheism. |
20907 | Democritus says atoms have size and shape, and Epicurus added weight [Epicurus, by Ps-Plutarch] |
Full Idea: Democritus said that the properties of the atoms are in number two, magnitude and shape, but Epicurus added to these a third one, weight. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Pseudo-Plutarch - On the Doctrine of the Philosophers 1.3.18 | |
A reaction: The addition of Epicurus seems very sensible, and an odd omission by Democritus. He seems to think that atoms have a uniform density, so that volume indicates weight. |
21669 | Atoms don't swerve by being struck, because they move in parallel, so the swerve is uncaused [Cicero on Epicurus] |
Full Idea: The swerve of Epicurus takes place without a cause; it does not take place in consequence of being struck by another atom, since how can that take place if they are indivisible bodies travelling perpendicularly in straight lines by the force of gravity? | |
From: comment on Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 10.22 | |
A reaction: The swerve is the most ad hoc proposal in the history of theoretical physics. This is interesting for spelling out that the travel in vertical parallels. What's that all about, then? |
21680 | What causes atomic swerves? Do they draw lots? What decides the size or number of swerves? [Cicero on Epicurus] |
Full Idea: What fresh cause exists in nature to make the atom swerve (or do the atoms cast lots among them which is to swerve and which not?), or to serve as the reason for making a very small swerve and not a large one, or one swerve, and not two or three swerves? | |
From: comment on Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 20.46 | |
A reaction: This is an appeal to the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which seems to be the main ground for rejecting the swerve. The only reason to accept the swerve is reluctance to accept determinism or fatalism. |
10412 | If laws are mere regularities, they give no grounds for future prediction [Swoyer] |
Full Idea: If laws were mere regularities, then the fact that observed Fs have been Gs would give us no reason to conclude that those Fs we haven't encountered will also be Gs. | |
From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 4.2) | |
A reaction: I take this simple point to be very powerful. No amount of regularity gives grounds for asserting future patterns - one only has Humean habits. Causal mechanisms are what we are after. |
10411 | Two properties can have one power, and one property can have two powers [Swoyer] |
Full Idea: If properties are identical when they confer the same capacities on their instances, different properties seem able to bestow the same powers (e.g. force), and one property can bestow different powers (attraction or repulsion). | |
From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 4.2) | |
A reaction: Interesting, but possibly a misunderstanding. Powers are basic, and properties are combinations of powers. A 'force' isn't a basic power, it is a consequence of various properties. Relational behaviours are also not basic powers, which are the source. |
14525 | Stoics say time is incorporeal and self-sufficient; Epicurus says it is a property of properties of things [Epicurus] |
Full Idea: Stoics posited that time is an incorporeal which is conceived of all by itself, while Epicurus thinks that it is an accident of certain things, ...and he called in a property of properties. | |
From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) | |
A reaction: [Source Sextus 'Adversus Mathematicos' 10.219-227] |
2637 | For Epicureans gods are made of atoms, and are not eternal [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
Full Idea: For Epicureans the gods are made of atoms, so in that case they are not eternal. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.68 |
2633 | Epicurus saw that gods must exist, because nature has imprinted them on human minds [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
Full Idea: Epicurus alone saw that gods must exist because nature herself has imprinted an idea of them in the minds of all mankind. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.43 |
2639 | Some say Epicurus only pretended to believe in the gods, so as not to offend Athenians [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
Full Idea: Some believe that Epicurus gave lip-service only to the gods, so as not to offend the Athenians, but in fact did not believe in them. | |
From: report of Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.84 |
14527 | If god answered prayers we would be destroyed, because we pray for others to suffer [Epicurus] |
Full Idea: If god acted in accordance with the prayers of men, all men would rather quickly be destroyed, since they constantly pray for many sufferings to befall each other. | |
From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) | |
A reaction: [source Maximus the Abbott 'Gnom.' 14] |