Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Gettier Problem', 'Of the Origin of Government' and 'Giordano Bruno and Hermetic Tradition'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 4. Early European Thought

9291	The dating, in 1614, of the Hermetic writings as post-Christian is the end of the Renaissance [Yates]
	Full Idea: The dating by Isaac Casaubon in 1614 of the Hermetic writings as not the work of a very ancient Egyptian priest but written in post-Christian times, is a watershed separating the Renaissance world from the modern world.
	From: Frances A. Yates (Giordano Bruno and Hermetic Tradition [1964], Ch.21)
	A reaction: I tend to place the end of the Renaissance with the arrival of the telescope in 1610, so the two dates coincide. Simply, magic was replaced by science. Religion ran alongside, gasping for breath. Mathematics was freed from numerology.

9288	The magic of Asclepius enters Renaissance thought mixed into Ficino's neo-platonism [Yates]
	Full Idea: The magic of Asclepius, reinterpreted through Plotinus, enters with Ficino's De Vita into the neo-platonic philosophy of the Renaissance, and, moreover, into Ficino's Christian Platonism.
	From: Frances A. Yates (Giordano Bruno and Hermetic Tradition [1964], Ch.4)
	A reaction: Asclepius is the source of 'Hermetic' philosophy. This move seems to be what gives the Renaissance period its rather quirky and distinctive character. Montaigne was not a typical figure. Most of them wanted to become gods and control the stars!

13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 2. Justification Challenges / b. Gettier problem

19699	A Gettier case is a belief which is true, and its fallible justification involves some luck [Hetherington]
	Full Idea: A Gettier case contains a belief which is true and well justified without being knowledge. Its justificatory support is also fallible, ...and there is considerable luck in how the belief combnes being true with being justified.
	From: Stephen Hetherington (The Gettier Problem [2011], 5)
	A reaction: This makes luck the key factor. 'Luck' is a rather vague concept, and so the sort of luck involved must first be spelled out. Or the varieties of luck that can produce this outcome.

24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 1. Purpose of a State

21096	The only purpose of government is to administer justice, which brings security [Hume]
	Full Idea: Man is engaged to establish political society in order to administer justice, without which there could be no peace among them, nor safety, nor mutual intercourse. ...Government has no other purpose but the distribution of justice.
	From: David Hume (Of the Origin of Government [1750], p.28)
	A reaction: The need for a society in order to ensure mutual intercourse sounds like Hobbes, and a pessimism about trust. By 'justice' he means the administration of law.