6 ideas
| 21405 | Cicero sees wisdom in terms of knowledge, but earlier Stoics saw it as moral [Cicero, by Long] |
| Full Idea: Cicero (drawing on Panaetius) treats wisdom as if its province were primarily a disinterested pursuit of knowledge. But earlier Stoics gave purely moral definitions of wisdom. | |
| From: report of M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.11-20) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 5 | |
| A reaction: I would have thought that after long discussion most ancient (and even modern) philosophers would conclude that it is both. The 'intellectualism' of Socrates hovers in the background, implying that healthy knowledge produces virtue. |
| 20871 | Unfortunately we choose a way of life before we are old enough to think clearly [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: At the beginning of adolescence when our deliberative capacities are weak we decide on the way of life that we find attractive. So one gets entangled in a definite manner and pattern of life before one is able to judge which one is best. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.117) | |
| A reaction: Hence it is important to have lots of means for bailing out of education courses, jobs, and even marriage. At least university postpones the key life choices till the early twenties. |
| 14713 | Truth in a scenario is the negation in that scenario being a priori incoherent [Chalmers] |
| Full Idea: The epistemic 1-intension for a sentence S is True at a scenario W iff (W and not-S) is a priori incoherent. | |
| From: David J.Chalmers (Epistemic Two-Dimensional Semantics [2004], p.180-4), quoted by Laura Schroeter - Two-Dimensional Semantics | |
| A reaction: See Two-Dimensional Semantics (in 'Language') and Chalmers for the background to this idea. I love the coherence view of justification, but get a bit nervous when people start defining truth in that way. |
| 14712 | A sentence is a priori if no possible way the world might actually be could make it false [Chalmers] |
| Full Idea: The Core Thesis for rationalist 2D semantics is that for any sentence S, S is apriori iff S has a necessary 1-intension. (That is, there is no possible way the world might be that, if it actually obtained, would make S false). | |
| From: David J.Chalmers (Epistemic Two-Dimensional Semantics [2004], p.165), quoted by Laura Schroeter - Two-Dimensional Semantics 2.3.2 | |
| A reaction: [The parenthesis is by Schroeter] A '1-intension' is defined by a diagonal on a 2D semantic matrix. Chalmers defends conceivability as the guide to possibility. This is a very traditional view of the a priori, expressed in modern terms. |
| 6031 | The essence of propriety is consistency [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: The whole essence of propriety is quite certainly consistency. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.110) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me the key intuition on which Kant built his deontological ethical theory. However, opponents say the consistency requires principles, and these are the enemies of truly good human behaviour, which involves Aristotle's 'particulars'. |
| 5994 | Is the cosmos open or closed, mechanical or teleological, alive or inanimate, and created or eternal? [Robinson,TM, by PG] |
| Full Idea: The four major disputes in classical cosmology were whether the cosmos is 'open' or 'closed', whether it is explained mechanistically or teleologically, whether it is alive or mere matter, and whether or not it has a beginning. | |
| From: report of T.M. Robinson (Classical Cosmology (frags) [1997]) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: A nice summary. The standard modern view is closed, mechanistic, inanimate and non-eternal. But philosophers can ask deeper questions than physicists, and I say we are entitled to speculate when the evidence runs out. |