10 ideas
| 304 | Beautiful things must be different from beauty itself, but beauty itself must be present in each of them [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Are fine things different from or identical to fineness? They are different from fineness itself, but fineness itself is in a sense present in each of them. | |
| From: Plato (Euthydemus [c.379 BCE], 301a) |
| 16120 | Knowing how to achieve immortality is pointless without the knowledge how to use immortality [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If there exists the knowledge of how to make men immortal, but without the knowledge of how to use this immortality, there seems to be no value in it. | |
| From: Plato (Euthydemus [c.379 BCE], 289b) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be not a gormless utilitarianism about knowledge, but a plea for holism, that knowledge only has value as part of some larger picture. The big view is the important view. He's wrong, though. Work out the use later. |
| 303 | Say how many teeth the other has, then count them. If you are right, we will trust your other claims [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If each of you says how many teeth the other has, and when they are counted we find you do know, we will believe your other claims as well. | |
| From: Plato (Euthydemus [c.379 BCE], 294c) | |
| A reaction: This is the clairvoyant problem for reliabilism, if truth is delivered for no apparent reason. Useful, but hardly knowledge. HOW did you know the number of teeth? |
| 10356 | Relativism can be seen as about the rationality of different cultural traditions [MacIntyre, by Kusch] |
| Full Idea: MacIntyre formulates relativism in terms of rationality rather than truth or objectivity. Things are rational relative to some particular tradition, but not rational as such. | |
| From: report of Alasdair MacIntyre (Whose Justice? Which Rationality? [1988], p.352) by Martin Kusch - Knowledge by Agreement Ch.19 | |
| A reaction: Personally I had always taken it to be about truth, and I expect any account of rationality to be founded on a notion of truth. There can clearly be cultural traditions of evidence, and possibly even of logic (though I doubt it). |
| 302 | What knowledge is required to live well? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: What knowledge would enable us to live finely for the rest of our lives? | |
| From: Plato (Euthydemus [c.379 BCE], 293a) | |
| A reaction: A successful grasp of other people's points of view might lead to respect for them. Also a realisation that we are not isolated individuals. We really are all in it together. |
| 301 | Only knowledge of some sort is good [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Nothing is good except knowledge of some sort. | |
| From: Plato (Euthydemus [c.379 BCE], 292b) | |
| A reaction: I've heard it suggested that truth is the only value. This is the Socratic idea that moral goodness is a matter of successful rational judgement. Not convinced, but interesting. |
| 305 | Something which lies midway between two evils is better than either of them [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Something which is composed of two factors which are bad for different purposes and lies midway between them is better than either of the factors. | |
| From: Plato (Euthydemus [c.379 BCE], 306a) |
| 23080 | Liberals debate how conservative or radical to be, but don't question their basics [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Contemporary debates within modern political systems are almost exclusively between conservative liberals, liberal liberals, and radical liberals. There is little place for the criticism of the system itself. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (Whose Justice? Which Rationality? [1988]), quoted by John Kekes - Against Liberalism 01 | |
| A reaction: [No page number given] Kekes seems to be more authoritarian, and MacIntyre is a communitarian (which can be rather authoritarian). I'm dubious about both. |
| 16713 | Philosophers are the forefathers of heretics [Tertullian] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers are the forefathers of heretics. | |
| From: Tertullian (works [c.200]), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 20.2 |
| 6610 | I believe because it is absurd [Tertullian] |
| Full Idea: I believe because it is absurd ('Credo quia absurdum est'). | |
| From: Tertullian (works [c.200]), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason n4.2 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a rather desperate remark, in response to what must have been rather good hostile arguments. No one would abandon the support of reason if it was easy to acquire. You can't deny its engaging romantic defiance, though. |