Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Reportatio', 'comedies (frags)' and 'What Does It All Mean?'

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4 ideas

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 6. Meaning as Use
4001 The meaning of a word contains all its possible uses as well as its actual ones [Nagel]
     Full Idea: The meaning of a word contains all its possible uses, true and false, not only its actual ones.
     From: Thomas Nagel (What Does It All Mean? [1987], Ch.5)
     A reaction: It has always seemed to me that meaning is not use, because you can't use it if it hasn't already got a meaning. What use is a meaningless word?
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / a. Form of the Good
3032 I can form no notion of what the good is [Amphis]
     Full Idea: What the good is I no more can form a notion of, than of the good of Plato.
     From: Amphis (comedies (frags) [c.350 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 03.1.22
     A reaction: It was evidently a running joke in the ancient world that no one could define Plato's Form of the Good. He was said to have written a book on it, now lost.
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 3. Divine Perfections
9111 God is not wise, but more-than-wise; God is not good, but more-than-good [William of Ockham]
     Full Idea: God is not wise, but more-than-wise; God is not good, but more-than-good.
     From: William of Ockham (Reportatio [1330], III Q viii)
     A reaction: [He is quoting 'Damascene'] I quote this for interest, but I very much doubt whether Damascene or William knew what it meant, and I certainly don't. There seems to have been a politically correct desire to invent super-powers for God.
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 4. God Reflects Humanity
9112 We could never form a concept of God's wisdom if we couldn't abstract it from creatures [William of Ockham]
     Full Idea: What we abstract is said to belong to perfection in so far as it can be predicated of God and can stand for Him. For if such a concept could not be abstracted from a creature, then in this life we could not arrive at a cognition of God's wisdom.
     From: William of Ockham (Reportatio [1330], III Q viii)
     A reaction: This seems to be the germ of an important argument. Without the ability to abstract from what is experienced, we would not be able to apply general concepts to things which are beyond experience. It is a key idea for empiricism.