2 ideas
| 22293 | Hilbert said (to block paradoxes) that mathematical existence is entailed by consistency [Hilbert, by Potter] |
| Full Idea: Hilbert proposed to circuvent the paradoxes by means of the doctrine (already proposed by Poincaré) that in mathematics consistency entails existence. | |
| From: report of David Hilbert (On the Concept of Number [1900], p.183) by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 19 'Exist' | |
| A reaction: Interesting. Hilbert's idea has struck me as weird, but it makes sense if its main motive is to block the paradoxes. Roughly, the idea is 'it exists if it isn't paradoxical'. A low bar for existence (but then it is only in mathematics!). |
| 5845 | Niceratus learnt the whole of Homer by heart, as a guide to goodness [Xenophon] |
| Full Idea: Niceratus said that his father, because he was concerned to make him a good man, made him learn the whole works of Homer, and he could still repeat by heart the entire 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey'. | |
| From: Xenophon (Symposium [c.391 BCE], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: This clearly shows the status which Homer had in the teaching of morality in the time of Socrates, and it is precisely this acceptance of authority which he was challenging, in his attempts to analyse the true basis of virtue |