64 ideas
| 20801 | A wise man's chief strength is not being tricked; nothing is worse than error, frivolity or rashness [Zeno of Citium, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Zeno held that the wise man's chief strength is that he is careful not to be tricked, and sees to it that he is not deceived; for nothing is more alien to the conception that we have of the seriousness of the wise man than error, frivolity or rashness. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica II.66 | |
| A reaction: I presume that this concerns being deceived by other people, and also being deceived by evidence. I suggest that the greatest ability of the wise person is the accurate assessment of evidence. |
| 1771 | When shown seven versions of the mowing argument, he paid twice the asking price for them [Zeno of Citium, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: When shown seven species of dialectic in the mowing argument, he asked the price, and when told 'a hundred drachmas', he gave two hundred, so devoted was he to learning. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.20 | |
| A reaction: Wonderful. I have a watertight proof that pleasure is not the good, which I will auction on the internet. |
| 20770 | Philosophy has three parts, studying nature, character, and rational discourse [Zeno of Citium, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: They say that philosophical theory is tripartite. For one part of it concerns nature [i.e. physics], another concerns character [i.e. ethics], and another concerns rational discourse [i.e. logic] | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.39 | |
| A reaction: Surely 'nature' included biology, and shouldn't be glossed as 'physics'? And I presume that 'rational discourse' is 'logos', rather than 'logic'. Interesting to see that ethics just is the study of character (and not of good and bad actions). |
| 17641 | Discoveries in mathematics can challenge philosophy, and offer it a new foundation [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Any new discovery as to mathematical method and principles is likely to upset a great deal of otherwise plausible philosophising, as well as to suggest a new philosophy which will be solid in proportion as its foundations in mathematics are securely laid. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Regressive Method for Premises in Mathematics [1907], p.283) | |
| A reaction: This is a manifesto for modern analytic philosophy. I'm not convinced, especially if a fictionalist view of maths is plausible. What Russell wants is rigour, but there are other ways of getting that. Currently I favour artificial intelligence. |
| 14027 | If we are to use words in enquiry, we need their main, unambiguous and uncontested meanings [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: It is necessary that we look to the primary conception corresponding to each word and that it stand in no need of demonstration, if, that is, we are going to have something to which we can refer the object of search or puzzlement and opinion. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 38) | |
| A reaction: This either points to definition or to consensus, and since definition seems in danger of some sort of Quinean circularity, I favour consensus. Philosophy is, after all, people discussing things, not inscriptions sent to the gods. |
| 17638 | If one proposition is deduced from another, they are more certain together than alone [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Two obvious propositions of which one can be deduced from the other both become more certain than either in isolation; thus in a complicated deductive system, many parts of which are obvious, the total probability may become all but absolute certainty. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Regressive Method for Premises in Mathematics [1907], p.279) | |
| A reaction: Thagard picked this remark out, in support of his work on coherence. |
| 17632 | Non-contradiction was learned from instances, and then found to be indubitable [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The law of contradiction must have been originally discovered by generalising from instances, though, once discovered, it was found to be quite as indubitable as the instances. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Regressive Method for Premises in Mathematics [1907], p.274) |
| 14040 | Observation and applied thought are always true [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Everything that is observed or grasped by the intellect in an act of application is true. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 62) | |
| A reaction: Not quite clear what he means, but Epicurus is committed to perception as the source of knowledge, with the intellect extending the findings of the senses. He might subscribe to Descartes's 'clear and distinct' perceptions. |
| 6022 | Someone who says 'it is day' proposes it is day, and it is true if it is day [Zeno of Citium, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Someone who says 'It is day' seems to propose that it is day; if, then, it is day, the proposition advanced comes out true, but if not, it comes out false. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.65 | |
| A reaction: Those who find Tarski's theory annoyingly vacuous should note that the ancient Stoics thought the same point worth making. They seem to have clearly favoured some minimal account of truth, according to this. |
| 17629 | Which premises are ultimate varies with context [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Premises which are ultimate in one investigation may cease to be so in another. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Regressive Method for Premises in Mathematics [1907], p.273) |
| 17630 | The sources of a proof are the reasons why we believe its conclusion [Russell] |
| Full Idea: In mathematics, except in the earliest parts, the propositions from which a given proposition is deduced generally give the reason why we believe the given proposition. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Regressive Method for Premises in Mathematics [1907], p.273) |
| 17640 | Finding the axioms may be the only route to some new results [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The premises [of a science] ...are pretty certain to lead to a number of new results which could not otherwise have been known. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Regressive Method for Premises in Mathematics [1907], p.282) | |
| A reaction: I identify this as the 'fruitfulness' that results when the essence of something is discovered. |
| 7555 | Zeno achieved the statement of the problems of infinitesimals, infinity and continuity [Russell on Zeno of Citium] |
| Full Idea: Zeno was concerned with three increasingly abstract problems of motion: the infinitesimal, the infinite, and continuity; to state the problems is perhaps the hardest part of the philosophical task, and this was done by Zeno. | |
| From: comment on Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by Bertrand Russell - Mathematics and the Metaphysicians p.81 | |
| A reaction: A very nice tribute, and a beautiful clarification of what Zeno was concerned with. |
| 17627 | It seems absurd to prove 2+2=4, where the conclusion is more certain than premises [Russell] |
| Full Idea: It is an apparent absurdity in proceeding ...through many rather recondite propositions of symbolic logic, to the 'proof' of such truisms as 2+2=4: for it is plain that the conclusion is more certain than the premises, and the supposed proof seems futile. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Regressive Method for Premises in Mathematics [1907], p.272) | |
| A reaction: Famously, 'Principia Mathematica' proved this fact at enormous length. I wonder if this thought led Moore to his common sense view of his own hand - the conclusion being better than the sceptical arguments? |
| 17628 | Arithmetic was probably inferred from relationships between physical objects [Russell] |
| Full Idea: When 2 + 2 =4 was first discovered, it was probably inferred from the case of sheep and other concrete cases. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Regressive Method for Premises in Mathematics [1907], p.272) |
| 14028 | Nothing comes to be from what doesn't exist [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Nothing comes into being from what is not. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 38) | |
| A reaction: King Lear puts it better: Nothing will come of nothing [1.i]. There seems to be an underlying assumption that coming into being out of nothing is much weirder than just existing, but I am not convinced about that. It's all equally weird. |
| 14029 | If disappearing things went to nothingness, nothing could return, and it would all be gone by now [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: If that which disappears were destroyed into what is not, all things would have been destroyed, since that into which they were dissolved does not exist. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 39) | |
| A reaction: This follows on from Idea 14028. Theologians will immediately spot that this is the underlying principle cited by Aquinas in his Third Way for proving God's existence (Idea 1431). |
| 20860 | Whatever participates in substance exists [Zeno of Citium, by Stobaeus] |
| Full Idea: Zeno says that whatever participates in substance exists. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 2.05a | |
| A reaction: This seems Aristotelian, implying that only objects exist. Unformed stuff would not normally qualify as a 'substance'. So does mud exist? See the ideas of Henry Laycock. |
| 14030 | The totality is complete, so there is no room for it to change, and nothing extraneous to change it [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: The totality of things has always been just like it is now and always will be. For there is nothing for it to change into. For there exists nothing in addition to the totality, which could enter into it and produce the change. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 39) | |
| A reaction: This smacks of the sort of dubious arguments that the medieval theologians fell in love with. I never thought I'd say this, but I think Epicurus needs a comprehensive course in set theory before he makes remarks like this. |
| 14048 | Astronomical movements are blessed, but they don't need the help of the gods [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Movements, turnings, risings, settings, and related phenomena occur without any god helping out and ordaining or being about to ordain things, and at the same time have complete blessedness and indestructibility. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 76) | |
| A reaction: Epicurus is sometimes accused of atheism for remarks like these, but he is always trying to show piety in his attitudes. We might now call this attitude 'deism' (see alphabetical themes). |
| 14044 | The perceived accidental properties of bodies cannot be conceived of as independent natures [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: The shapes, colours, sizes and weights which are predicated of body as accidents, ...and are known by sense-perception, must not be thought of as independent natures (for that is inconceivable). | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 68) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be an anti-platonist remark, though he is not denying that the accidental properties may have some universal character. I'm struck by how close the basic metaphysics of Epicurus is to that of Aristotle. |
| 14045 | Accidental properties give a body its nature, but are not themselves bodies or parts of bodies [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Accidental qualities are not non-existent, nor are they distinct corporeal entities inhering in the body, nor parts of it. We should think that the whole body throughout derives its permanent nature from these properties, though not as a compound of them. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 69) | |
| A reaction: 'Permanent' nature sounds more like essential than accidental properties. This is uncomfortably negative in its attempt to pin down what accidental properties are. The last bit seems to deny the bundle view of objects. Would he like tropes? |
| 14046 | A 'body' is a conception of an aggregate, with properties defined by application conditions [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Properties are known by their peculiar forms of application and comprehension, in close accompaniment with the aggregate [of atoms], which is given the predicate 'body' by reference to the aggregate conception. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 69) | |
| A reaction: There is an interesting hint here of how to think of properties (as both applying and comprehended in some distinctive way), and a suggestion that there is something conventional about bodies, depending on how we conceive them. |
| 14047 | Bodies have impermanent properties, and permanent ones which define its conceived nature [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Impermanent properties do not have the nature of an entire thing, which we call a body when we grasp it in aggregate, nor the nature of permanent accompaniments without which it is not possible to conceive of a body. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 70) | |
| A reaction: Epicurus doesn't discuss essences, but this seems to commit to the basic Aristotelian idea, that there there are some properties which actually bestow identity, and then others which are optional for that thing. The 'conception' is always mentioned. |
| 14039 | Above and below us will never appear to be the same, because it is inconceivable [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: What is over our heads ...or what is below any point which we think of ...will never appear to us as being at the same time and in the same respect both up and down. For it is impossible to conceive of this. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 60) | |
| A reaction: Note that he says it will 'never appear to us' as both - not that it absolutely cannot be both. Both Aristotle and Epicurus are much more focused on how our humanity shapes our metaphysics than the modern pure metaphysicians are. |
| 21397 | Perception an open hand, a fist is 'grasping', and holding that fist is knowledge [Zeno of Citium, by Long] |
| Full Idea: Zeno said perceptions starts like an open hand; then the assent by our governing-principle is partly closing the hand; then full 'grasping' is like making a fist; and finally knowledge is grasping the fist with the other hand. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 4.3.1 | |
| A reaction: [In Cicero, Acad 2.145] It sounds as if full knowledge requires meta-cognition - knowing that you know. |
| 14050 | We aim to dissolve our fears, by understanding their causes [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: If we give a correct and complete causal account of the source of our disturbance and fears, we will dissolve them, by accounting for the phenomena to which we are constantly exposed, and which terrify other men most severely. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 82) | |
| A reaction: Notice 'other' men! This eudaimonist aim lies at the heart of Epicurus's physical account of the world. He was primarily interested in living better, rather than in physical science. He seeks 'tranquillity' and 'freedom from disturbance'. |
| 20799 | A grasp by the senses is true, because it leaves nothing out, and so nature endorses it [Zeno of Citium, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: He thought that a grasp made by the senses was true and reliable, …because it left out nothing about the object that could be grasped, and because nature had provided this grasp as a standard of knowledge, and a basis for understanding nature itself. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica I.42 | |
| A reaction: Sounds like Williamson's 'knowledge first' claim - that the basic epistemic state is knowledge, which we have when everything is working normally. I like Zeno's idea that a 'grasp' leaves nothing out about the object. Compare nature with Descartes' God. |
| 17637 | The most obvious beliefs are not infallible, as other obvious beliefs may conflict [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Even where there is the highest degree of obviousness, we cannot assume that we are infallible - a sufficient conflict with other obvious propositions may lead us to abandon our belief, as in the case of a hallucination afterwards recognised as such. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Regressive Method for Premises in Mathematics [1907], p.279) | |
| A reaction: This approach to fallibilism seems to arise from the paradox that undermined Frege's rather obvious looking axioms. After Peirce and Russell, fallibilism has become a secure norm of modern thought. |
| 14037 | Atoms only have shape, weight and size, and the properties which accompany shape [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: One must believe that the atoms bring with them none of the qualities of things which appear except shape, weight, and size and the properties which necessarily accompany shape. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 54) | |
| A reaction: This appears to be fairly precisely a claim that atoms only have primary qualities, though that terminology only came in in the seventeenth century. I take the view to be more or less correct. |
| 20797 | If a grasped perception cannot be shaken by argument, it is 'knowledge' [Zeno of Citium, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: What had been grasped by sense-perception, he called this itself a 'sense-perception', and if it was grasped in such a way that it could not be shaken by argument he called it 'knowledge'. And between knowledge and ignorance he placed the 'grasp'. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica I.41 | |
| A reaction: This seems to say that a grasped perception is knowledge if there is no defeater. |
| 21398 | A presentation is true if we judge that no false presentation could appear like it [Zeno of Citium, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: I possess a standard enabling me to judge presentations to be true when they have a character of a sort that false ones could not have. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica II.18.58 | |
| A reaction: [This is a spokesman in Cicero for the early Stoic view] No sceptic will accept this, but it is pretty much how I operate. If you see something weird, like a leopard wandering wild in Hampshire, you believe it once you have eliminated possible deceptions. |
| 17639 | Believing a whole science is more than believing each of its propositions [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Although intrinsic obviousness is the basis of every science, it is never, in a fairly advanced science, the whole of our reason for believing any one proposition of the science. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Regressive Method for Premises in Mathematics [1907], p.279) |
| 6010 | Illusions are not false perceptions, as we accurately perceive the pattern of atoms [Epicurus, by Modrak] |
| Full Idea: Epicurus says illusions are not false perceptions, because the senses accurately report the pattern of atoms; for instance, the edges are worn off the pattern produced by a square tower, so its perception as a round tower is true. | |
| From: report of Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 47-53) by Deborah K.W. Modrak - Classical theories of Mind | |
| A reaction: As so often, Epicurus got it right, because Democritus got it right, thus demonstrating that good philosophy must be preceded by good physics. However, good physics must be preceded and followed by good philosophy. |
| 17631 | Induction is inferring premises from consequences [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The inferring of premises from consequences is the essence of induction. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Regressive Method for Premises in Mathematics [1907], p.274) | |
| A reaction: So induction is just deduction in reverse? Induction is transcendental deduction? Do I deduce the premises from observing a lot of white swans? Hm. |
| 14041 | The soul is fine parts distributed through the body, resembling hot breath [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: The soul is a body made up of fine parts distributed throught the entire aggregate, most closely resembling breath with a certain admixture of heat, in one way resembling breath and in another resembling heat | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 63) | |
| A reaction: Remember that 'psuché' refers as much to the life within a creature as it does to the consciousness. The stoics seem to have held a similar view. |
| 1770 | When a slave said 'It was fated that I should steal', Zeno replied 'Yes, and that you should be beaten' [Zeno of Citium, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: When a slave who was being beaten for theft said, 'It was fated that I should steal', Zeno replied, 'Yes, and that you should be beaten.' | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.19 |
| 3799 | A dog tied to a cart either chooses to follow and is pulled, or it is just pulled [Zeno of Citium, by Hippolytus] |
| Full Idea: Zeno and Chrysippus say everything is fated with the following model: when a dog is tied to a cart, if it wants to follow it is pulled and follows, making its spontaneous act coincide with necessity, but if it does not want to follow it will be compelled. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by Hippolytus - Refutation of All Heresies §1.21 | |
| A reaction: A nice example, but it is important to keep the distinction clear between freedom and free will. The dog lacks freedom as it is dragged along, but it is still free to will that it is asleep in its kennel. |
| 21402 | Incorporeal substances can't do anything, and can't be acted upon either [Zeno of Citium, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Zeno held that an incorporeal substance was incapable of any activity, whereas anything capable of acting, or being acted upon in any way, could not be incorporeal. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica I.11.39 | |
| A reaction: This is substance dualism kicked into the long grass by Zeno, long before Descartes defended dualism, and was swiftly met with exactly the same response. The interaction problem. |
| 14042 | The soul cannot be incorporeal, because then it could neither act nor be acted upon [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Those who say that the soul is incorporeal are speaking to no point; for if it were of that character, it could neither act nor be acted upon at all. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 67) | |
| A reaction: This just is the causal argument, which is espoused by Papineau and other modern physicalists. Personally I am inclined to agree with Papineau, that it is so simple and conclusive that it is hardly worth discussing further. Dualism needs a miracle. |
| 20816 | A body is required for anything to have causal relations [Zeno of Citium, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Zeno held (contrary to Xenocrates and others) that it was impossible for anything to be effected that lacked a body, and indeed that whatever effected something or was affected by something must be body. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica I.39 | |
| A reaction: This seems to make stoics thoroughgoing physicalists, although they consider the mind to be made of refined fire, rather than of flesh. |
| 1773 | A sentence always has signification, but a word by itself never does [Zeno of Citium, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: A sentence is always significative of something, but a word by itself has no signification. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.28 | |
| A reaction: This is the Fregean dogma. Words obviously can signify, but that is said to be parasitic on their use in sentences. It feels like a false dichotomy to me. Much sentence meaning is compositional. |
| 1774 | Since we are essentially rational animals, living according to reason is living according to nature [Zeno of Citium, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: As reason is given to rational animals according to a more perfect principle, it follows that to live correctly according to reason, is properly predicated of those who live according to nature. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.52 | |
| A reaction: This is the key idea for understanding what the stoics meant by 'live according to nature'. The modern idea of rationality doesn't extend to 'perfect principles', however. |
| 20841 | Zeno said live in agreement with nature, which accords with virtue [Zeno of Citium, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Zeno first (in his book On Human Nature) said that the goal was to live in agreement with nature, which is to live according to virtue. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.87 | |
| A reaction: The main idea seems to be Aristotelian - that the study of human nature reveals what our virtues are, and following them is what nature requires. Nature is taken to be profoundly rational. |
| 20863 | The goal is to 'live in agreement', according to one rational consistent principle [Zeno of Citium, by Stobaeus] |
| Full Idea: Zeno says the goal of life is 'living in agreement', which means living according to a single and consonant rational principle, since those who live in conflict are unhappy. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 2.06a | |
| A reaction: If there is a 'single' principle, is it possible to state it? To live by consistent principles sets the bar incredibly high, as any professional philosopher can tell you. |
| 2662 | Zeno saw virtue as a splendid state, not just a source of splendid action [Zeno of Citium, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Zeno held that not merely the exercise of virtue, as his predecessors held, but the mere state of virtue is in itself a splendid thing, although nobody possesses virtue without continuously exercising it. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica I.10.38 |
| 21395 | One of Zeno's books was 'That Which is Appropriate' [Zeno of Citium, by Long] |
| Full Idea: Zeno of Citium wrote a (lost) book entitled 'That Which is Appropriate'. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 4.1 | |
| A reaction: I cite this because I take it to be about what in Aristotle called 'the mean' - to emphasise that the mean is not what is average, or midway between the extremes, but what is a balanced response to each situation |
| 5964 | Zeno says there are four main virtues, which are inseparable but distinct [Zeno of Citium, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Zeno (like Plato) admits a plurality of specifically different virtues, namely prudence, courage, sobriety, justice, which he takes to be inseparable but yet distinct and different from one another. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1034c | |
| A reaction: In fact, the virtues are 'supervenient' on one another, which is the doctrine of the unity of virtue. Zeno is not a pluralist in the way Aristotle is - who says there are other goods apart from the virtues. |
| 14032 | Totality has no edge; an edge implies a contrast beyond the edge, and there can't be one [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: The totality is unlimited. For what is limited has an extreme; but an extreme is seen in contrast to something else, so that since it has no extreme it has no limit. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 41) | |
| A reaction: I presume that the 'limit' is the edge, and the 'extreme' is what is beyond the edge. Why could not the extreme be nothingness, which then contrast dramatically with what exists? |
| 14033 | Bodies are unlimited as well as void, since the two necessarily go together [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: The number of bodies and the magnitude of the void are unlimited. If void were unlimited, and bodies limited, bodies move in scattered fashion with no support of checking collisions; in limited void, unlimited bodies would not have a place to be in. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 42) | |
| A reaction: Seems good. The point is that without collisions, bodies would not stop relative to one another, and combine to form the objects we perceive. Of course if the started off (anathema!) stuck together, they may not have dispersed yet. |
| 14034 | There exists an infinity of each shape of atom, but the number of shapes is beyond our knowledge [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: For each type of shape there is an unlimited number of similar atoms, but with respect to the differences they are not simply unlimited but ungraspable. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 42) | |
| A reaction: Epicurus's view of the nature of atoms rests on his empiricism, so while he can reason from experience to how they must be, he admits (impressively) his ignorance of the full facts. He has arguments for the unlimited number. |
| 14035 | Atoms just have shape, size and weight; colour results from their arrangement [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: There are not even any qualities in atoms, except shape and size and weight; their colour changes according to the arrangement of the atoms. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 44 schol) | |
| A reaction: [This is quoted by a 'scholiast' - an early writer quoting from Epicurus's '12 Basic Principles'] He appears to have got this one wrong, as it is evidently the type of atom, as well as the arrangement, which contributes to the colour. |
| 14038 | There cannot be unlimited division, because it would reduce things to non-existence [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: One must eliminate unlimited division into smaller pieces (to avoid making everything weak and being forced in our comprehensive grasps of compound things to exhaust the things which exist by reducing them to non-existence). | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 56) | |
| A reaction: A basic argument for atoms, but it seems to rest on Zenonian paradoxes about infinite subdivision. An infinite subdivision of a unit doesn't seem to turn it into zero. |
| 17633 | The law of gravity has many consequences beyond its grounding observations [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The law of gravitation leads to many consequences which could not be discovered merely from the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Regressive Method for Premises in Mathematics [1907], p.275) |
| 14049 | We aim to know the natures which are observed in natural phenomena [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Blessedness lies in knowing the natures which are observed in meteorological phenomena. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 78) | |
| A reaction: This pursuit of 'natures' seems to be at the heart of scientific essentialism. Epicurus demonstrates his proposal, by offering speculations about the natures of all sorts of phenomena (esp. in 'Letter to Pythocles'). |
| 14043 | The void cannot interact, but just gives the possibility of motion [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: The void can neither act nor be acted upon but merely provides the possibility of motion through itself for bodies. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 67) | |
| A reaction: Epicurus follows this with the anti-dualist Idea 14042, but he is at least offering the notion of something which exists without powers of causal interaction. Does space undermine the causal criterion for existence? |
| 20822 | There is no void in the cosmos, but indefinite void outside it [Zeno of Citium, by Ps-Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Zeno and his followers say that there is no void within the cosmos but an indefinite void outside it. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by Pseudo-Plutarch - On the Doctrine of the Philosophers 884a | |
| A reaction: Only atomists (such as Epicureans) need void within the cosmos, as space within which atoms can move. What would they make of modern 'fields'? Posidonius later said there was sufficient, but not infinite, void. |
| 14031 | Space must exist, since movement is obvious, and there must be somewhere to move in [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: If there did not exist that which we call void and space and intangible nature, bodies would not have any place to be in or move through, as they obviously do move. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 40) | |
| A reaction: The observation that 'they obviously do move' must be aimed at followers of Parmenides. The idea of the void seems to contain a Newtonian commitment to absolute space. |
| 20811 | Since the cosmos produces what is alive and rational, it too must be alive and rational [Zeno of Citium] |
| Full Idea: Nothing which lacks life and reason can produce from itself something which is alive and rational; but the cosmos can produce from itself things which are alive and rational; therefore the cosmos is alive and rational. | |
| From: Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') 2.22 | |
| A reaction: Eggs and sperm don't seem to be rational, but I don't suppose they count. I note that this is presented as a formal proof, when actually it is just an evaluation of evidence. Logic as rhetoric, I would say. |
| 2648 | Things are more perfect if they have reason; nothing is more perfect than the universe, so it must have reason [Zeno of Citium] |
| Full Idea: That which has reason is more perfect than that which has not. But there is nothing more perfect than the universe; therefore the universe is a rational being. | |
| From: Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') II.20 |
| 14036 | There are endless cosmoi, some like and some unlike this one [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: There is an unlimited number of cosmoi, and some are similar to this one and some are dissimilar. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 45) |
| 20810 | Rational is better than non-rational; the cosmos is supreme, so it is rational [Zeno of Citium] |
| Full Idea: That which is rational is better than that which is not rational; but there is nothing better than the cosmos; therefore, the cosmos is rational. | |
| From: Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') 2.21 | |
| A reaction: This looks awfully like Anselm's ontological argument to me. The cosmos was the greatest thing that Zeno could conceive. |
| 2649 | If tuneful flutes grew on olive trees, you would assume the olive had some knowledge of the flute [Zeno of Citium] |
| Full Idea: If flutes playing tunes were to grow on olive trees, would you not infer that the olive must have some knowledge of the flute? | |
| From: Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') II.22 |
| 20807 | The cosmos and heavens are the substance of god [Zeno of Citium, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Zeno says that the entire cosmos and the heaven are the substance of god. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.148 |