81 ideas
| 14888 | Wisdom prevents us from being ruled by the moment [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The most important thing about wisdom is that it prevents human beings from being ruled by the moment. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 30 [25]) |
| 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. |
| 14863 | Unlike science, true wisdom involves good taste [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Inherent in wisdom [sophia] is discrimination, the possession of good taste: whereas science, lacking such a refined sense of taste, gobbles up anything that is worth knowing. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [086]) | |
| A reaction: This is blatantly unfair to science, which may lack 'taste', but at least prefers deep theories with wide-ranging explanatory power to narrow local theories. Maybe the line across the philosophical community is the one picking out those with taste? |
| 14890 | Suffering is the meaning of existence [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Suffering is the meaning of existence. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 32 [67]) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't mean that he is advocating suffering. The context of his remark is that the pursuit of truth involves suffering. |
| 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. |
| 14861 | Philosophy ennobles the world, by producing an artistic conception of our knowledge [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is indispensable for education because it draws knowledge into an artistic conception of the world, and thereby ennobles it. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [052]) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be an unusual way of saying that philosophy aims at the unification of knowledge, which is roughly my own view. It has hard for us to keep believing that life could be 'ennobled'. |
| 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). |
| 14885 | The first aim of a philosopher is a life, not some works [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The philosopher's product is his life (first, before his works). It is his work of art. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 29 [205]) |
| 14887 | You should only develop a philosophy if you are willing to live by it [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: One should have a philosophy only to the extent that one is capable of living according to this philosophy: so that everything does not become mere words. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 30 [17]) |
| 14889 | Philosophy is pointless if it does not advocate, and live, a new way of life [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: As long as philosophers do not muster the courage to advocate a lifestyle structured in an entirely different way and demonstrate it by their own example, they will come to nothing. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 31 [10]) | |
| A reaction: This is a pretty tough requirement for the leading logicians and metaphysicians of our day, but they must face their marginality. The public will only be interested in philosophers who advocate new ways of living. |
| 14862 | Philosophy is more valuable than much of science, because of its beauty [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The reason why unprovable philosophizing still has some value - more value, in fact, than many a scientific proposition - lies in the aesthetic value of such philosophizing, that is, in its beauty and sublimity. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [076]) | |
| A reaction: I am increasingly inclined to agree. I love wide-ranging and ambitious works of metaphysics, each of which is a unique creation of the human intellect (and with which no other individual will ever entirely agree). A great short paper is also beautiful. |
| 14876 | Philosophy is always secondary, because it cannot support a popular culture [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: It is not possible to base a popular culture on philosophy. Thus, with regard to culture, philosophy never can have primary, but always only secondary, significance. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 23 [14]) | |
| A reaction: It is the brilliance of Christianity as a set of ideas that it is simple enough to found a popular culture. A complex theology would make that impossible. Luther brought it back to its roots, when the priesthood lost touch with the people. |
| 14878 | It would better if there was no thought [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: It would be better if thought did not exist at all. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 29 [004]) |
| 14881 | Why do people want philosophers? [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Why do human beings even want philosophers? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 29 [019]) | |
| A reaction: It is not clear, of course, that they do want philosophers. The standard attitude to them seems to be a mixture of contempt and fear. |
| 14860 | Kant has undermined our belief in metaphysics [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: In a certain sense, Kant's influence was detrimental; for the belief in metaphysics has been lost. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [028]) | |
| A reaction: As I understand it, there are two interpretations of Kant, one of which is fairly thoroughly anti-metaphysical, and another which is less so. Also one path leads to idealism and the other doesn't, but I need to research that. |
| 14859 | If philosophy controls science, then it has to determine its scope, and its value [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The philosophy that is in control of science must also consider the extent to which science should be allowed to develop; it must determine its value! | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [024]) |
| 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. |
| 14880 | Logic is just slavery to language [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Logic is merely slavery in the fetters of language. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 29 [008]) | |
| A reaction: I don't think I agree with this, but I still like it. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 14869 | If some sort of experience is at the root of matter, then human knowledge is close to its essence [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: If pleasure, displeasure, sensation, memory, reflex movements are all part of the essence of matter, then human knowledge penetrates far more deeply into the essence of things. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [161]) | |
| A reaction: I don't think Nietzsche is thinking of monads at this point, but his idea certainly applies to them. Leibniz rested his whole theory on the close analogy between how minds work and how matter must also work. |
| 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. |
| 14875 | Belief matters more than knowledge, and only begins when knowledge ceases [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The human being starts to believe when he ceases to know. …Knowledge is not as important for the welfare of human beings as is belief. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 21 [13]) | |
| A reaction: The first idea is now associated with Williamson (and Hossack). The second is something like the pragmatic view of belief espoused by Ramsey. |
| 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. |
| 14866 | It always remains possible that the world just is the way it appears [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Against Kant we can still object, even if we accept all his propositions, that it is still possible that the world is as it appears to us. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [125]) | |
| A reaction: This little thought at least seems to be enough to block the slide from phenomenalism into total idealism. The idea that direct realism can never be ruled out, even if it is false, is very striking. |
| 17979 | Research shows perceptual discrimination is sharper at category boundaries [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: Goldstone's research has shown how learning concepts can change perceptual units. For example, perceptual discrimination is heightened along category boundaries. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: [Goldstone 1994, 2000] This is just the sort of research which throws a spanner into the simplistic a priori thinking of many philosophers. |
| 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. |
| 14872 | Our knowledge is illogical, because it rests on false identities between things [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Every piece of knowledge that is beneficial to us involves an identification of nonidentical things, of things that are similar, which means that it is essentially illogical. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [236]) | |
| A reaction: I take the thought to be that no two tigers are alike, but we call them all 'tigers' and merge them into a type, and then all our knowledge is based on this distortion. A wonderful idea. I love particulars You should love particulars. |
| 14879 | The most extreme scepticism is when you even give up logic [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Even skepticism contains a belief: the belief in logic. The most extreme position is hence the abandoning of logic. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 29 [008]) | |
| A reaction: Some might say that flirting with non-classical logic (as in Graham Priest) is precisely travelling down this road. You could also be sceptical about meaning in language, so you couldn't articulate your abandonment of logic. |
| 18690 | Induction is said to just compare properties of categories, but the type of property also matters [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: Most theories of induction claim that it should depend primarily on the similarity of the categories involved, but then the type of property should not matter, yet research shows that it does. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be good empirical support for Gilbert Harman's view that induction is really inference to the best explanation. The thought (which strikes me as obviously correct) is that we bring nested domains of knowledge to bear in induction. |
| 14873 | If we find a hypothesis that explains many things, we conclude that it explains everything [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The feeling of certainty is the most difficult to develop. Initially one seeks explanation: if a hypothesis explains many things, we draw the conclusion that it explains everything. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [238]) | |
| A reaction: As so often, a wonderful warning from Nietzsche to other philosophers. They love to latch onto a Big Idea, and offer it as the answer to everything (especially, dare I say it, continental philosophers). |
| 14868 | Our primary faculty is perception of structure, as when looking in a mirror [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The primary faculty seems to me to be the perception of structure, that is, based upon the mirror. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [153]) | |
| A reaction: The point about the mirror makes this such an intriguingly original idea. Personally I like very much the idea that structure is our prime perception. See Sider 2011 on structure. |
| 14870 | We experience causation between willing and acting, and thereby explain conjunctions of changes [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The only form of causality of which we are aware is that between willing and acting - we transfer this to all things, and thereby explain the relationship between two changes that always occur together. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [209]) | |
| A reaction: This is a rather Humean view, of projecting our experience onto the world, but it may be that we really are experiencing real causation, just as it occurs between insentiate things. |
| 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. |
| 14867 | It is just madness to think that the mind is supernatural (or even divine!) [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: To view 'spirit', the product of the brain, as supernatural. Even to deify it. What madness! | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [127]) | |
| A reaction: When I started philolosophy I was obliged to take mind-body dualism very seriously, but I have finally managed to drag myself to the shores of this lake of madness, where Nietzsche awaited with a helping hand. |
| 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. |
| 17980 | The main theories of concepts are exemplar, prototype and knowledge [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: The three main theories of concepts under consideration are the exemplar, the prototype and the knowledge approaches. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch.13) |
| 17969 | The classical definitional approach cannot distinguish typical and atypical category members [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: The early psychological approaches to concepts took a definitional approach. ...but this view does not have any way of distinguishing typical and atypical category members (...as when a trout is a typical fish and an eel an atypical one). | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: [pp. 12 and 22] Eleanor Rosch in the 1970s is said to have largely killed off the classical view. |
| 17973 | The theoretical and practical definitions for the classical view are very hard to find [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: It has been extremely difficult to find definitions for most natural categories, and even harder to find definitions that are plausible psychological representations that people of all ages would be likely to use. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 2) |
| 17970 | Classical concepts follow classical logic, but concepts in real life don't work that way [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: The classical view of concepts has been tied to traditional logic. 'Fido is a dog and a pet' is true if it has the necessary and sufficient conditions for both, ...but there is empirical evidence that people do not follow that rule. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: Examples given are classifying chess as a sport and/or game, and classifying a tree house (which is agreed to be both a building and not a building!). |
| 17971 | Classical concepts are transitive hierarchies, but actual categories may be intransitive [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: The classical view of concepts explains hierarchical order, where categories form nested sets. But research shows that categories are often not transitive. Research shows that a seat is furniture, and a car seat is a seat, but it is not furniture. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Murphy adds that the nesting of definitions is classically used to match the nesting of hierarchies. This is a nice example of the neatness of the analytic philosopher breaking down when it meets the mess of the world. |
| 17972 | The classical core is meant to be the real concept, but actually seems unimportant [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: A problem with the revised classical view is that the concept core does not seem to be an important part of the concept, despite its name and theoretical intention as representing the 'real' concept. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: Apparently most researchers feel they can explain their results without reference to any core. Not so fast, I would say (being an essentialist). Maybe people acknowledge an implicit core without knowing what it is. See Susan Gelman. |
| 17975 | There is no 'ideal' bird or dog, and prototypes give no information about variability [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: Is there really an 'ideal bird' that could represent all birds? ...Furthermore a single prototype would give no information about the variability of a category. ...Compare the incredible variety of dogs to the much smaller diversity of cats. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: The point about variability is particularly noteworthy. You only grasp the concept of 'furniture' when you understand its range, as well as its typical examples. What structure is needed in a concept to achieve this? |
| 17976 | Prototypes are unified representations of the entire category (rather than of members) [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: In the prototype view the entire category is represented by a unified representation rather than separate representations for each member, or for different classes of members. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: This is the improved prototype view, as opposed to the implausible idea that there is one ideal exemplar. The new theory still have the problem of how to represent diversity within the category, while somehow remaining 'unified'. |
| 18691 | The prototype theory uses observed features, but can't include their construction [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: Nothing in the prototype model says the shape of an animal is more important than its location in identifying its kind. The theory does not provide a way the features can be constructed, rather than just observed. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: This makes some kind of mental modelling central to thought, and not just a bonus once you have empirically acquired the concepts. We bring our full range of experience to bear on even the most instantaneous observations. |
| 17983 | The prototype theory handles hierarchical categories and combinations of concepts well [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: The prototype view has no trouble with either hierarchical structure or explaining categories. ...Meaning and conceptual combination provide strong evidence for prototypes. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: Prototypes are not vague, making clearer classification possible. A 'mountain lion' is clear, because its components are clear. |
| 17985 | Prototypes theory of concepts is best, as a full description with weighted typical features [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: Our theory of concepts must be primarily prototype-based. That is, it must be a description of an entire concept, with its typical features (presumably weighted by their importance). | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: This is to be distinguished from the discredited 'classical' view of concepts, that the concept consists of its definition. I take Aristotle's account of definition to be closer to a prototype description than to a dictionary definition. |
| 17986 | Learning concepts is forming prototypes with a knowledge structure [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: My proposal is that people attempt to form prototypes as part of a larger knowledge structure when they learn concepts. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: This combines theory theory (knowledge) with the prototype view, and sounds rather persuasive. The formation of prototypes fits with the explanatory account of essentialism I am defending. He later calls prototype formation 'abstraction' (494). |
| 17974 | The most popular theories of concepts are based on prototypes or exemplars [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: The most popular theories of concepts are based on prototype or exemplar theories that are strongly unclassical. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 2) |
| 17977 | The exemplar view of concepts says 'dogs' is the set of dogs I remember [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: In the exemplar view of concepts, the idea that people have a representation that somehow encompasses an entire concept is rejected. ...Instead a person's concept of dogs is the set of dogs that the person remembers. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: [The theory was introduced by Medin and Schaffer 1978] I think I have finally met a plausible theory of concepts. When I think 'dog' I conjure up a fuzz of dogs that exhibit the range I have encountered (e.g. tiny to very big). Individuals come first! |
| 17987 | The concept of birds from exemplars must also be used in inductions about birds [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: We don't have one concept of birds formed by learning from exemplars, and another concept of birds that is used in induction. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: In other words exemplar concepts break down when we generalise using the concept. The exemplars must be unified, to be usable in thought and language. |
| 17982 | Exemplar theory struggles with hierarchical classification and with induction [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: The exemplar view has trouble with hierarchical classification and with induction in adults. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: To me these both strongly support essentialism - that you form the concept 'dog' from seeing some dogs, but you then extrapolate to large categories and general truths about dogs, on the assumption of the natures of the dogs you have seen. |
| 17981 | Children using knowing and essentialist categories doesn't fit the exemplar view [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: The findings showing that children use knowledge and may be essentialist about category membership do not comport well with the exemplar view. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: Tricky, because Gelman persuaded me of the essentialism, but the exemplar view of concepts looks the most promising. Clearly they must be forced to coexist.... |
| 17984 | Conceptual combination must be compositional, and can't be built up from exemplars [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: The exemplar accounts of conceptual combination are demonstrably wrong, because the meaning of a phrase has to be composed from the meaning of its parts (plus broader knowledge), and it cannot be composed as a function of exemplars. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: This sounds quite persuasive, and I begin to see that my favoured essentialism fits the prototype view of concepts best, though this mustn't be interpreted too crudely. We change our prototypes with experience. 'Bird' is a tricky case. |
| 17978 | We do not learn concepts in isolation, but as an integrated part of broader knowledge [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: The knowledge approach argues that concepts are part of our general knowledge about the world. We do not learn concepts in isolation, ...but as part of our overall understanding of the world. Animal concepts are integrated with biology, behaviour etc. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: This is one of the leading theories of concepts among psychologists. It seems to be an aspect of the true theory, but it needs underpinning with some account of isolated individual concepts. This is also known as the 'theory theory'. |
| 18687 | Concepts with familiar contents are easier to learn [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: A concept's content influences how easy it is to learn. If the concept is grossly incompatible with what people know prior to the experiment, it will be difficult to acquire. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: This is a preliminary fact which leads towards the 'knowledge' theory of concepts (aka 'theory theory'). The point being that the knowledge involved is integral to the concept. Fits my preferred mental files approach. |
| 18688 | Some knowledge is involved in instant use of categories, other knowledge in explanations [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: Some kinds of knowledge are probably directly incorporated into the category representation and used in normal, fast decisions about objects. Other kinds of knowledge, however, may come into play only when it has been solicited. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: This is a summary of empirical research, but seems to fit our normal experience. If you see a hawk, you have some instant understanding, but if you ask what the hawk is doing here, you draw more widely. |
| 18689 | People categorise things consistent with their knowledge, even rejecting some good evidence [Murphy] |
| Full Idea: People tend to positively categorise items that are consistent with their knowledge and to exclude items that are inconsistent, sometimes even overruling purely empirical sources of information. | |
| From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: The main rival to 'theory theory' is the purely empirical account of how concepts are acquired. This idea reports empirical research in favour of the theory theory (or 'knowledge') approach. |
| 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. |
| 14884 | The shortest path to happiness is forgetfulness, the path of animals (but of little value) [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: If happiness were the goal, then animals would be the highest creatures. Their cynicism is grounded in forgetfulness: that is the shortest path to happiness, even if it is a happiness with little value. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 29 [143]) | |
| A reaction: I would be reluctant to describe an apparently contented cow as 'happy'. Is a comatose person happy? Maybe happiness is fulfilling one's nature, like a monkey swinging through trees? |
| 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. |
| 14886 | Education is contrary to human nature [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Education runs contrary to the nature of a human being. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 30 [06]) | |
| A reaction: Tell me about it! |
| 14883 | We should evaluate the past morally [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: For the past I desire above all a moral evaluation. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 29 [096]) | |
| A reaction: There is a bit of a contradiction with Idea 14819, of only a few years later. He was always interested in a historical approach to morality, but I'm not sure if his ethics gives a decent basis for moral assessments of remote historical eras. |
| 14882 | Protest against vivisection - living things should not become objects of scientific investigation [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Protest against vivisection of living things, that is, those things that are not yet dead should be allowed to live and not immediately be treated as an object for scientific investigation. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 29 [027]) | |
| A reaction: Wow. How many other people had come up with this idea in 1873? |
| 14865 | We do not know the nature of one single causality [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We do not know the nature of one single causality. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [121]) |
| 14871 | Laws of nature are merely complex networks of relations [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: All laws of nature are only relations between x, y and z. We define laws of nature as relations to an x, y, and z, each of which in turn, is known to us only in relation to other x's, y's and z's. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [235]) | |
| A reaction: This could be interpreted in Armstrong's terms, as only identifying the x's, y's and z's by their universals, and then seeing laws as how those universal relate. I suspect, though, that Nietzsche has a Humean regularity pattern in mind. |
| 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. |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 14864 | The Greeks lack a normative theology: each person has their own poetic view of things [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The Greeks lack a normative theology: everyone has the right to deal with it in a poetic manner and he can believe whatever he wants. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [110]) | |
| A reaction: There is quite a lot of record of harshness towards atheists, and the trial of Socrates seems to have been partly over theology. However, no proper theological texts have come down, or records of the teachings of the priests. |