63 ideas
| 20186 | Unlike knowledge, wisdom cannot be misused [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: A distinctive mark of wisdom is that it cannot be misused, whereas knowledge surely can be misused. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], I 1.2) | |
| A reaction: She will argue, with Aristotle, that this is because wisdom (and maybe 'true' knowledge) must include 'phronesis' (practical wisdom), which is the key to all the virtues, intellectual and moral. This idea is striking, and obviously correct. |
| 19694 | Wisdom is the property of a person, not of their cognitive state [Zagzebski, by Whitcomb] |
| Full Idea: Zagzebski takes wisdom as literally properties of persons, not persons' cognitive states. | |
| From: report of Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], p.59-60) by Dennis Whitcomb - Wisdom 'Twofold' | |
| A reaction: Not sure about this. Zagzebski uses this idea to endorse epistemic virtue. But knowledge and ignorance are properties of persons too. There can be, though, a precise mental state involved in knowledge, but not in wisdom. |
| 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). |
| 20221 | Precision is only one of the virtues of a good definition [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Precision is but one virtue of a definition, one that must be balanced against simplicity, elegance, conciseness, theoretical illumination, and practical usefulness. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 2.1) | |
| A reaction: Illumination looks like the dream virtue for a good definition. Otherwise it is just ticked as accurate and stowed away. 'True justified belief' is a very illuminating definition of knowledge - if it is right. But it's not very precise. |
| 20220 | Objection by counterexample is weak, because it only reveals inaccuracies in one theory [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Objection by counterexample is the weakest sort of attack a theory can undergo. Even when the objection succeeds, it shows only that a theory fails to achieve complete accuracy. It does not distinguish among the various rival theories. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 2.1) | |
| A reaction: Typically counterexamples are used to refute universal generalisations (i.e. by 'falsification'), but canny theorists avoid those, or slip in a qualifying clause. Counterexamples are good for exploring a theory's coverage. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 20188 | Modern epistemology is too atomistic, and neglects understanding [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: There are complaints that contemporary epistemology is too atomistic, and that the value of understanding has been neglected. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], I 2) | |
| A reaction: This is because of the excessive influence of logic in contemporary analytic philosophy, which has to reduce knowledge to K(Fa), rather than placing it in a human context. |
| 20223 | Epistemology is excessively atomic, by focusing on justification instead of understanding [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: The present obsession with justification and the neglect of understanding has resulted in a feature of epistemology already criticised by several epistemologists: its atomism. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 2.2) | |
| A reaction: All analytic philosophy has become excessively atomic, because it relies too heavily on logic for its grounding and rigour. There are other sorts of rigour, such as AI, peer review, programming. Or rigour is an idle dream. |
| 20217 | Truth is valuable, but someone knowing the truth is more valuable [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Of course we value the truth, but the value we place on knowledge is more than the value of the truth we thereby acquire. …It also involves a valuabe relation between the knower and the truth. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 1) | |
| A reaction: Hard to assess this. I take truth to be a successful relationship between a mind and a fact. Knowledge needs something extra, to avoid lucky true beliefs. Does a truth acquire greater and greater value as more people come to know it? Doubtful. |
| 20191 | Some beliefs are fairly voluntary, and others are not at all so [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: My position is that beliefs, like acts, arrange themselves on a continuum of degrees of voluntariness, ranging from quite a bit to none at all. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], I 4.2) | |
| A reaction: I'm sure we have no idea how we came to hold many of our beliefs, and if we see a cat, nothing seems to intervene between the seeing and the believing. But if you adopt a religion, believing its full creed is a big subsequent effort. |
| 20222 | Knowledge either aims at a quantity of truths, or a quality of understanding of truths [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Getting knowledge can be a matter either of reaching more truths or of gaining understanding of truths already believed. So it may be a way of increasing either the quality of true belief (cognitive contact with reality) or the quantity. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 2.1) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure how one would increase understanding of currently believed truths if it didn't involve adding some new truths to the collection. There is only the discovery of connections or structures, but those are new facts. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 20225 | For internalists Gettier situations are where internally it is fine, but there is an external mishap [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: In internalist theories the grounds for justification are accessible to the believer, and Gettier problems arise when there is nothing wrong with the internally accessible aspects of the situation, but there is a mishap inaccessible to the believer. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 3.1) | |
| A reaction: I'm sure we could construct an internal mishap which the believer was unaware of, such as two confusions of the meanings of words cancelling one another out. |
| 20226 | Gettier problems are always possible if justification and truth are not closely linked [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: As long as the concept of knowledge closely connects the justification component and the truth component but permits some degree of independence between them, justified true belief will never be sufficient for knowledge. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 3.1) | |
| A reaction: Out of context this sounds like an advertisement for externalism. Or maybe it just says we have to live with Gettier threats. Zagzebski has other strategies. |
| 20228 | We avoid the Gettier problem if the support for the belief entails its truth [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: The way to avoid the Gettier problem is to define knowledge in such a way that truth is entailed by the other component(s) of the definition. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 3.1) | |
| A reaction: Thus she defines virtuous justification as being successful, as virtues tend to be. This smacks of cheating. Surely we can be defeated in a virtuous way? If the truth is entailed then of course Gettier can be sent packing. |
| 20227 | Gettier cases arise when good luck cancels out bad luck [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: The procedure for generating Gettier cases involves 'double luck': an instance of good luck cancels out an instance of bad luck. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 3.2) | |
| A reaction: You can end up with the right answer in arithmetic if you make two mistakes rather than one. I'm picturing a life of one blundering error after another, which to an outsider seems to be going serenely well. |
| 20194 | Intellectual virtues are forms of moral virtue [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: I argue that intellectual virtues are forms of moral virtue. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II Intro) | |
| A reaction: This contrasts with Sosa, who seems to think intellectual virtues are just the most efficient ways of reaching the truth. I like Zabzebski's approach a lot, though we are in a very small minority. I love her book. We have epistemic and moral duties. |
| 20206 | Intellectual and moral prejudice are the same vice (and there are other examples) [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Maybe the intellectual and the moral forms of prejudice are the same vice, and this may also be true of other traits with shared names, such as humility, autonomy, integrity, perseverance, courage and trustworthiness. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 3.1) | |
| A reaction: I find this claim very persuasive. The virtue of 'integrity' rather obviously embraces groups of both intellectually and morally desirable traits. |
| 20208 | We can name at least thirteen intellectual vices [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Some examples of intellectual vices: pride, negligence, idleness, cowardice, conformity, carelessness, rigidity, prejudice, wishful thinking, closed-mindedness, insensitivity to detail, obtuseness (in seeing relevance), and lack of thoroughness. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 3.1) | |
| A reaction: There are thousands of vices for which we don't have names, like thinking about football when you should be doing metaphysics. The other way round is also a vice too, because football needs concentration. Discontent with your chair is bad too. |
| 20215 | A justified belief emulates the understanding and beliefs of an intellectually virtuous person [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: A justified belief is what a person who is motivated by intellectual virtue, and who has the understanding of his cognitive situation a virtuous person would have, might believe in like circumstances. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 6.1) | |
| A reaction: This is a whole-hearted definition of justification in terms of a theory of intellectual virtues. Presumably this would allow robots to have justified beliefs, if they managed to behave the way intellectually virtuous persons would behave. |
| 20210 | A reliable process is no use without the virtues to make use of them [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: It is not enough that a process is reliable; a person will not reliably use such a process without certain virtues. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 4.1.2) | |
| A reaction: This is a point against Sosa's reliabilist account of virtues. Of course, all theories of epistemic justification (or of morality) will fail if people can't be bothered to implement them. |
| 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. |
| 20187 | Epistemic perfection for reliabilism is a truth-producing machine [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Just as a utility-calculating machine would be the ideal moral agent according to utilitarianism, a truth-producing machine would be the ideal epistemic agent according to reliabilism, | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], I 1.2) | |
| A reaction: Love this one! For consequentialists a successful robot is morally superior to an average human being. The reliabilist dream is just something that churns out truths. But what is the role of these truths in subsequent life? |
| 20218 | The self is known as much by its knowledge as by its action [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: It seems to me that the concept of the self is constituted as much by what we know as by what we do. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 1) | |
| A reaction: People take pride in what they know, which indicates that it is of central importance to a person's nature. Hard to evaluate ideas such as this. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 20205 | The feeling accompanying curiosity is neither pleasant nor painful [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Most feelings are experienced as pleasant or painful, but it is not evident that they all are; curiosity may be one that is not. [note: 'curiosity' may not be the name of a feeling, but a feeling typically accompanies it] | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 3.1) | |
| A reaction: If a machine generates a sliding scale from pain to pleasure, is there a neutral feeling at the midpoint, or does all feeling briefly vanish there? Not sure. |
| 18883 | Any equivalence relation among similar things allows the creation of an abstractum [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Whenever we have an equivalence relation among things - such as similarity in a certain respect - we can abstract under the equivalence and consider the abstractum. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Modes of Extension: comment on Fine [2008], p.19) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as dressing up old-fashioned psychological abstractionism in the respectable clothing of Fregean equivalences (such as 'directions'). We can actually do what Simons wants without the precision of partitioned equivalence classes. |
| 18884 | Abstraction is usually seen as producing universals and numbers, but it can do more [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Abstraction as a cognitive tool has been associated predominantly with the metaphysics of universals and of mathematical objects such as numbers. But it is more widely applicable beyond this standard range. I commend its judicious use. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Modes of Extension: comment on Fine [2008], p.21) | |
| A reaction: Personally I think our view of the world is founded on three psychological principles: abstraction, idealisation and generalisation. You can try to give them rigour, as 'equivalence classes', or 'universal quantifications', if it makes you feel better. |
| 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. |
| 20202 | Motives involve desires, but also how the desires connect to our aims [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: A motive does have an aspect of desire, but it includes something about why a state of affairs is desired, and that includes something about the way my emotions are tied to my aim. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.6) | |
| A reaction: It is standard usage that a 'motive' involves some movement towards achieving the desire, and not merely having the desire. I'd quite like to stand on top of Everest, but have absolutely no motivation to try to achieve it. |
| 20216 | Modern moral theory concerns settling conflicts, rather than human fulfilment [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Modern ethics generally considers morality much less a system for fulfilling human nature than a set of principles for dealing with individuals in conflict. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 7) | |
| A reaction: Historically I associate this move with Hugo Grotius around 1620. He was a great legalist, and eudaimonist virtue ethics gradually turned into jurisprudence. The Enlightenment sought rules for resolving dilemmas. Liberalism makes fulfilment private. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 20193 | Moral luck means our praise and blame may exceed our control or awareness [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Because of moral luck, the realm of the morally praiseworthy / blameworthy is not indisputably within one's voluntary control or accessible to one's consciousness. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], I 4.2) | |
| A reaction: [She particularly cites Thomas Nagel for this] It is a fact that we will be blamed (more strongly) when we have moral bad luck, but the question is whether we should be. It seems harsh, but you can't punish someone as if they had had bad luck. |
| 20199 | Nowadays we doubt the Greek view that the flourishing of individuals and communities are linked [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Modern moral philosophers have been considerably more skeptical than were the ancient Greeks about the close association between the flourishing of the individual and that of the community. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.2) | |
| A reaction: I presume this is not just a change in fashion, but a reflection of how different the two societies are. In a close community with almost no privacy, flourishing individuals are good citizens. In the isolations of modern liberalism they may be irrelevant. |
| 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 |
| 20196 | Virtue theory is hopeless if there is no core of agreed universal virtues [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: An analysis of virtue is hopeless unless we can assume that most of a selected list of traits count as virtues, in a way not strictly culture. ...These would include wisdom, courage, benevolence, justice, honesty, loyalty, integrity, and generosity. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.1) | |
| A reaction: This requirement needs there to be a single core to human nature, right across the species. If we are infinitely flexible (as existentialists imply) then the virtues will have matching flexibility, and so will be parochial and excessively relative. |
| 20200 | A virtue must always have a corresponding vice [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: It is important for the nature of virtue that it have a corresponding vice (or two, in the doctrine of the mean). Claustrophobia is not a vice not only because it is involuntary, but also because there is no corresponding virtue. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.3) | |
| A reaction: Presumably attaining a virtue is an achievement, so we would expect a label for failure in the same field of endeavour. The failure is not purely negative, because bad things ensue if the virtue is not present. |
| 20201 | Eight marks distingush skills from virtues [Zagzebski, by PG] |
| Full Idea: The difference between skills and virtues is that virtues must be enacted, are always desirable, can't be forgotten, and can be simulated, whereas skills are very specific, involve a technique, lack contraries, and lack intrinsic value. | |
| From: report of Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.4) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: [my summary of her II 2.4 discussion of the differences] She observes that Aristotle made insufficient effort to distinguish the two. It may be obscure to say that virtues go 'deeper' than skills, but we all know what is meant. 'Skills serve virtues'. |
| 20203 | Virtues are deep acquired excellences of persons, which successfully attain desire ends [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: A virtue can be defined as 'a deep and enduring acquired excellence of a person, involving a characteristic motivation to produce a certain desired end and reliable success in bringing about that end'. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.7) | |
| A reaction: She puts this in bold, and it is the culminating definition of a long discussion. It rather obviously fails to say anything about the nature of the end that is desired. Learning the telephone book off by heart seems to fit the definition. |
| 20207 | Every moral virtue requires a degree of intelligence [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Being reasonably intelligent within a certain area of life is part of having almost any moral virtue. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 3.1) | |
| A reaction: The fact that this bars persons of very limited intelligence from acquiring the Aristotelian virtues is one of the attractions of the Christian enjoinder to merely achieve 'love'. Anyone can have a warm heart. So is virtue elitist? |
| 20214 | Virtue theory can have lots of rules, as long as they are grounded in virtues and in facts [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: A pure virtue theory can have as many rules as you like as long as they are understood as grounded in the virtuous motivations and understanding of the nonmoral facts that virtuous agents possess. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 6.1) | |
| A reaction: It is important, I think, to see that a virtue theorist does not have to be a particularist. |
| 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 |
| 20213 | We need phronesis to coordinate our virtues [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: We need phronesis (practical wisdom) to coordinate the various virtues into a single line of action or line of thought leading up to an act or to a belief. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 5.2) | |
| A reaction: If I have a conflicting virtue and vice in a single situation, something must make sure that the virtue dominates. That sounds more like Kant's 'good will' than like phronesis. |
| 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. |
| 20209 | For the virtue of honesty you must be careful with the truth, and not just speak truly [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: It is not sufficient for honesty that a person tells whatever she happens to believe is the truth. An honest person is careful with the truth. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 3.2) | |
| A reaction: Not sure about that. It matches what Aristotle says about courage, which also needs practical reason [phronesis]. But being sensitive and careful with truth seems to need other virtues. If total honesty is not a virtue, then is honesty a virtue at all? |
| 20197 | The courage of an evil person is still a quality worth having [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: In the case of a courageous Nazi soldier, my position is that a virtue is worth having even in those cases in which it makes a person worse overall. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.2) | |
| A reaction: A brave claim, which seems right. If a nasty Nazi reforms, they will at least have one good quality which can be put to constructive use. |
| 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. |
| 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 |
| 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. |
| 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 |