65 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). |
| 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. |
| 22919 | A thing which makes no difference seems unlikely to exist [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: It is a powerful argument for something's non-existence that it would make absolutely no difference. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 02 'Everything') | |
| A reaction: Powerful, but not conclusive. Neutrinos don't seem to do much, so it isn't far from there to get a particle which does nothing. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 22926 | In addition to causal explanations, they can also be inferential, or definitional, or purposive [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Not all explanations are causal. We can explain some things by showing what follows logically from what, or what is required by the definition of a term, or in terms of purpose. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 05 'Limits') | |
| A reaction: Would these fully qualify as 'explanations'? You don't explain the sea by saying that 'wet' is part of its definition. |
| 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. |
| 19451 | When absorbed in deep reflection, is your reason in control, or is it you? [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: When, submerged in deep reflection, you forget both yourself and your surroundings, is it you who controls reason, or is it rather reason that controls and absorbs you? | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], I) | |
| A reaction: A delightful question, even if it looks like a false dichotomy. I'm not sure what to make of 'me', if my reason can be subtracted from it. Aquinas was one the same wavelength here. |
| 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. |
| 22932 | We don't just describe a time as 'now' from a private viewpoint, but as a fact about the world [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: In describing a time as 'now' one is not merely describing the world from one's own point of view, but describing the world as it is. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Mystery') | |
| A reaction: If we accept this view (which implies absolute time, and the A-series view), then 'now' is not an indexical, in the way that 'I' and 'here' are indexicals. |
| 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. |
| 19450 | Reason, love and will are the highest perfections and essence of man - the purpose of his life [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Reason, love and power of will are perfections of man; they are his highest powers, his absolute essence in so far as he is man, the purpose of his existence. Man exists in order to think, love and will. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], I) | |
| A reaction: Feuerbach was a notable atheist, but adopts a religious style of language which modern atheists would find rather alien. Personally I love talk of ideals and perfections. Ideals have been discredited in modern times, but need a revival. |
| 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. |
| 22927 | The logical properties of causation are asymmetry, transitivity and irreflexivity [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The usual logical properties of the causal relation are asymmetry (one-way), transitivity and irreflexivity (no self-causing). | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 05 'Great') | |
| A reaction: If two balls rebound off each other, that is only asymmetric if we split the action into two parts, which may be a fiction. Does a bomb cause its own destruction? |
| 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. |
| 22922 | We can identify unoccupied points in space, so they must exist [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: If the midpoint on a line between the chair and the window is five feet from the end of the bookcase. This can be true, but if no object occupies that midpoint, then unoccupied points exist | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 03 'Lessons') | |
| A reaction: We can also locate perfect circles (running through fairy rings, or the rings of Saturn), so they must also exist. But then we can also locate the Loch Ness monster. Hm. |
| 22924 | If spatial points exist, then they must be stationary, by definition [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: If there are such things as points in space, independently of any other object, then these points are by definition stationary (since to be stationary is to stay in the same place, and a point is a place). | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 03 'Search') | |
| A reaction: So what happens if the whole universe moves ten metres to the left? Is the universe defined by the objects in it (which vary), or by the space that contains them? Why can't a location move, even if that is by definition undetectable? |
| 22923 | Absolute space explains actual and potential positions, and geometrical truths [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Absolutists say space plays a number of roles. It is what we refer to when we talk of positions. It makes other things possible (by moving into unoccupied positions). And it explains geometrical truths. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 03 'Redundancy') | |
| A reaction: I am persuaded by these, and am happy to treat space (and time) as a primitive of metaphysics. |
| 22928 | For relationists moving an object beyond the edge of space creates new space [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: For the relationist, if Archytas goes to the edge of space and extends his arm, he is creating a new spatial relation between objects, and thus extending space, which is, after all, just the collection of thos relations. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 05 'beyond') | |
| A reaction: The obvious point is what are you moving your arm into? And how can some movements be in space, while others create new space? It's a bad theory. |
| 22931 | We distinguish time from space, because it passes, and it has a unique present moment [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The most characteristic features of time, which distinguish it from space, are the fact that time passes, and the fact that the present is in some sense unique | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Mystery') | |
| A reaction: The B-series view tries to avoid passing time and present moments. I suspect that modern proponents of the B-series mainly want to unifying their view of time with Einstein's, to give us a scientific space-time. |
| 22917 | Since nothing occurs in a temporal vacuum, there is no way to measure its length [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Since, by definition, nothing happens in a temporal vacuum, there is no possible means of determining its length. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 02 'without change') | |
| A reaction: This is offered a part of a dubious proof that a temporal vacuum is impossible. I like Shoemaker's three worlds thought experiment, which tests this idea to the limit. |
| 22921 | Temporal vacuums would be unexperienced, unmeasured, and unending [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Three arguments that a temporal vacuum is impossible: we can't experience it, we can't measure it, and it would have no reason to ever terminate. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 03 'Lessons') | |
| A reaction: [summarised] The first two reasons are unimpressive. The interiors of black holes are off limits for us. The arrival of time into a timeless situation may actually have occurred, but be beyond our understanding. |
| 22934 | Time can't speed up or slow down, so it doesn't seem to be a 'process' [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Processes can speed up or slow down, but surely the passage of time is not something that can speed up or slow down? | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Mystery') | |
| A reaction: If something is a process we can ask 'process of what?', but the only answer seems to be that it's a process of processing. So it is that which makes processes possible (and so, as I keep saying) it is best viewed as a primitive. |
| 22938 | To say that the past causes the present needs them both to be equally real [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The causal connection between the past and the present seems to require that the past is as real as the present. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'First') | |
| A reaction: Cause and effect need to conjoin in space, but their subsequent separation doesn't seem to be a problem. The idea that causes and their effects must be eternally compresent is an absurdity. |
| 22939 | The B-series doesn't seem to allow change [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: How can anything change in a B-universe? | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Second') | |
| A reaction: It seems that change needs time to move on. A timeless series of varying states doesn't seem to be the same thing as change. B-seriesers must be tempted to deny change, and yet nothing seems more obvious to us than change. |
| 22940 | If the B-universe is eternal, why am I trapped in a changing moment of it? [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: What in the B-universe determines my temporal perspective? I can move around in space at will, but I have no choice over where I am in time. What time I am is something that changes, and again I have no control over that | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Second') | |
| A reaction: The B-series always has to be asserted from the point of view of eternity (e.g. by Einstein). Yet an omniscient mind would still see each of us trapped in our transient moments, so that is part of eternal reality. |
| 22953 | Time's arrow is not causal if there is no temporal gap between cause and effect [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: If there is no temporal gap between cause and effect, then the causal analysis of time's arrow is doomed. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'simultaneous') | |
| A reaction: A number of recent commentators have rejected the sharp distinction between cause and effect, seeing it as a unified process (which takes time to occur). |
| 22947 | An ordered series can be undirected, but time favours moving from earlier to later [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: A series can be ordered without being directed (such as the series of integers), …but the passage of time indicates a preferred direction, moving from earlier to later events, and never the other way around. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Hidden') | |
| A reaction: I wonder what 'preferred' means here? It is not just memory versus anticipation. The saddest words in the English language are 'Too late!'. It is absurd to say that being too late is an illusion. |
| 22952 | If time's arrow is causal, how can there be non-simultaneous events that are causally unconnected? [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: An objection to the Causal analysis of time's arrow is that it is surely possible for non-simultaneous events to be causally unconnected. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Seeds') | |
| A reaction: I suppose the events could be linked causally by intermediaries. If reality is a vast causal nexus, everything leads to everything else, in some remote way. It's still a good objections, though. |
| 22951 | If time's arrow is psychological then different minds can impose different orders on events [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: If the Psychological account of time's arrow is correct …then there is nothing to prevent different minds from imposing different orders on the world. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'The mind's') | |
| A reaction: All we need is for two people to disagree about the order of some past events. The idea that we are psychologically creating time's arrow when everyone feels they are its victims strikes me as a particularly silly theory. |
| 22948 | There are Thermodynamic, Psychological and Causal arrows of time [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The three most significant arrows of time are the Thermodynamic (the direction from order to disorder), the Psychological (from perceptions of events to memories), and the Causal (from cause to effect). | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Three') | |
| A reaction: It would be nice if one of these explained the other two. Le Poidevin rejects the Psychological arrow, and seems to favour the Causal. Since I favour taking time as a primitive, I'm inclined to think that the arrow is included in the deal. |
| 22949 | Presumably if time's arrow is thermodynamic then time ends when entropy is complete [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: One consequence of the Thermodynamic analysis of time's arrow is that a universe in which things are as disordered as they could be would exhibit no direction of time at all, because there would be no more significant changes in entropy. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Three') | |
| A reaction: And presumably time would gradually fizzle out, rather than ending abruptly. If entropy then went into reverse, there would be no time interval between the end and the new beginning. Entropy can vary locally, so it has to be universal. |
| 22950 | If time is thermodynamic then entropy is necessary - but the theory says it is probable [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The Second Law of Thermodynamics says it is overwhelmingly probable that entropy will increase. This leaves the door open for occasional isolated instances of decrease. But the thermodynamic arrow makes the increase a necessity. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Three') | |
| A reaction: Le Poidevin sees this as a clincher against the thermodynamic explanation of the arrow. I'm now sure how the Second Law can even be stated without explicit or implicit reference to time. |
| 22943 | Instantaneous motion is an intrinsic disposition to be elsewhere [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Being in motion at a particular time can be an intrinsic property of an object, as a disposition to be elsewhere than the place it is. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'in present') | |
| A reaction: This needs an ontology which includes unrealised dispositions. People trapped in boring meetings have a disposition to be elsewhere, but they are stuck. I think 'power' is a better word here than 'disposition'. The disposition isn't just for 'elsewhere'. |
| 22945 | The dynamic view of motion says it is primitive, and not reducible to objects, properties and times [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: According to the dynamic account of motion, an object's being in motion is a primitive event, not further analysable in terms of objects, properties and times. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'Zeno') | |
| A reaction: [The rival view is 'static'] Physics suggests that motion may be indefinable, but acceleration can be given a reductive account. If time and space are taken as primitive (which seems sensible to me), then making motion also primitive is a bit greedy. |
| 22937 | If the present could have diverse pasts, then past truths can't have present truthmakers [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: If any number of pasts are compatible with the present state of affairs, and it is only the present state of affairs which can make true or false statements about the past, then no statement about the past is either true or false. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'First') | |
| A reaction: He suggests an explosion which could have had innumerable different causes. The explosion could have had different origins, but not sure that the whole of present reality could. Presentists certainly have problems with truthmakers for the past. |
| 22925 | The present is the past/future boundary, so the first moment of time was not present [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The present is the boundary between past and future, therefore if there was a first moment of time, it could not have been present - because there can be no past at the beginning of time. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 05 'Limits') | |
| A reaction: How about at the start of a race the athletes cannot be running. How about 'all moments of time have preceding moments - apart from the first moment'? |
| 22944 | The primitive parts of time are intervals, not instants [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Intervals of time can be viewed as primitive, and not decomposable into a series of instants. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'in present') | |
| A reaction: Given that instants are nothing, and intervals are something, the latter are clearly the better candidates to be the parts of time. Is there a smallest interval? |
| 22942 | If time is infinitely divisible, then the present must be infinitely short [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Assuming time to be infinitely divisible, the present can have no duration at all, for if it did, we could divide it into parts, and some parts would be earlier than others. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'in present') | |
| A reaction: I quite like Aristotle's view that things only have parts when you actually divide them. In modern physics fields don't seem to be infinitely divisible. It's a puzzle, though, innit? |
| 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 |
| 22946 | The multiverse is distinct time-series, as well as spaces [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The multiverse is not just a collection of distinct spaces, it is also a collection of distinct time-series. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 11 'Objections') | |
| A reaction: This boggles the imagination even more than distinct spatial universes. |
| 19448 | Consciousness is said to distinguish man from animals - consciousness of his own species [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: What constitutes the essential difference between man and animal? The most simple, general, and most widely held answer to this question is consciousness. Consciousness is given only in the case of a being to whom his species ...is an object of thought. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], I) | |
| A reaction: Rather speculative. Since other species cohabit and breed only with their fellow species members, one might have thought they were aware of them. |
| 22941 | How could a timeless God know what time it is? So could God be both timeless and omniscient? [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Could a timeless being now know what the time was? If so, does this show that there must be something wrong with the idea of God as both timeless and omniscient? | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'Questions') | |
| A reaction: This is a potential contradiction between the perfections of a supreme God which I had not noticed before. Leibniz tried to refute such objections, but not very successfully, I think. |
| 19454 | A God needs justice, kindness and wisdom, but those concepts don't depend on the concept of God [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: The concept of God depends on the concepts of justice, kindness and wisdom - a God who is not kind, not just, and not wise is no God. But these concepts do not depend on the concept of God. That a quality is possessed by God does not make it divine. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], II) | |
| A reaction: This is part of Feuerbach's argument for atheism, but if you ask for the source of our human concepts of justice, kindness and wisdom, no one, I would have thought, could cite God for the role. |
| 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 |
| 19452 | The nature of God is an expression of human nature [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: God is the manifestation of man's inner nature, his expressed self. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], II) | |
| A reaction: Even if you are a deeply committed theist, you have to concede some of this point. The perfections attributed to God are usually of human qualities. Leibniz, though, says that God has an infinity of perfection, mostly unknown to us. |
| 19453 | If love, goodness and personality are human, the God who is their source is anthropomorphic [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: If love, goodness, and personality are human determinations, the being which constitutes their source and ...their presupposition is also an anthropomorphism; so is the existence of God. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], II) | |
| A reaction: It is certainly a struggle for the imagination to grasp a being which is characterised by idealised versions of human virtues, and yet has an intrinsic nature which is utterly different from humanity. |
| 19449 | Religion is the consciousness of the infinite [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Religion is the consciousness of the infinite. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], I) |
| 19455 | Today's atheism will tomorrow become a religion [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: What is regarded as atheism today will be religion tomorrow. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], II) | |
| A reaction: Modern critics of atheism frequently accuse it of being a new religion. I doubt whether Feuerbach is right, but it is a nice provocative idea. |