46 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. |
23064 | So-called wisdom is just pondering things instead of acting [Cioran] |
Full Idea: What is known as 'wisdom' is ultimately only a perpetual 'thinking it over', i.e. non-action as first impulse. | |
From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 01) | |
A reaction: This may be how most people view wisdom. Wisdom is for the spectators, not the actors (perhaps). Wisdom needs a lot of thought, and I don't associate it with extremely active people. |
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). |
23072 | Systems are the worst despotism, in philosophy and in life [Cioran] |
Full Idea: Aristotle, Aquinas, Hegel - three enslavers of the mind. The worst form of despotism is the system, in philosophy and in everything. | |
From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 07) | |
A reaction: I'm not quite clear why intellectual 'despotism' is a dreadful crime. I revere Aristotle, partly because he is systematic, but I reject about 30% of what he says. Still, many people agree with this idea. |
23075 | A text explained ceases to be a text [Cioran] |
Full Idea: Why embroider upon what excludes commentary? A text explained is not longer a text. | |
From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 09) | |
A reaction: I like that. I'm not a great fan of explicating texts, especially if they are literary, where the whole point is the primary experience, of a novel, poem or play. Philosophy is different, because that is a dialogue between writer and reader. |
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. |
23066 | Negation doesn't arise from reasoning, but from deep instincts [Cioran] |
Full Idea: Negation never proceeds from reasoning but from something much more obscure and old. Arguments come afterward, to justify and sustain it. Every no rises out of the blood. | |
From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 02) | |
A reaction: Music to my ears. In the Fregean era no one is allowed to talk about the origins of logical relations in the universal facts of physical existence. You can watch dogs saying no. |
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. |
23077 | The word 'being' is very tempting, but in fact means nothing at all [Cioran] |
Full Idea: Whether it is spoken by a grocer or a philosopher, the word 'being', apparently so rich, so tempting, so charged with significance, in fact means nothing at all; incredible that a man in his right mind can use it on any occasion whatever. | |
From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 12) | |
A reaction: I entirely agree. It resembles the redundancy view of 'true' (with which I do not agree). |
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. |
23068 | People who really believe anti-realism don't bother to prove it [Cioran] |
Full Idea: When you know quite absolutely that everything is unreal, you then cannot see why you should take the trouble to prove it. | |
From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 02) | |
A reaction: Does the same apply to realists? There are at least genuine arguments in both directions. Presumably the thought is that realists have something they care about, but true anti-realists don't. |
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. |
23078 | Opinions are fine, but having convictions means something has gone wrong [Cioran] |
Full Idea: To have opinions is inevitable, is natural; to have convictions is less so. Each time I meet someone who has convictions, I wonder what intellectual vice, what flaw has caused him to acquire such a thing. | |
From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 12) | |
A reaction: 'The best lack all conviction/ While the worst are full of passionate intensity' (Yeats). I agree with this. Convictions are so often accompanied by anger. |
23073 | Convictions are failures to study anything thoroughly [Cioran] |
Full Idea: We have convictions only if we have studied nothing thoroughly. | |
From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 08) | |
A reaction: Excellent! I cannot imagine studying anything at all in great depth without it resulting in a dwindling expectation of full understanding. Philosophy in spades, but also probably any topic in history. |
5052 | When Gentiles follow the law, they must have the law written in their hearts [Paul] |
Full Idea: When the Gentiles which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, which shew the works of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness. | |
From: St Paul (06: Epistle to the Romans [c.55], 02.15) | |
A reaction: This passage was used by theologians as proof of innate ideas, which are, of course, divinely implanted (in the guise of doing things 'by nature'). It is quoted by Leibniz. Thus Christians annexed credit for pagan morality to 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. |
23076 | If people always acted without words we would take them for robots [Cioran] |
Full Idea: It is because of speech that men give the illusion of being free. If they did - without a word - what they do, we would take them for robots. | |
From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 09) | |
A reaction: Love this one. Though it might be said that the power of speech does add an extra dimension of freedom to an action, beyond what any animal could attain. I take the absolute idea of 'being free' to be nonsense. |
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. |
23065 | If only we could write like a reptile, of endless sensations and no concepts! [Cioran] |
Full Idea: If only we could reach back before the concept, could write on a level with the senses, record the infinitesimal variations of what we touch, do what a reptile would do if it were to set about writing! | |
From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 02) | |
A reaction: A lovely thought. It is a huge effort for us to try to imagine a mental life without concepts. And then to express that mental life in words…..! |
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. |
23071 | We could only be responsible if we had consented before birth to who we are [Cioran] |
Full Idea: The problem of responsibility would have a meaning only if we had been consulted before our birth and had consented to be precisely who we are. | |
From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 06) | |
A reaction: The question could still be asked retrospectively, like agreeing to be in an army into which you have been conscripted. People gripped by deeply anti-social desires would probably welcome the chance to become different. |
23070 | We morally dissolve if we spend time with excessive beauty [Cioran] |
Full Idea: Moral disintegration when we spend time in a place that is too beautiful: the self dissolves upon contact with paradise. | |
From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 06) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure whether that is true, but it is worth thinking about the value of experiences which are overwhelming. |
1774 | Since we are essentially rational animals, living according to reason is living according to nature [Zeno of Citium, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: As reason is given to rational animals according to a more perfect principle, it follows that to live correctly according to reason, is properly predicated of those who live according to nature. | |
From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.52 | |
A reaction: This is the key idea for understanding what the stoics meant by 'live according to nature'. The modern idea of rationality doesn't extend to 'perfect principles', however. |
20841 | Zeno said live in agreement with nature, which accords with virtue [Zeno of Citium, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Zeno first (in his book On Human Nature) said that the goal was to live in agreement with nature, which is to live according to virtue. | |
From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.87 | |
A reaction: The main idea seems to be Aristotelian - that the study of human nature reveals what our virtues are, and following them is what nature requires. Nature is taken to be profoundly rational. |
20863 | The goal is to 'live in agreement', according to one rational consistent principle [Zeno of Citium, by Stobaeus] |
Full Idea: Zeno says the goal of life is 'living in agreement', which means living according to a single and consonant rational principle, since those who live in conflict are unhappy. | |
From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 2.06a | |
A reaction: If there is a 'single' principle, is it possible to state it? To live by consistent principles sets the bar incredibly high, as any professional philosopher can tell you. |
2662 | Zeno saw virtue as a splendid state, not just a source of splendid action [Zeno of Citium, by Cicero] |
Full Idea: Zeno held that not merely the exercise of virtue, as his predecessors held, but the mere state of virtue is in itself a splendid thing, although nobody possesses virtue without continuously exercising it. | |
From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica I.10.38 |
21395 | One of Zeno's books was 'That Which is Appropriate' [Zeno of Citium, by Long] |
Full Idea: Zeno of Citium wrote a (lost) book entitled 'That Which is Appropriate'. | |
From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 4.1 | |
A reaction: I cite this because I take it to be about what in Aristotle called 'the mean' - to emphasise that the mean is not what is average, or midway between the extremes, but what is a balanced response to each situation |
5964 | Zeno says there are four main virtues, which are inseparable but distinct [Zeno of Citium, by Plutarch] |
Full Idea: Zeno (like Plato) admits a plurality of specifically different virtues, namely prudence, courage, sobriety, justice, which he takes to be inseparable but yet distinct and different from one another. | |
From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1034c | |
A reaction: In fact, the virtues are 'supervenient' on one another, which is the doctrine of the unity of virtue. Zeno is not a pluralist in the way Aristotle is - who says there are other goods apart from the virtues. |
23074 | In anxiety people cling to what reinforces it, because it is a deep need [Cioran] |
Full Idea: In anxiety, a man clings to whatever can reinforce, can stimulate his providential discomfort: to try to cure him of it is to destroy his equilibrium, anxiety being the basis of his existence and his prosperity. | |
From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 09) | |
A reaction: A report from the front line of the age of anxiety, on which I am not qualified to comment. I assume that some anxiety can be a good thing, like nerves before a public performance. |
23062 | It is better to watch the hours pass, than trying to fill them [Cioran] |
Full Idea: I do nothing, granted. But I see the hours pass - which is better than trying to fill them. | |
From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 01) | |
A reaction: As Nietzsche would have pointed out, this came from a man who regularly wrote books. It is, though, certainly worth asking whether the way we fill our time is better than doing nothing. |
23069 | Fear cures boredom, because it is stronger [Cioran] |
Full Idea: Fear is the antidote to boredom: the remedy must be stronger than the disease. | |
From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 05) | |
A reaction: I suspect that this is the motivation of people who indulge in dangerous sports. Maybe all that is need is something daunting, rather than frightening. |
7572 | Power is ordained by God, so anyone who resists power resists God, and will be damned [Paul] |
Full Idea: Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained by God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. | |
From: St Paul (06: Epistle to the Romans [c.55], 13:1-2) | |
A reaction: This notorious passage was used to justify the Divine Right of Kings in England in the seventeenth century. It strikes me as being utterly preposterous, though you might say that violent resistance to an evil dictator only brings worse evil. |
23067 | Suicide is pointless, because it always comes too late [Cioran] |
Full Idea: It's not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late. | |
From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 02) | |
A reaction: A neat thought, but unlikely to be true for those who commit suicide, which presumably results from a sustained and apparently incurable situation. |
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 |
23063 | The first man obviously found paradise unendurable [Cioran] |
Full Idea: Paradise was unendurable, otherwise the first man would have adapted to it. | |
From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 01) | |
A reaction: Seems a bit harsh. There was evidently one aspect that was missing (knowledge), and he was surprised to find himself ejected for wanting it. Like a holiday in a Mediterranean hotel, with good food. |