18933
|
Not-Being obviously doesn't exist, and the five modes of Being are all impossible [Gorgias, by Diog. Laertius]
|
|
Full Idea:
I. Nothing exists. a) Not-Being does not exist. b) Being does not exist as everlasting, as created, as both, as One, or as Many. II. If anything does exist, it is incomprehensible. III. If existence is comprehensible, it is incommunicable.
|
|
From:
report of Gorgias (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE], B03) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09
|
|
A reaction:
[Also Sextus Empiricus, Against Logicians I.65-] For Part I he works through all the possible modes of being he can think of, and explains why none of them are possible. It is worth remembering that Gorgias loved rhetoric, not philosophy!
|
9866
|
Gorgias says rhetoric is the best of arts, because it enslaves without using force [Gorgias, by Plato]
|
|
Full Idea:
Gorgias insists that the art of persuasion is superior to all others because it enslaves all the rest, with their own consent, not by force, and is therefore by far the best of all the arts.
|
|
From:
report of Gorgias (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE]) by Plato - Philebus 58a
|
|
A reaction:
A nice point, and it is not unreasonable to rank the arts in order of their power. To enchant, without achieving agreement, and to speak truth without persuading, are both very fine, but there is something about success that cannot be gainsaid.
|
11214
|
We learn 'not' along with affirmation, by learning to either affirm or deny a sentence [Rumfitt]
|
|
Full Idea:
The standard view is that affirming not-A is more complex than affirming the atomic sentence A itself, with the latter determining its sense. But we could learn 'not' directly, by learning at once how to either affirm A or reject A.
|
|
From:
Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], IV)
|
|
A reaction:
[compressed] This seems fairly anti-Fregean in spirit, because it looks at the psychology of how we learn 'not' as a way of clarifying what we mean by it, rather than just looking at its logical behaviour (and thus giving it a secondary role).
|
5121
|
Basing ethics on flourishing makes it consequentialist, as actions are judged by contributing to it [Harman]
|
|
Full Idea:
Basing ethics on human flourishing tends towards utilitarianism or consequentialism; actions, character traits, laws, and so on are to be assessed with reference to their contributions to human flourishing.
|
|
From:
Gilbert Harman (Human Flourishing, Ethics and Liberty [1983], 9.2.2)
|
|
A reaction:
This raises the question of whether only virtue can contribute to flourishing, or whether a bit of vice might be helpful. This problem presumably pushed the Stoics to say that virtue itself is the good, rather than the resulting flourishing.
|