13 ideas
| 12268 | Contradiction is impossible [Antisthenes (I), by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Antisthenes said that contradiction is impossible. | |
| From: report of Antisthenes (Ath) (fragments/reports [c.405 BCE]) by Aristotle - Topics 104b21 | |
| A reaction: Aristotle is giving an example of a 'thesis'. It should be taken seriously if a philosopher proposes it, but dismissed as rubbish if anyone else proposes it! No context is given for the remark. |
| 602 | Some fools think you cannot define anything, but only say what it is like [Antisthenes (I), by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There is an application of that old chestnut of the cynic Antisthenes' followers (and other buffoons of that kind). Their claim was that a definition of what something is is impossible. You cannot define silver, though you can say it is like tin. | |
| From: report of Antisthenes (Ath) (fragments/reports [c.405 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1043b |
| 14025 | The weaker version of Truthmaker: 'truth supervenes on being' [Crisp,TM] |
| Full Idea: The weaker version of Truthmaker is that 'truth supervenes on being'. | |
| From: Thomas M. Crisp (Presentism [2003], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Lewis 2001 and Bigelow 1988] This still leaves the difficulty of truths about non-existent things, and truths about possibilities (esp. those that are possible, but are never actualised). What being do mathematical truths supervene on? |
| 14023 | The Truthmaker thesis spells trouble for presentists [Crisp,TM] |
| Full Idea: The Truthmaker thesis (that 'for every truth there is a truthmaker, that is, something whose very existence entails the truth' - Fox 1987) spells trouble for the presentist about time. | |
| From: Thomas M. Crisp (Presentism [2003], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: The point is that presentists can no longer express truths about the past (never mind the future), because the truthmakers for them don't exist. This seems to neglect the power of tense - the truth of the claim that 'p was true'. |
| 14024 | Truthmaker has problems with generalisation, non-existence claims, and property instantiations [Crisp,TM] |
| Full Idea: Truthmaker is controversial: what of truths like 'all ravens are black', or 'there are no unicorns'. And 'John is tall' is not made true by John or the property of being tall, but by the fusion of the two, but what could this non-mereological fusion be? | |
| From: Thomas M. Crisp (Presentism [2003], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: A first move is to include modal facts (or possible worlds) among the truthmakers. The unicorns are tricky, and seem to need all of actuality as their truthmaker. I don't see the tallness difficulty. Predication is odd, but so what? |
| 14021 | Worm Perdurantism has a fusion of all the parts; Stage Perdurantism has one part at a time [Crisp,TM] |
| Full Idea: Worm-theoretic Perdurantism says spatio-temporal continuants are mereological fusions of instantaneous temporal parts or stages located at different times; Stage-theoretic Perdurantism says they are instantaneous temporal stages of continuants. | |
| From: Thomas M. Crisp (Presentism [2003], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: [Armstrong, Lewis and Quine defend the first; Sider the second] The Stage view seems to be the common sense view. Sider suggests that the earlier stages are counterparts, not the thing as it currently is. |
| 3061 | Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing [Anaxarchus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing. | |
| From: report of Anaxarchus (fragments/reports [c.340 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.10.1 |
| 1664 | I would rather go mad than experience pleasure [Antisthenes (I)] |
| Full Idea: I would rather go mad than experience pleasure. | |
| From: Antisthenes (Ath) (fragments/reports [c.405 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 06.3 | |
| A reaction: Did he actually prefer pain? If both experiences would drive him mad, it seems like a desire for death. I cannot understand why anyone is opposed to harmless pleasures. |
| 21385 | Antisthenes said virtue is teachable and permanent, is life's goal, and is like universal wealth [Antisthenes (I), by Long] |
| Full Idea: The moral propositions of Antisthenes foreshadowed the Stoics: virtue can be taught and once acquired cannot be lost (fr.69,71); virtue is the goal of life (22); the sage is self-sufficient, since he has (by being wise) the wealth of all men (8o). | |
| From: report of Antisthenes (Ath) (fragments/reports [c.405 BCE]) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 1 | |
| A reaction: [He cites Caizzi for the fragments] The distinctive idea here is (I think) that once acquired virtue can never be lost. It sounds plausible, but I'm wondering why it should be true. Is it like riding a bicycle, or like learning to speak Russian? |
| 14020 | 'Eternalism' is the thesis that reality includes past, present and future entities [Crisp,TM] |
| Full Idea: I use the term Eternalism for the thesis that reality includes past, present and future entities. (It is sometimes used for the view that all propositions have their truth-value eternally - it is always true or never true). | |
| From: Thomas M. Crisp (Presentism [2003], Intro n.1) | |
| A reaction: 'Eternalism' strikes me as an excellent word for the former meaning, so I shall promote that, and quietly forget the second one. The idea that the future exists has always stuck in my craw, and the belief that Napoleon still exists strikes me as a weird. |
| 14026 | Presentists can talk of 'times', with no more commitment than modalists have to possible worlds [Crisp,TM] |
| Full Idea: We can talk of 'moments of time' as abstract objects. This will be attractive to the presentist. As possible worlds give an economical theory of modal talk, so 'times' gives us a theory for temporal talk. | |
| From: Thomas M. Crisp (Presentism [2003], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: Thus we can utilise 'times', while having no more commitment to them than to possible worlds. Nice. He cites Prior and Fine 1977 and Chisholm 1979. |
| 14022 | The only three theories are Presentism, Dynamic (A-series) Eternalism and Static (B-series) Eternalism [Crisp,TM] |
| Full Idea: Three theories exhaust the options on time: presentism, dynamic eternalism (eternalism with the tensed dynamic A-series view of time, and the totality of events changing over time), and static eternalism (eternalism with the B-series). | |
| From: Thomas M. Crisp (Presentism [2003], 2.4) | |
| A reaction: I think the idea that reality is Static Eternalism is just a misunderstanding, arising from our imaginative ability to take a lofty objective overview of a very fluid reality. The other two are the serious candidates. Present, or Growing-block. |
| 2631 | Antisthenes says there is only one god, which is nature [Antisthenes (I), by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Antisthenes says there is only one god, which is nature. | |
| From: report of Antisthenes (Ath) (fragments/reports [c.405 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.32 |