4 ideas
21336 | Crates lived in poverty, and treated his whole life as a joke [Crates of Thebes, by Plutarch] |
Full Idea: Crates, with his bag and threadbare cloak, spent his whole life laughing and joking as though he were on holiday. | |
From: report of Crates (Theb) (fragments/reports [c.325 BCE]) by Plutarch - 30: Quiet of Mind 266e | |
A reaction: Crates sounds a little less alarming than Diogenes, while living a similar life. Was Crates the first ancestor of post-modernism? |
1767 | Everyone should study philosophy until they see all people in the same light [Crates of Thebes, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: A man should study philosophy up to the point of looking on generals and donkey-drivers in the same light. | |
From: report of Crates (Theb) (fragments/reports [c.325 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 06.Cr.9 | |
A reaction: This seems to reject Aristote's idea that some people are clearly superior to others. |
16674 | The quantity is just the matter, in that it has extended parts and is diffuse [Charleton] |
Full Idea: The extension or quantity of a thing is merely modus materiae, or (rather) the matter itself composing that thing; insomuch as it consists not in a point, but has parts posited without parts, in respect whereof it is diffuse. | |
From: Walter Charleton (Physiologia [1654], III.10.1.4), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 14.2 |
12887 | A whole must have one characteristic, an internal relation, and a structure [Rescher/Oppenheim] |
Full Idea: A whole must possess an attribute peculiar to and characteristic of it as a whole; there must be a characteristic relation of dependence between the parts; and the whole must have some structure which gives it characteristics. | |
From: Rescher,N/Oppenheim,P (Logical Analysis of Gestalt Concepts [1955], p.90), quoted by Peter Simons - Parts 9.2 | |
A reaction: Simons says these are basically sensible conditions, and tries to fill them out. They seem a pretty good start, and I must resist the temptation to rush to borderline cases. |