Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Thales, David Roochnik and P Grice / P Strawson

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22 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 2. Ancient Thought
1597 Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales]
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 1. Philosophy
1606 You have to be a Platonist to debate about reality, so every philosopher is a Platonist [Roochnik]
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / b. Philosophy as transcendent
1595 Philosophy aims to satisfy the chief human desire - the articulation of beauty itself [Roochnik]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 2. Logos
1571 'Logos' ranges from thought/reasoning, to words, to rational structures outside thought [Roochnik]
1572 In the seventeenth century the only acceptable form of logos was technical knowledge [Roochnik]
1573 The hallmark of a person with logos is that they give reasons why one opinion is superior to another [Roochnik]
1592 Logos cannot refute the relativist, and so must admit that it too is a matter of desire (for truth and agreement) [Roochnik]
1593 Human desire has an ordered structure, with logos at the pinnacle [Roochnik]
1603 Logos is not unconditionally good, but good if there is another person willing to engage with it [Roochnik]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 4. Aims of Reason
1598 We prefer reason or poetry according to whether basics are intelligible or not [Roochnik]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 8. Naturalising Reason
1584 Modern science, by aiming for clarity about the external world, has abandoned rationality in the human world [Roochnik]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 9. Limits of Reason
1591 Unfortunately for reason, argument can't be used to establish the value of argument [Roochnik]
1599 Attempts to suspend all presuppositions are hopeless, because a common ground must be agreed for the process [Roochnik]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 3. Reality
1605 Reality can be viewed neutrally, or as an object of desire [Roochnik]
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 5. Modality from Actuality
3013 Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 6. Relativism Critique
1577 Relativism is a disease which destroys the possibility of rational debate [Roochnik]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 8. Synonymy
7319 If we give up synonymy, we have to give up significance, meaning and sense [Grice/Strawson]
19. Language / F. Communication / 1. Rhetoric
1578 If relativism is the correct account of human values, then rhetoric is more important than reasoning [Roochnik]
1596 Reasoning aims not at the understanding of objects, but at the desire to give beautiful speeches [Roochnik]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / c. Ultimate substances
1494 Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle]
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement
1713 Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle]
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 2. Greek Polytheism
1742 Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius]