5838 | A well-made dung basket is fine, and a badly-made gold shield is base, because of function [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: A dung-basket is fine, and a golden shield contemptible, if the one is finely and the other badly constructed for carrying out its function. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 3.8.6 | |
A reaction: This is the basis of a key idea in Aristotle, that virtue (or excellence) arises directly from function. I think it is the most important idea in virtue theory, and seems to have struck most Greeks as being self-evident. |
2094 | A thing's function is what it alone can do, or what it does better than other things [Plato] |
Full Idea: The function of anything is what it alone can do, or what it can do better than anything else. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 353a) | |
A reaction: I take this concept to be the lynchpin of Aristotle's virtue ethics. Note that it arises earlier, in Plato. Perhaps he should say what it is 'meant to do'. |
2095 | If something has a function then it has a state of being good [Plato] |
Full Idea: Anything which has been endowed with a function also has a state of being good. | |
From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 353b) | |
A reaction: 'ought' from 'is'? |
33 | Each named function has a distinctive excellence attached to it [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: An individual distinctive excellence is attached to the name of the function (e.g. a good 'harpist'). | |
From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1098a09) | |
A reaction: This is the core idea of Aristotle's metaethics. It seems hard to deny that a function implies the values of success and failure. The debate is likely to focus on the exact meaning of 'distinctive'. |
23909 | Wearing a shoe is its intrinsic use, and selling it (as a shoe) is its coincidental use [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: There is intrinsic use of a possession, such as of a shoe or a cloak, and its coincidental use - not of course when using a shoe as a weight, but as, for example, selling it or hiring it out (for then a shoe is used as a shoe). | |
From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1231b37) | |
A reaction: This seems to need a third label, for using the shoe as a weight. 'Inessential use' perhaps, since the intrinsic use points towards the essential nature or function of the shoe. |
398 | Each thing that has a function is for the sake of that function [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Each thing that has a function is for the sake of that function. | |
From: Aristotle (On the Heavens [c.336 BCE], 286a08) | |
A reaction: This is the central idea of Aristotle's Ethics. Did it originate with Plato, or Socrates, the young pupil Aristotle? I suspect the strong influence of Aristotle on later Plato. A major idea. Functions link the facts to life. |
15772 | A thing's active function is its end [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: A thing's active function is its end. | |
From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1050a16) | |
A reaction: This sort of remark is the basis of modern teleological functionalism about the mind. I think that is misguided. Don't define things by their function. They have functions because of intrinsic character. |
22381 | Being a good father seems to depend on intentions, rather than actual abilities [Foot] |
Full Idea: Being a good father, or daughter, or friend seems to depend on one's intentions, rather than on such things as cleverness and strength. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Goodness and Choice [1961], p.138) | |
A reaction: Not sure about that. In wartime a good father might need to be actually brave, and in times of hardship be actually economically successful. 'He meant well, but he was a hopeless father'? |
3505 | The function of a heart depends on what we want it to do [Searle] |
Full Idea: If the only thing that interested us about the heart was that it made a thumping noise, we would have a completely different conception of its "functioning", and correspondingly of heart disease. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch.10.III) | |
A reaction: Ditto if we were only interested in ears as support for earrings, but that would seriously miss the point of ears. The intrinsic function is the reason for its existence. |