4 ideas
| 19699 | A Gettier case is a belief which is true, and its fallible justification involves some luck [Hetherington] |
| Full Idea: A Gettier case contains a belief which is true and well justified without being knowledge. Its justificatory support is also fallible, ...and there is considerable luck in how the belief combnes being true with being justified. | |
| From: Stephen Hetherington (The Gettier Problem [2011], 5) | |
| A reaction: This makes luck the key factor. 'Luck' is a rather vague concept, and so the sort of luck involved must first be spelled out. Or the varieties of luck that can produce this outcome. |
| 22456 | Maybe virtues conflict with each other, if some virtue needs a vice for its achievement [Foot] |
| Full Idea: Maybe so far from forming a unity ...., the virtues actually conflict with each other: that is, if someone has one of them he inevitably fails to have some other. ...Maybe he a man can only be good in one way be being bad in another. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Moral Realism and Moral Dilemma [1983], p.57) | |
| A reaction: She suggests the self-loathing needed to rein in evil desires. She cites Nietzsche having a similar thought. Presumably the ideal virtuous person has no such conflicts, and the self-loathing undermines eudaimonia. Unity in theory but not in practice? |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
| 5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |