77 ideas
| 19693 | There is practical wisdom (for action), and theoretical wisdom (for deep understanding) [Aristotle, by Whitcomb] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle takes wisdom to come in two forms, the practical and the theoretical, the former of which is good judgement about how to act, and the latter of which is deep knowledge or understanding. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Dennis Whitcomb - Wisdom Intro | |
| A reaction: The interesting question is then whether the two are connected. One might be thoroughly 'sensible' about action, without counting as 'wise', which seems to require a broader view of what is being done. Whitcomb endorses Aristotle on this idea. |
| 1575 | For Aristotle logos is essentially the ability to talk rationally about questions of value [Roochnik on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle logos is the ability to speak rationally about, with the hope of attaining knowledge, questions of value. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.26 |
| 1589 | Aristotle is the supreme optimist about the ability of logos to explain nature [Roochnik on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle is the great theoretician who articulates a vision of a world in which natural and stable structures can be rationally discovered. His is the most optimistic and richest view of the possibilities of logos | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.95 |
| 8200 | Aristotelian definitions aim to give the essential properties of the thing defined [Aristotle, by Quine] |
| Full Idea: A real definition, according to the Aristotelian tradition, gives the essence of the kind of thing defined. Man is defined as a rational animal, and thus rationality and animality are of the essence of each of us. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Willard Quine - Vagaries of Definition p.51 | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 4385. Personally I prefer the Aristotelian approach, but we may have to say 'We cannot identify the essence of x, and so x cannot be defined'. Compare 'his mood was hard to define' with 'his mood was hostile'. |
| 4385 | Aristotelian definition involves first stating the genus, then the differentia of the thing [Aristotle, by Urmson] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle, to give a definition one must first state the genus and then the differentia of the kind of thing to be defined. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by J.O. Urmson - Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean p.157 | |
| A reaction: Presumably a modern definition would just be a list of properties, but Aristotle seeks the substance. How does he define a genus? - by placing it in a further genus? |
| 14227 | We could refer to tables as 'xs that are arranged tablewise' [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: We could paraphrase 'some chairs are heavier than some tables' as 'there are xs that are arranged chairwise and there are ys that are arranged tablewise and the xs are heavier than the ys'. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 11) | |
| A reaction: Liggins notes that this involves plural quantification. Being 'arranged tablewise' has become a rather notorious locution in modern ontology. We still have to retain identity, to pick out the xs. |
| 1564 | True and false statements can use exactly the same words [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: There is no difference between a true statement and a false statement, because they can use exactly the same words. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §4) |
| 13282 | Aristotle relativises the notion of wholeness to different measures [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle proposes to relativise unity and plurality, so that a single object can be both one (indivisible) and many (divisible) simultaneously, without contradiction, relative to different measures. Wholeness has degrees, with the strength of the unity. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 7.2.12 | |
| A reaction: [see Koslicki's account of Aristotle for details] As always, the Aristotelian approach looks by far the most promising. Simplistic mechanical accounts of how parts make wholes aren't going to work. We must include the conventional and conceptual bit. |
| 10662 | Mereology is 'nihilistic' (just atoms) or 'universal' (no restrictions on what is 'whole') [Inwagen, by Varzi] |
| Full Idea: Van Ingwagen writes of 'mereological nihilism' (that only mereological atoms exist) and of 'mereological universalism' (adhering to the principle of Unrestricted Composition). | |
| From: report of Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], p.72-) by Achille Varzi - Mereology 4.3 | |
| A reaction: They both look mereologically nihilistic to me, in comparison with an account that builds on 'natural' wholes and their parts. You can only be 'unrestricted' if you view the 'wholes' in your vast ontology as pretty meaningless (as Lewis does, Idea 10660). |
| 17587 | The 'Law' of Excluded Middle needs all propositions to be definitely true or definitely false [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: I think the validity of the 'Law' of Excluded Middle depends on the assumption that every proposition is definitely true or definitely false. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18) | |
| A reaction: I think this is confused. He cites vagueness as the problem, but that is a problem for Bivalence. If excluded middle is read as 'true or not-true', that leaves the meaning of 'not-true' open, and never mentions the bivalent 'false'. |
| 4730 | For Aristotle, the subject-predicate structure of Greek reflected a substance-accident structure of reality [Aristotle, by O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle apparently believed that the subject-predicate structure of Greek reflected the substance-accident nature of reality. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Paul O'Grady - Relativism Ch.4 | |
| A reaction: We need not assume that Aristotle is wrong. It is a chicken-and-egg. There is something obvious about subject-predicate language, if one assumes that unified objects are part of nature, and not just conventional. |
| 17558 | Variables are just like pronouns; syntactic explanations get muddled over dummy letters [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: Explanations in terms of syntax do not satisfactorily distinguish true variables from dummy or schematic letters. Identifying variables with pronouns, however, provides a genuine explanation of what variables are. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 02) | |
| A reaction: I like this because it shows that our ordinary thought and speech use variables all the time ('I've forgotten something - what was it?'). He says syntax is fine for maths, but not for ordinary understanding. |
| 17583 | There are no heaps [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: Fortunately ....there are no heaps. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18) | |
| A reaction: This is the nihilist view of (inorganic) physical objects. If a wild view solves all sorts of problems, one should take it serious. It is why I take reductive physicalism about the mind seriously. (Well, it's true, actually) |
| 17578 | I reject talk of 'stuff', and treat it in terms of particles [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: I have a great deal of difficulty with an ontology that includes 'stuffs' in addition to things. ...I prefer to replace talk of sameness of matter with talk of sameness of particles. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 14) | |
| A reaction: Van Inwagen is wedded to the idea that reality is composed of 'simples' - even if physicists seem now to talk of 'fields' as much as they do about objects in the fields. Has philosophy yet caught up with Maxwell? |
| 17582 | Singular terms can be vague, because they can contain predicates, which can be vague [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: Since singular terms can contain predicates, and since vague predicates are common, vague singular terms are common. For 'the tallest man that Sally knows' there are lots of men for whom it is unclear whether Sally knows them. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 17) |
| 17556 | Material objects are in space and time, move, have a surface and mass, and are made of some stuff [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: A thing is a material object if it occupies space and endures through time and can move about in space (literally move, unlike a shadow or wave or reflection) and has a surface and has a mass and is made of a certain stuff or stuffs. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 01) | |
| A reaction: It is not at all clear what electrons (which must count for him as 'simples') are made of. |
| 8264 | Maybe table-shaped particles exist, but not tables [Inwagen, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Van Ingwagen holds that although table-shaped collections of particles exist, tables do not. | |
| From: report of Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], Ch.13) by E.J. Lowe - The Possibility of Metaphysics 2.3 | |
| A reaction: I find this idea appealing. See the ideas of Trenton Merricks. When you get down to micro-level, it is hard to individuate a table among the force fields, and hard to distinguish a table from a smashed or burnt table. An ontology without objects? |
| 17565 | Nihilism says composition between single things is impossible [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: Nihilism about objects says there is a Y such that the Xs compose it if and only if there is only one of the Xs. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 08) | |
| A reaction: He says that Unger, the best known 'nihilist' about objects, believes a different version - claiming there are composites, but they never make up the ordinary objects we talk about. |
| 14228 | If there are no tables, but tables are things arranged tablewise, the denial of tables is a contradiction [Liggins on Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: Van Inwagen says 'there are no tables', and 'there are tables' means 'there are some things arranged tablewise'. Presumably 'there are no tables' negates the latter claim, saying no things are arranged tablewise. But he should think that is false. | |
| From: comment on Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 10) by David Liggins - Nihilism without Self-Contradiction 3 | |
| A reaction: Liggins's nice paper shows that Van Inwagen is in a potential state of contradiction when he starts saying that there are no tables, but that there are things arranged tablewise, and that they amount to tables. Liggins offers him an escape. |
| 14468 | Actions by artefacts and natural bodies are disguised cooperations, so we don't need them [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: All the activities apparently carried out by shelves and stars and other artefacts and natural bodies can be understood as disguised cooperative activities. And, therefore, we are not forced to grant existence to any artefacts or natural bodies. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 12) | |
| A reaction: In 'the crowd tore her to pieces' are we forced to accept the existence of a crowd? We can't say 'Jack tore her to pieces' and 'Jill tore her to pieces'. If a plural quantification is unavoidable, we have to accept the plurality. Perhaps. |
| 17571 | Every physical thing is either a living organism or a simple [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: The thesis about composition and parthood that I am advocating has far-reaching ontological consequences: that every physical thing is either a living organism or a simple. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 10) | |
| A reaction: A 'simple' is a placeholder for anything considered to be a fundamental unit of existence (such as an electron or a quark). This amazingly sharp distinction strikes me as utterly implausible. There is too much in the middle ground. |
| 17562 | The statue and lump seem to share parts, but the statue is not part of the lump [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: Those who believe that the statue is distinct from the lump should concede that whatever shares a part with the statue shares a part with the lump but deny that the statue is a part of the lump. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 05) | |
| A reaction: Standard mereology says if they share all their parts then they are the same thing, so it is hard to explain how they are 'distinct'. The distinction is only modal - that they could be separated (by squashing, or by part substitution). |
| 17574 | If you knead clay you make an infinite series of objects, but they are rearrangements, not creations [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: If you can make a (random) gollyswoggle by accident by kneading clay, then you must be causing the generation and corruption of a series of objects of infinitesimal duration. ...We have not augmented the furniture of the world but only rearranged it. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 13) | |
| A reaction: Van Inwagen's final conclusion is a bit crazy, but I am in sympathy with his general scepticism about what sorts of things definitively constitute 'objects'. He overrates simples, and he overrates lives. |
| 13276 | The unmoved mover and the soul show Aristotelian form as the ultimate mereological atom [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's discussion of the unmoved mover and of the soul confirms the suspicion that form, when it is not thought of as the object represented in a definition, plays the role of the ultimate mereological atom within his system. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 6.6 | |
| A reaction: Aristotle is concerned with which things are 'divisible', and he cites these two examples as indivisible, but they may be too unusual to offer an actual theory of how Aristotle builds up wholes from atoms. He denies atoms in matter. |
| 13277 | The 'form' is the recipe for building wholes of a particular kind [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Thus in Aristotle we may think of an object's formal components as a sort of recipe for how to build wholes of that particular kind. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 7.2.5 | |
| A reaction: In the elusive business of pinning down what Aristotle means by the crucial idea of 'form', this analogy strikes me as being quite illuminating. It would fit DNA in living things, and the design of an artifact. |
| 17531 | I assume matter is particulate, made up of 'simples' [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: I assume in this book that matter is ultimately particulate. Every material being is composed of things that have no proper parts: 'elementary particles' or 'mereological atoms' or 'metaphysical simples'. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], Pref) | |
| A reaction: It may be that modern physics doesn't support this, if 'fields' is the best term for what is fundamental. Best to treat his book as hypothetical - IF there are just simples, proceed as follows. |
| 17560 | If contact causes composition, do two colliding balls briefly make one object? [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: If composition just requires contact, if I cause the cue ball to rebound from the eight ball, do I thereby create a short-lived object shaped like two slightly flattened spheres in contact? | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 03) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] |
| 17561 | If bricks compose a house, that is at least one thing, but it might be many things [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: If composition just requires contact, that tells us that the bricks of a house compose at least one thing; it does not tell us that they also compose at most one thing. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 04) |
| 17566 | I think parthood involves causation, and not just a reasonably stable spatial relationship [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: I propose that parthood essentially involves causation. Too many philosophers have supposed that objects compose something when and only when they stand in some (more or less stable) spatial relationship to one another. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 09) | |
| A reaction: I have to say that I like this, even though it comes from a thinker who is close to nihilism about ordinary non-living objects. He goes on to say that only a 'life' provides the right sort of causal relationship. |
| 14230 | We can deny whole objects but accept parts, by referring to them as plurals within things [Inwagen, by Liggins] |
| Full Idea: Van Inwagen's claim that nothing has parts causes incredulity. ..But the problem is not with endorsing the sentence 'Some things have parts'; it is with interpreting this sentence by means of singular resources rather than plural ones. | |
| From: report of Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 7) by David Liggins - Nihilism without Self-Contradiction | |
| A reaction: Van Inwagen notoriously denies the existence of normal physical objects. Liggins shows that modern formal plural quantification gives a better way of presenting his theory, by accepting tables and parts of tables as plurals of basic entities. |
| 17557 | Special Composition Question: when is a thing part of something? [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: The Special Composition Question asks, In what circumstances is a thing a (proper) part of something? | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 02) | |
| A reaction: [He qualifies this formulation as 'misleading'] It's a really nice basic question for the metaphysics of objects. |
| 17564 | The essence of a star includes the released binding energy which keeps it from collapse [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: I think it is part of the essence of a star that the radiation pressures that oppose the star's tendency to gravitational collapse has its source in the release of no-longer-needed nuclear binding energy when colliding nuclei fuse in the star's hot core. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 07) | |
| A reaction: A perfect example of giving the essence of something as the bottom level of its explanation. This even comes from someone who doesn't really believe in stars! |
| 17575 | The persistence of artifacts always covertly involves intelligent beings [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: Statements that are apparently about the persistence of artifacts make covert reference to the dispositions of intelligent beings to maintain certain arrangements of matter. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 13) | |
| A reaction: If you build a self-sustaining windmill that pumps water, that seems to have an identity of its own, apart from the intentions of whoever makes it and repairs it. The function of an artefact is not just the function we want it to have. |
| 17577 | When an electron 'leaps' to another orbit, is the new one the same electron? [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: Is the 'new' electron in the lower orbit the one that was in the higher orbit? Physics, as far as I can tell, has nothing to say about this. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 14) | |
| A reaction: I suspect that physicists would say that philosophers are worrying about such questions because they haven't grasped the new conceptual scheme that emerged in 1926. The poor mutts insist on hanging on to 'objects'. |
| 17589 | If you reject transitivity of vague identity, there is no Ship of Theseus problem [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: If you have rejected the Principle of the Transitivity of (vague) Identity, it is hard to see how the problem of the Ship of Theseus could arise. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18) | |
| A reaction: I think this may well be the best solution to the whole problem |
| 17588 | We should talk of the transitivity of 'identity', and of 'definite identity' [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: In some contexts, the principle of 'the transitivity of identity' should be called 'the transitivity of definite identity'. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18) | |
| A reaction: He is making room for a person to retain identity despite having changed. Applause from me. |
| 17572 | Actuality proves possibility, but that doesn't explain how it is possible [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: A proof of actuality is a proof of possibility, but that does not invariably explain the possibility whose existence it demonstrates, for we may know that a certain thing is actual (and hence possible) but have no explanation of how it could be possible. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 12) | |
| A reaction: I like this, because my project is to see all of philosophy in terms of explanation rather than of description. |
| 17579 | Counterparts reduce counterfactual identity to problems about similarity relations [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: Counterpart Theory essentially reduces all problems about counterfactual identity to problems about choosing appropriate similarity relations. That is, Counterpart Theory essentially eliminates problems of counterfactual identity as such. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 14) |
| 17590 | A merely possible object clearly isn't there, so that is a defective notion [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: The notion of a merely possible object is an even more defective notion than the notion of a borderline object; after all, a merely possible object is an object that definitely isn't there. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 19) |
| 17591 | Merely possible objects must be consistent properties, or haecceities [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: Talk of merely possible objects may be redeemed in either maximally consistent sets of properties or in haecceities. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 19) |
| 5991 | For Aristotle, knowledge is of causes, and is theoretical, practical or productive [Aristotle, by Code] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle thinks that in general we have knowledge or understanding when we grasp causes, and he distinguishes three fundamental types of knowledge - theoretical, practical and productive. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Alan D. Code - Aristotle | |
| A reaction: Productive knowledge we tend to label as 'knowing how'. The centrality of causes for knowledge would get Aristotle nowadays labelled as a 'naturalist'. It is hard to disagree with his three types, though they may overlap. |
| 11239 | The notion of a priori truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: The notion of a priori truth is conspicuously absent in Aristotle. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.5 | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 11240. |
| 23312 | Aristotle is a rationalist, but reason is slowly acquired through perception and experience [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle is a rationalist …but reason for him is a disposition which we only acquire over time. Its acquisition is made possible primarily by perception and experience. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Aristotle's Rationalism p.173 | |
| A reaction: I would describe this process as the gradual acquisition of the skill of objectivity, which needs the right knowledge and concepts to evaluate new experiences. |
| 16111 | Aristotle wants to fit common intuitions, and therefore uses language as a guide [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: Since Aristotle generally prefers a metaphysical theory that accords with common intuitions, he frequently relies on facts about language to guide his metaphysical claims. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: I approve of his procedure. I take intuition to be largely rational justifications too complex for us to enunciate fully, and language embodies folk intuitions in its concepts (especially if the concepts occur in many languages). |
| 1559 | Thracians think tattooing adds to a girl's beauty, but elsewhere it is a punishment [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: Thracians think that tattooing enhances a girl's beauty, whereas for everyone else tattooing is a punishment for a crime. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §2) |
| 1561 | Anything can be acceptable in some circumstances and unacceptable in others [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: Anything can be acceptable under the right circumstances, and unacceptable under the wrong circumstances. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §2) |
| 1560 | Lydians prostitute their daughters to raise a dowery, but no Greek would marry such a girl [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: The Lydians find it acceptable for their daughters to work as prostitutes to raise money for getting married, but no one in Greece would be prepared to marry such a girl. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §2) |
| 16971 | Plato says sciences are unified around Forms; Aristotle says they're unified around substance [Aristotle, by Moravcsik] |
| Full Idea: Plato's unity of science principle states that all - legitimate - sciences are ultimately about the Forms. Aristotle's principle states that all sciences must be, ultimately, about substances, or aspects of substances. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE], 1) by Julius Moravcsik - Aristotle on Adequate Explanations 1 |
| 11243 | Aristotelian explanations are facts, while modern explanations depend on human conceptions [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle things which explain (the explanantia) are facts, which should not be associated with the modern view that says explanations are dependent on how we conceive and describe the world (where causes are independent of us). | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 2.1 | |
| A reaction: There must be some room in modern thought for the Aristotelian view, if some sort of robust scientific realism is being maintained against the highly linguistic view of philosophy found in the twentieth century. |
| 3320 | Aristotle's standard analysis of species and genus involves specifying things in terms of something more general [Aristotle, by Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: The standard Aristotelian doctrine of species and genus in the theory of anything whatever involves specifying what the thing is in terms of something more general. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.10 |
| 12000 | Aristotle regularly says that essential properties explain other significant properties [Aristotle, by Kung] |
| Full Idea: The view that essential properties are those in virtue of which other significant properties of the subjects under investigation can be explained is encountered repeatedly in Aristotle's work. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Joan Kung - Aristotle on Essence and Explanation IV | |
| A reaction: What does 'significant' mean here? I take it that the significant properties are the ones which explain the role, function and powers of the object. |
| 23300 | Aristotle and the Stoics denied rationality to animals, while Platonists affirmed it [Aristotle, by Sorabji] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle, and also the Stoics, denied rationality to animals. …The Platonists, the Pythagoreans, and some more independent Aristotelians, did grant reason and intellect to animals. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Richard Sorabji - Rationality 'Denial' | |
| A reaction: This is not the same as affirming or denying their consciousness. The debate depends on how rationality is conceived. |
| 11240 | The notion of analytic truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: The notion of analytic truth is conspicuously absent in Aristotle. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.5 | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 11239. |
| 1567 | How could someone who knows everything fail to act correctly? [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: If someone knows the nature of everything, how could he fail to be able also to act correctly in every case? | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §8) |
| 6559 | Aristotle never actually says that man is a rational animal [Aristotle, by Fogelin] |
| Full Idea: To the best of my knowledge (and somewhat to my surprise), Aristotle never actually says that man is a rational animal; however, he all but says it. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: When I read this I thought that this database would prove Fogelin wrong, but it actually supports him, as I can't find it in Aristotle either. Descartes refers to it in Med.Two. In Idea 5133 Aristotle does say that man is a 'social being'. But 22586! |
| 1563 | Every apparent crime can be right in certain circumstances [Anon (Diss), by PG] |
| Full Idea: It can be right, in certain circumstances, to steal, to break a solemn promise, to rob temples, and even (as Orestes did) to murder one's nearest and dearest. | |
| From: report of Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §3) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: Not sure about the last one! I suppose you can justify any hideousness if the fate of the universe depends on it. It must be better to die than the perform certain extreme deeds. |
| 1562 | It is right to lie to someone, to get them to take medicine they are reluctant to take [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: It is right to lie to your parents, in order to get them to take a good medicine they are reluctant to take. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §3) | |
| A reaction: I dread to think what the medicines were which convinced the writer of this. A rule such as this strikes me as dangerous. Justifiable in extreme cases. House on fire etc. |
| 1566 | The first priority in elections is to vote for people who support democracy [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: A lottery is not democratic, because every state contains people who are not democratic, and if the lottery chooses them they will destroy the democracy. People should elect those who are observed to favour democracy. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §7) |
| 11150 | It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it. | |
| From: Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) | |
| A reaction: The epigraph on a David Chalmers website. A wonderful remark, and it should be on the wall of every beginners' philosophy class. However, while it is in the spirit of Aristotle, it appears to be a misattribution with no ancient provenance. |
| 3037 | Aristotle said the educated were superior to the uneducated as the living are to the dead [Aristotle, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle was asked how much educated men were superior to those uneducated; "As much," he said, "as the living are to the dead." | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 05.1.11 |
| 1565 | We learn language, and we don't know who teaches us it [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: We learn language, and we don't know who teaches us it. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §6) |
| 8660 | There are potential infinities (never running out), but actual infinity is incoherent [Aristotle, by Friend] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle developed his own distinction between potential infinity (never running out) and actual infinity (there being a collection of an actual infinite number of things, such as places, times, objects). He decided that actual infinity was incoherent. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 1.3 | |
| A reaction: Friend argues, plausibly, that this won't do, since potential infinity doesn't make much sense if there is not an actual infinity of things to supply the demand. It seems to just illustrate how boggling and uncongenial infinity was to Aristotle. |
| 12058 | Aristotle's matter can become any other kind of matter [Aristotle, by Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's conception of matter permits any kind of matter to become any other kind of matter. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Wiggins - Substance 4.11.2 | |
| A reaction: This is obviously crucial background information when we read Aristotle on matter. Our 92+ elements, and fixed fundamental particles, gives a quite different picture. Aristotle would discuss form and matter quite differently now. |
| 17563 | The strong force pulls, but also pushes apart if nucleons get too close together [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: The strong force doesn't always pull nucleons together, but pushes them apart if they get too close. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 07) | |
| A reaction: Philosophers tend to learn their physics from other philosophers. But that's because philosophers are brilliant at picking out the interesting parts of physics, and skipping the boring stuff. |
| 17559 | Is one atom a piece of gold, or is a sizable group of atoms required? [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: A physicist once told me that of course a gold atom was a piece of gold, and a physical chemist has assured me that the smallest possible piece of gold would have to be composed of sixteen or seventeen atoms. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 01) | |
| A reaction: The issue is at what point all the properties that we normally begin to associate with gold begin to appear. One water molecule can hardly have a degree of viscosity or liquidity. |
| 17586 | At the lower level, life trails off into mere molecular interaction [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: The lives of the lower links of the Great Chain of Being trail off into vague, temporary episodes of molecular interaction. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18) | |
| A reaction: His case involves conceding all sorts of vagueness to life, but asserting the utter distinctness of the full blown cases of more elaborate life. I don't really concede the distinction. |
| 17567 | A flame is like a life, but not nearly so well individuated [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: A flame, though it is a self-maintaining event, does not seem to be nearly so well individuated as a life. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 09) | |
| A reaction: This is to counter the standard problem that if you attempt to define 'life', fire turns out to tick nearly all the same boxes. The concept of 'individuated' often strikes me as unsatisfactory. How does a bonfire fail to be individuated? |
| 17576 | If God were to 'reassemble' my atoms of ten years ago, the result would certainly not be me [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: If God were to 'reassemble' the atoms that composed me ten years ago, the resulting organism would certainly not be me. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 13) | |
| A reaction: What is obvious to Van Inwagen is not obvious to me. He thinks lives are special. Such examples just leave us bewildered about what counts as 'the same', because our concept of sameness wasn't designed to deal with such cases. |
| 17570 | The chemical reactions in a human life involve about sixteen elements [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: There are sixteen or so chemical elements involved in those chemical reactions that collectively constitute the life of a human being. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 09) |
| 17585 | Life is vague at both ends, but could it be totally vague? [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: Individual human lives are infected with vagueness at both ends. ...But could there be a 'borderline life'? | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18) | |
| A reaction: Van Inwagen says (p.239) that there may be wholly vague lives, though it would suit his case better if there were not. |
| 17568 | A tumour may spread a sort of life, but it is not a life, or an organism [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: A tumour is not an organism (or a parasite) and there is no self-regulating event that is its life. It does not fill one space, but is a locus within which a certain sort of thing is happening: the spreading of a certain sort of (mass-term) life. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 09) |
| 17581 | Being part of an organism's life is a matter of degree, and vague [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: Being caught up in the life of an organism is, like being rich or being tall, a matter of degree, and is in that sense a vague condition. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 17) | |
| A reaction: Van Inwagen is trying to cover himself, given that he makes a sharp distinction between living organisms, which are unified objects, and everything else, which isn't. There may be a vague centre to a 'life', as well as vague boundaries. |
| 17584 | Some events are only borderline cases of lives [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: There are events of which it is neither definitely true nor definitely false that those events are lives. I do not see how we can deny this. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18) | |
| A reaction: Very frustrating, since this is my main objection to Van Inwagen's distinction between unified lives and mere collections of simples. Some boundaries are real enough, despite their vagueness, and others indicate that there is no real distinction. |
| 17569 | Unlike waves, lives are 'jealous'; it is almost impossible for them to overlap [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: A wave is not a 'jealous' event. Lives, however, are jealous. It cannot be that the activities of the Xs constitute at one and the same time two lives. Only in certain special cases can two lives overlap. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 09) |
| 17580 | One's mental and other life is centred on the brain, unlike any other part of the body [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: One's life - not simply one's mental life - is centered in the activity of the simples that virtually compose one's brain in a way in which it is not centered in the activity of any of the other simples that compose one. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 15) | |
| A reaction: This justifies the common view that 'one follows one's brain'. I take that to mean that my brain embodies my essence. I would read 'centered on' as 'explains'. |
| 17573 | There is no reason to think that mere existence is a valuable thing [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: There is no reason to suppose - whatever Saint Anselm and Descartes may have thought - that mere existence is a valuable thing. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 12) | |
| A reaction: This is one of the simplest and most powerful objections to the Ontological Argument. God's existence may be of great value, but the existence of Hitler wasn't. |
| 22729 | The concepts of gods arose from observing the soul, and the cosmos [Aristotle, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle said that the conception of gods arose among mankind from two originating causes, namely from events which concern the soul and from celestial phenomena. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE], Frag 10) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Physicists (two books) I.20 | |
| A reaction: The cosmos suggests order, and possible creation. What do events of the soul suggest? It doesn't seem to be its non-physical nature, because Aristotle is more of a functionalist. Puzzling. (It says later that gods are like the soul). |