66 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. |
| 3240 | There is more insight in fundamental perplexity about problems than in their supposed solutions [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Certain forms of perplexity (say about freedom, knowledge and the meaning of life) seem to me to embody more insight than any of the supposed solutions to those problems. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Obviously false solutions won't embody much insight. This sounds good, but I suspect that the insight is in the recognition of the facts which give rise to the perplexity. I can't think of anything in favour of perplexity for its own sake. |
| 3242 | Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture can't skip it [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture that tries to skip it will never grow up. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Can he really mean that a mature culture doesn't need philosophy? |
| 3241 | It seems mad, but the aim of philosophy is to climb outside of our own minds [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: We are trying to climb outside of our own minds, an effort that some would regard as insane and that I regard as philosophically fundamental. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], Intro) | |
| A reaction: It is not only philosophers who do this. It is an essential feature of the mind, and is inherent in the concept of truth. |
| 5750 | Consistency is modal, saying propositions are consistent if they could be true together [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Consistency is a modal notion: a set of propositions is consistent iff all the members of the set could be true together. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: This shows why Kantian ethics, for example, needs a metaphysical underpinning. Maybe Kant should have believed in the reality of Leibnizian possible worlds? An account of reason requires an account of necessity and possibility. |
| 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 |
| 3248 | Realism invites scepticism because it claims to be objective [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The search for objective knowledge, because of its commitment to realism, cannot refute scepticism and must proceed under its shadow, and scepticism is only a problem because of the realist claims of objectivity. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], V.1) |
| 20989 | Views are objective if they don't rely on a person's character, social position or species [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: A view or form of thought is more objective than another if it relies less on the specifics of the individual's makeup and position in the world, or on the character of the particular type of creature he is. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Notice that this defines comparative objectivity, rather than an absolute. I take it that something must be entirely objective to qualify as a 'fact', and so anything about which there is a consensus that it is a fact can be taken as wholly objective. |
| 22354 | Things cause perceptions, properties have other effects, hence we reach a 'view from nowhere' [Nagel, by Reiss/Sprenger] |
| Full Idea: First we realise that perceptions are caused by things, second we realise that properties have other effects (as well as causing perceptions), and third we conceive of a thing's true nature without perspectives. That is the 'view from nowhere'. | |
| From: report of Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], p.14) by Reiss,J/Spreger,J - Scientific Objectivity 2.1 | |
| A reaction: [My summary of their summary] This is obviously an optimistic view. I''m not sure how he can justify three precise stages, given than animals probably jump straight to the third stage, and engage with the nature's of things. |
| 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? |
| 5737 | Predicate logic has connectives, quantifiers, variables, predicates, equality, names and brackets [Melia] |
| Full Idea: First-order predicate language has four connectives, two quantifiers, variables, predicates, equality, names, and brackets. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Look up the reference for the details! The spirit of logic is seen in this basic framework, and the main interest is in the ontological commitment of the items on the list. The list is either known a priori, or it is merely conventional. |
| 5744 | First-order predicate calculus is extensional logic, but quantified modal logic is intensional (hence dubious) [Melia] |
| Full Idea: First-order predicate calculus is an extensional logic, while quantified modal logic is intensional (which has grave problems of interpretation, according to Quine). | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: The battle is over ontology. Quine wants the ontology to stick with the values of the variables (i.e. the items in the real world that are quantified over in the extension). The rival view arises from attempts to explain necessity and counterfactuals. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 5740 | Second-order logic needs second-order variables and quantification into predicate position [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Permitting quantification into predicate position and adding second-order variables leads to second-order logic. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Often expressed by saying that we now quantify over predicates and relations, rather than just objects. Depends on your metaphysical commitments. |
| 5741 | If every model that makes premises true also makes conclusion true, the argument is valid [Melia] |
| Full Idea: In first-order predicate calculus validity is defined thus: an argument is valid iff every model that makes the premises of the argument true also makes the conclusion of the argument true. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: See Melia Ch. 2 for an explanation of a 'model'. Traditional views of validity tend to say that if the premises are true the conclusion has to be true (necessarily), but this introduces the modal term 'necessarily', which is controversial. |
| 5735 | Maybe names and predicates can capture any fact [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers think that any fact can be captured in a language containing only names and predicates. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: The problem case Melia is discussing is modal facts, such as 'x is possible'. It is hard to see how 'possible' could be an ordinary predicate, but then McGinn claims that 'existence' is, and that there are some predicates with unusual characters. |
| 5736 | No sort of plain language or levels of logic can express modal facts properly [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers say that modal facts cannot be expressed either by name/predicate language, or by first-order predicate calculus, or even by second-order logic. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: If 'possible' were a predicate, none of this paraphernalia would be needed. If possible worlds are accepted, then the quantifiers of first-order predicate calculus will do the job. If neither of these will do, there seems to be a problem. |
| 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. |
| 5746 | The Identity of Indiscernibles is contentious for qualities, and trivial for non-qualities [Melia] |
| Full Idea: If the Identity of Indiscernibles is referring to qualitative properties, such as 'being red' or 'having mass', it is contentious; if it is referring to non-qualitative properties, such as 'member of set s' or 'brother of a', it is true but trivial. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.3 n 11) | |
| A reaction: I would say 'false' rather than 'contentious'. No one has ever offered a way of distinguishing two electrons, but that doesn't mean there is just one (very busy) electron. The problem is that 'indiscernible' is only an epistemological concept. |
| 5738 | We may be sure that P is necessary, but is it necessarily necessary? [Melia] |
| Full Idea: We may have fairly firm beliefs as to whether or not P is necessary, but many of us find ourselves at a complete loss when wondering whether or not P is necessarily necessary. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: I think it is questions like this which are pushing philosophy back towards some sort of rationalism. See Idea 3651, for example. A regress of necessities would be mad, so necessity must be taken as self-evident (in itself, though maybe not to us). |
| 5732 | 'De re' modality is about things themselves, 'de dicto' modality is about propositions [Melia] |
| Full Idea: In cases of 'de re' modality, it is a particular thing that has the property essentially or accidentally; where the modality attaches to the proposition, it is 'de dicto' - it is the whole truth that all bachelors are unmarried that is necessary. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me one of the most important distinctions in metaphysics (as practised by analytical philosophers, who like distinctions). The first type leads off into the ontology, the second type veers towards epistemology. |
| 5739 | Sometimes we want to specify in what ways a thing is possible [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Sometimes we want to count the ways in which something is possible, or say that there are many ways in which a certain thing is possible. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This is a basic fact about talk of 'possibility'. It is not an all-or-nothing property of a situation. There can be 'faint' possibilities of things. The proximity of some possible worlds, especially those sharing our natural laws, is one answer. |
| 5734 | Possible worlds make it possible to define necessity and counterfactuals without new primitives [Melia] |
| Full Idea: In modal logic the concepts of necessity and counterfactuals are not interdefinable, so the language needs two primitives to represent them, but with the machinery of possible worlds they are defined by what is the case in all worlds, or close worlds. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: If your motivation is to reduce ontology to the barest of minimums (which it was for David Lewis) then it is paradoxical that the existence of possible worlds may be the way to achieve it. I doubt, though, whether a commitment to their reality is needed. |
| 5742 | In possible worlds semantics the modal operators are treated as quantifiers [Melia] |
| Full Idea: The central idea in possible worlds semantics is that the modal operators are treated as quantifiers. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: It seems an essential requirement of metaphysics that an account be given of possibility and necessity, and it is also a good dream to keep the ontology simple. Commitment to possible worlds is the bizarre outcome of this dream. |
| 5743 | If possible worlds semantics is not realist about possible worlds, logic becomes merely formal [Melia] |
| Full Idea: It has proved difficult to justify possible worlds semantics without accepting possible worlds. Without a secure metaphysical underpinning, the results in logic are in danger of having nothing more than a formal significance. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This makes nicely clear why Lewis's controversial modal realism has to be taken seriously. It appears that the key problem is truth, because that is needed to define validity, but you can't have truth without some sort of metaphysics. |
| 5749 | Possible worlds could be real as mathematics, propositions, properties, or like books [Melia] |
| Full Idea: One can be a realist about possible worlds without adopting Lewis's extreme views; they might be abstract or mathematical entities; they might be sets of propositions or maximal uninstantiated properties; they might be like books or pictures. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: My intuition is that once you go down the road of realism about possible worlds, Lewis's full concrete realism looks at least as attractive as any of these options. You can discuss the 'average man' in an economic theory without realism. |
| 5751 | The truth of propositions at possible worlds are implied by the world, just as in books [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Propositions are true at possible worlds in much the same way as they are true at books: by being implied by the book. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: An intriguing way to introduce the view that possible worlds should be seen as like books. The truth-makers of propositions about the actual world are items in it, but the truth-makers in novels (say) are the conditions of the whole work as united. |
| 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. |
| 3249 | Modern science depends on the distinction between primary and secondary qualities [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The distinction between primary and secondary qualities is the precondition for the development of modern physics and chemistry. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], V.3) |
| 22429 | We achieve objectivity by dropping secondary qualities, to focus on structural primary qualities [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: At the end [of the three stages of objectivity] the secondary qualities drop out of our picture of the external world, and the underlyiing primary qualities such as shape, size, weight, and motion are thought of structurally. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], II) | |
| A reaction: This is the orthodox view for realists about the external world, and I largely agree. The only problem I see is that secondary qualities contain information, such as the colour of rotting fruit - but then colour is not an essential feature of rot. |
| 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). |
| 3247 | Epistemology is centrally about what we should believe, not the definition of knowledge [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The central problem of epistemology is what to believe and how to justify one's beliefs, not the impersonal problem of whether my beliefs can be said to be knowledge. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], V.1) | |
| A reaction: Wrong. The question of whether what one has is 'knowledge' is not impersonal at all - it is having the social status of a knower or expert. |
| 3252 | Scepticism is based on ideas which scepticism makes impossible [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The sceptic reaches scepticism through thoughts that scepticism makes unthinkable. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], V.6) |
| 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 |
| 3251 | Observed regularities are only predictable if we assume hidden necessity [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Observed regularities provide reason to believe that they will be repeated only to the extent that they provide evidence of hidden necessary connections, which hold timelessly. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], V.5) |
| 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. |
| 3244 | Personal identity cannot be fully known a priori [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The full conditions of personal identity cannot be extracted from the concept of a person at all: they cannot be arrived at a priori. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], III.2) | |
| A reaction: However, if you turn to experience to get the hang of what a person is, it is virtually impossible to disentangle the essentials from the accidental features of being a person. How essential are memories or reasoning or hopes or understandings or plans? |
| 3245 | The question of whether a future experience will be mine presupposes personal identity [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The identity of the self must have some sort of objectivity, otherwise the subjective question whether a future experience will be mine or not will be contentless. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], III.3) | |
| A reaction: This sounds a bit circular and question-begging. If there is no objective self, then the question of whether a future experience will be mine would be a misconceived question. I sympathise with Nagel's attempt to show how personal identity is a priori. |
| 3246 | I can't even conceive of my brain being split in two [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: It is hard to think of myself as being identical with my brain. If my brain is to be split, with one half miserable and the other half euphoric, my expectations can take no form, as my idea of myself doesn't allow for divisibility. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], III.4) | |
| A reaction: Nagel is trying to imply that there is some sort of conceptual impossibility here, but it may just be very difficult. I can think about my lovely lunch while doing my miserable job. Does Nagel want to hang on to a unified thing which doesn't exist? |
| 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. |
| 5748 | We accept unverifiable propositions because of simplicity, utility, explanation and plausibility [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Many philosophers now concede that it is rational to accept a proposition not because we can directly verify it but because it is supported by considerations of simplicity, theoretical utility, explanatory power and/or intuitive plausibility. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: This suggests how the weakness of logical positivism may have led us to the concept of epistemic virtues (such as those listed), which are, of course, largely a matter of community consensus, just as the moral virtues are. |
| 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. |
| 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! |
| 3257 | Total objectivity can't see value, but it sees many people with values [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: A purely objective view has no way of knowing whether anything has any value, but actually its data include the appearance of value to individuals with particular perspectives, including oneself. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.2) | |
| A reaction: I would have thought that a very objective assessment of someone's health is an obvious revelation of value, irrespective of anyone's particular perspective. |
| 3265 | We don't worry about the time before we were born the way we worry about death [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: We do not regard the period before we were born in the same way that we regard the prospect of death. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], XI.3) | |
| A reaction: This is a challenge to Epicurus, who said death is no worse than pre-birth. This idea may be true of the situation immediately post-death, but a thousand years from now it is hard to distinguish them. |
| 3263 | If our own life lacks meaning, devotion to others won't give it meaning [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: If no one's life has any meaning in itself, how can it acquire meaning through devotion to the meaningless lives of others? | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], XI.2) | |
| A reaction: This is one of the paradoxes of compassion. The other is that the virtue requires other people to be in need of help, which can't be a desirable situation. |
| 3256 | Pain doesn't have a further property of badness; it gives a reason for its avoidance [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The objective badness of pain is not some mysterious further property that all pains have, but just the fact that there is reason for anyone capable of viewing the world objectively to want it to stop. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.2) | |
| A reaction: Presumably all pains (e.g. of grief and of toothache) have something in common, to qualify as pains. It must be more than being disliked, because we can dislike a food. |
| 3261 | Something may be 'rational' either because it is required or because it is acceptable [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: "Rational" may mean rationally required or rationally acceptable | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], X.4) |
| 3258 | If cockroaches can't think about their actions, they have no duties [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: If cockroaches cannot think about what they should do, there is nothing they should do. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.3) |
| 3254 | If we can decide how to live after stepping outside of ourselves, we have the basis of a moral theory [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: If we can make judgements about how we should live even after stepping outside of ourselves, they will provide the material for moral theory. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.1) |
| 3264 | We should see others' viewpoints, but not lose touch with our own values [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: One should occupy a position far enough outside your own life to reduce the importance of the difference between yourself and other people, yet not so far outside that all human values vanish in a nihilistic blackout (i.e.aim for a form of humility). | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], XI.2) |
| 3255 | We find new motives by discovering reasons for action different from our preexisting motives [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: There are reasons for action, and we must discover them instead of deriving them from our preexisting motives - and in that way we can acquire new motives superior to the old. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.1) |
| 3262 | Utilitarianism is too demanding [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Utilitarianism is too demanding. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], X.5) |
| 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 |
| 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. |
| 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). |