41 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? |
| 18877 | Moral realism doesn't seem to entail the existence of any things [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: Moral realism isn't realism about things, and it seems strange to suggest that moral realism is existence entailing in the way that realism about unobservable is. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Realism') | |
| A reaction: Cameron is questioning whether a realist has to believe in truthmakers. It seems to me that his doubts are because he insists that truthmaking is committed to the existence of 'things'. I assume any moral realism must supervene on nature. |
| 18868 | Surely if some propositions are grounded in existence, they all are? [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: What possible reason could one have for thinking of some propositions that they need to be grounded in what there is that doesn't apply to all propositions? | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
| A reaction: Well, if truthmaking said that all truths are grounded, then some could be grounded in what there is, and others in how it is, or maybe even how it isn't (if you get a decent account of negative truths). |
| 18867 | Orthodox Truthmaker applies to all propositions, and necessitates their truth [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: Orthodox truthmaker theory (Armstrong's) entails Maximalism (that every true proposition has at least one truthmaker), and Necessitarianism (that the existence of a truthmaker necessitates the truth of its proposition). | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
| A reaction: I think I accept both of these. If you say only some truths have truthmakers, the other truths are then baffling. And how could a truthmaker fail in its job? But that doesn't necessitate the existence of the proposition. |
| 18873 | God fixes all the truths of the world by fixing what exists [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: The truthmaker thought is that explanation only bottoms out at existence facts; for God to give a complete plan of the world He needs only make an inventory of what is to exist. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
| A reaction: He is defending Necessitarianism about truthmaking. I'm struggling with this. An inventory of the contents of my house doesn't begin to fix all the truths that arise from them. Why is Cameron so resistent to 'how' things are being part of the truthmaking? |
| 18879 | What the proposition says may not be its truthmaker [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: The explanation of the truth of the proposition [p] doesn't stop at it being the case that p, so it's false to claim that whenever a proposition is true it's true in virtue of the world being as the proposition says it is. The features often lie deeper. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Grounding') | |
| A reaction: [He is opposing Jennifer Hornsby 2005] Cameron offers 'the average family has 2.4 children' as a counterexample' (since no one actually has 2.4 children). That seems compelling. Second example: 'the rose is beautiful'. |
| 18880 | Rather than what exists, some claim that the truthmakers are ways of existence, dispositions, modalities etc [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: Rivals to the truthmaker claim that facts about what there is are the truthmakers, there are theories that add facts about how the things are, or add dispositional facts, or modal facts, or haecceitistic facts, or maybe moral facts. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Grounding') | |
| A reaction: [compressed] He seems to think his version has a monopoly on truthmaking, but I don't see why these other theories shouldn't count as truthmaking. The truthmaker for 'live grenades are dangerous' is not just the existence of grenades. |
| 18874 | Truthmaking doesn't require realism, because we can be anti-realist about truthmakers [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: It's definitely not sufficient to be a realist that one be a truthmaker theorist, since one can simply be anti-realist about the truthmakers. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Realism') | |
| A reaction: It is not quite clear how unreal truth makers could actually MAKE propositions true, rather than just being correlated with them. |
| 18869 | Without truthmakers, negative truths must be ungrounded [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: If negative truths don't have truthmakers then make no mistake: they are ungrounded. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
| A reaction: What would be the grounding for truths which expressed the necessary preconditions for all existence? Could 'nothing whatever exists' ever be a truth? |
| 18871 | I support the correspondence theory because I believe in truthmakers [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: I tend to think that the fundamental reason we can have the correspondence theory of truth is that truthmaker theory is correct. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
| A reaction: [This responds to Fumerton 2006, who gives the opposite view] Cameron gives himself the classic problem of spelling out the correspondence relation (perhaps as 'congruence'). I like truthmaking, but I'm unsure about correspondence. |
| 18870 | Maybe truthmaking and correspondence stand together, and are interdefinable [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: One view says truthmaker theory stands or falls with the correspondence theory of truth, because the truthmaker for p is just the portion of reality that p corresponds to: truthmaker and correspondence can be conversely defined. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
| A reaction: The normal view, which I prefer, is that correspondence is a particular theory of truthmaking, invoking a precise 'correspondence' relation. Hence abolishing correspondence would not abolish truthmaking, if you had a rival account. |
| 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. |
| 18881 | For realists it is analytic that truths are grounded in the world [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: The analytic commitment of realism is that truths are grounded in the world. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Grounding') | |
| A reaction: Certain fifth-level truths might be a long way from the actual world, and deeply interfused with human concepts and theories. Negative truths must be fitted into this picture. |
| 18875 | Realism says a discourse is true or false, and some of it is true [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: Realism about a discourse is 1) to think that the sentences are, when construed literally, literally true or false, and 2) to think that some of the sentences of the discourse are non-vacuously true. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Realism') | |
| A reaction: [Cameron adds 'non-vacuously' to an idea of Sayre-McCord 199 p.5] This is realism based on what is 'true', without specifying 'commitments', so I like it. Cameron says it makes mathematical postulationists into realists. He likes 'mind-independent'. |
| 18878 | Realism says truths rest on mind-independent reality; truthmaking theories are about which features [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: All that is necessary for realism, I claim, is that truth is grounded in mind-independent features of fundamental reality. Truthmaker theory comes into play because it is a theory about what those features are (…so it isn't a commitment to realism). | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Realism') | |
| A reaction: [He cites Michael Devitt for this approach] What is the word 'fundamental' doing here? Because the mind-dependent parts of reality are considered non-fundamental? The no-true-Scotsman-hates-whisky move? His truthmaking is committed to 'things'. |
| 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. |
| 18872 | We should reject distinct but indiscernible worlds [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: I think we should reject distinct but indiscernible worlds. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
| A reaction: An interesting passing remark. Presumably there would be unknowable truths about such worlds, which wouldn't bother a full-blooded realist. Indiscernible to whom? Me? Humanity? A divine mind? |
| 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). |
| 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. |
| 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! |
| 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. |
| 9111 | God is not wise, but more-than-wise; God is not good, but more-than-good [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: God is not wise, but more-than-wise; God is not good, but more-than-good. | |
| From: William of Ockham (Reportatio [1330], III Q viii) | |
| A reaction: [He is quoting 'Damascene'] I quote this for interest, but I very much doubt whether Damascene or William knew what it meant, and I certainly don't. There seems to have been a politically correct desire to invent super-powers for God. |
| 9112 | We could never form a concept of God's wisdom if we couldn't abstract it from creatures [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: What we abstract is said to belong to perfection in so far as it can be predicated of God and can stand for Him. For if such a concept could not be abstracted from a creature, then in this life we could not arrive at a cognition of God's wisdom. | |
| From: William of Ockham (Reportatio [1330], III Q viii) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the germ of an important argument. Without the ability to abstract from what is experienced, we would not be able to apply general concepts to things which are beyond experience. It is a key idea for empiricism. |
| 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). |