104 ideas
| 9199 | Wisdom for one instant is as good as wisdom for eternity [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: If a person has wisdom for one instant, he is no less happy than he who possesses it for eternity. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Pierre Hadot - Philosophy as a way of life 8 | |
| A reaction: [Hadot quotes Plutarch 'On Common Conceptions' 8,1062a] This makes it sound awfully like some sort of Buddhist 'enlightenment', which strikes like lightning. He does wisdom recognise itself - by a warm glow, or by the cautious thought that got you there? |
| 20853 | Wise men should try to participate in politics, since they are a good influence [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: The wise man will participate in politics unless something prevents him, for he will restrain vice and promote virtue. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.121 | |
| A reaction: [from lost On Ways of Life Bk 1] We have made modern politics so hostile for its participants, thanks to cruel media pressure, that the best people now run a mile from it. Disastrous. |
| 23392 | The Dao (Way) first means the road, and comes to mean the right way to live [Norden] |
| Full Idea: The 'Dao' (tr 'Way) has five meanings: 1) path or road, 2) mode of doing something, 3) account of how to do something, 4) the right way to live, and 5) the ultimate metaphysical entity responsible for nature, and how it should be. | |
| From: Bryan van Norden (Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy [2011], 1.III) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] So it is essentially metaphorical, just like the English 'way to do a thing'. Number 5 seems a rather large leap from the others, and most discussion seems to centre on number 4. The Chinese hoped for consensus on the Dao. |
| 20772 | Three branches of philosophy: first logic, second ethics, third physics (which ends with theology) [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: There are three kinds of philosophical theorems, logical, ethical, and physical; of these the logic should be placed first, ethics second, and physics third (and theology is the final topic in physics). | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1035a | |
| A reaction: [in his lost 'On Lives' Bk 4] 'Theology is the final topic in physics'! That should create a stir in theology departments. Is this an order of study, or of importance? You come to theology right at the end of your studies. |
| 23408 | The hermeneutic circle is either within the text, or between text and biased reader [Norden] |
| Full Idea: The first type of hermeneutic circle operates inside the text, studying relationships between sentences. …The second type is between the text and the reader, …who brings assumptions about what it means. | |
| From: Bryan van Norden (Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy [2011], App A.I) | |
| A reaction: The first kind is an essential aspect of reading well. Readers are biased, but I get very tired of those who do nothing but search for bias, and ignore the truth a text has to offer. If everything is bias, intellectual life is dead. |
| 23407 | Heremeneutics is either 'faith' (examining truth) or 'suspicion' (looking for hidden motives) [Norden] |
| Full Idea: A 'hermeneutics of faith' treat a text as a candidate for truth. ….A 'hermeneutics of suspicion' looks not for truth but for explanations of why someone makes certain claims, …particularly to serve their ulterior interests. | |
| From: Bryan van Norden (Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy [2011], App I.1) | |
| A reaction: As far as I can see, the suspicious approach was a legitimate development in sociology, which studies the sources of ideas, but is absurdly offered by some philosophers as a total replacement of the faith approach. |
| 5969 | Chrysippus said the uncaused is non-existent [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus said that the uncaused is altogether non-existent. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1045c | |
| A reaction: The difficulty is to see what empirical basis there can be for such a claim, or what argument of any kind other than an intuition. Induction is the obvious answer, but Hume teaches us scepticism about any claim that 'there can be no exceptions'. |
| 21388 | The causes of future true events must exist now, so they will happen because of destiny [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: True future events cannot be such as do not possess causes on account of which they will happen; therefore that which is true must possess causes: and so, when the [true future events] happen they will have happened as a result of destiny. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 9.23-8 | |
| A reaction: [exact ref unclear] Presumably the current causes are the truthmakers for the future events, and so the past is the truthmaker of the future, if you are a determinist. |
| 20780 | Graspable presentations are criteria of facts, and are molded according to their objects [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Of presentations, some are graspable, some non-graspable. The graspable presentation, which they say is the criterion of facts [pragmata], is that which comes from an existing object and is stamped and molded in accordance wth the existing object itself. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.46 | |
| A reaction: [in lost Physics Bk 2] The big modern anguish over truth-as-correspondence is how you are supposed to verify the 'accordance'. This idea seems to blur the ideas of truth and justification (the 'criterion'), and you can't have both as accordance. |
| 20793 | How could you ever know that the presentation is similar to the object? [Sext.Empiricus on Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: One cannot say that the soul grasps the externally existing objects by means of the states of the senses on the basis of the similarity of these states to the externally existing objects. For on what basis will it know the similarity? | |
| From: comment on Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Outlines of Pyrrhonism 2.74 | |
| A reaction: This exactly the main modern reason for rejecting the correspondence theory of truth. You are welcome to affirm a robust view of truth, but supporting it by claiming a correspondence or resemblance is dubious. |
| 8077 | Stoic propositional logic is like chemistry - how atoms make molecules, not the innards of atoms [Chrysippus, by Devlin] |
| Full Idea: In Stoic logic propositions are treated the way atoms are treated in present-day chemistry, where the focus is on the way atoms fit together to form molecules, rather than on the internal structure of the atoms. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Keith Devlin - Goodbye Descartes Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: A nice analogy to explain the nature of Propositional Logic, which was invented by the Stoics (N.B. after Aristotle had invented predicate logic). |
| 20791 | Chrysippus has five obvious 'indemonstrables' of reasoning [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus has five indemonstrables that do not need demonstration:1) If 1st the 2nd, but 1st, so 2nd; 2) If 1st the 2nd, but not 2nd, so not 1st; 3) Not 1st and 2nd, the 1st, so not 2nd; 4) 1st or 2nd, the 1st, so not 2nd; 5) 1st or 2nd, not 2nd, so 1st. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.80-81 | |
| A reaction: [from his lost text 'Dialectics'; squashed to fit into one quote] 1) is Modus Ponens, 2) is Modus Tollens. 4) and 5) are Disjunctive Syllogisms. 3) seems a bit complex to be an indemonstrable. |
| 8078 | Modus ponens is one of five inference rules identified by the Stoics [Chrysippus, by Devlin] |
| Full Idea: Modus ponens is just one of the five different inference rules identified by the Stoics. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Keith Devlin - Goodbye Descartes Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: Modus ponens strikes me as being more like a definition of implication than a 'rule'. Implication is what gets you from one truth to another. All the implications of a truth must also be true. |
| 6023 | Every proposition is either true or false [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: We hold fast to the position, defended by Chrysippus, that every proposition is either true or false. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 38 | |
| A reaction: I am intrigued to know exactly how you defend this claim. It may depend what you mean by a proposition. A badly expressed proposition may have indeterminate truth, quite apart from the vague, the undecidable etc. |
| 5992 | Chrysippus says action is the criterion for existence, which must be physical [Chrysippus, by Tieleman] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus regarded power to act and be acted upon as the criterion for existence or being - a test satisfied by bodies alone. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Teun L. Tieleman - Chrysippus | |
| A reaction: This defines existence in terms of causation. Is he ruling out a priori a particle (say) which exists, but never interacts with anything? If so, he is inclining towards anti-realism. |
| 14334 | Modest realism says there is a reality; the presumptuous view says we can accurately describe it [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The claim of modest realism is that there is a subject-independent reality; the presumptuous claim is that we are capable of describing that reality accurately. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 09.1) | |
| A reaction: And the super-presumptuous claim is that there only exists one ultimate accurate description of reality. I am happy to call myself a Modest Realist on this one. |
| 14306 | Anti-realists deny truth-values to all statements, and say evidence and ontology are inseparable [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The anti-realist declines to permit that all statements have truth-values. ...The essence of the anti-realist position is that evidence and ontology cannot be separated. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 03.6) | |
| A reaction: [second half on p.51] The idea that evidence and ontology are 'inseparable' strikes me as an absurd idea. The proposal that you should not speculate about ontology without some sort of evidence is, of course, not unreasonable. |
| 21673 | There are simple and complex facts; the latter depend on further facts [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus says there are two classes of facts, simple and complex. An instance of a simple fact is 'Socrates will die at a given date', ...but 'Milo will wrestle at Olympia' is a complex statement, because there can be no wrestling without an opponent. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 13.30 | |
| A reaction: We might say that there are atomic and complex facts, but our atomic facts tend to be much simpler, usually just saying some object has some property. |
| 16652 | Stoics categories are Substrate, Quality, Disposition, and Relation [Chrysippus, by Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The Stoics proposed a rather modest categorisation of Substrate, Quality, Disposition, and Relation. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 12.1 |
| 14333 | Dispositions and categorical properties are two modes of presentation of the same thing [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The dispositional and the categorical are correctly understood just as two modes of presentation of the same instantiated properties. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 08.6) | |
| A reaction: This is Mumford's own conclusion, after discussing the views of Armstrong. How about 'a disposition is the modal profile' of a categorical property? |
| 14336 | Categorical predicates are those unconnected to functions [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: A predicate which is conceptually connected to no function ... is a categorical predicate. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 09.7) | |
| A reaction: This is an expansion of Mumford's own theory of dispositions, as functional. Does a cork in a wine bottle have a function, but without doing anything? It seems to achieve its function purely through its structure. |
| 14315 | Categorical properties and dispositions appear to explain one another [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Though categorical properties provide explanations for dispositions, categorical properties are also explained by dispositions; hence neither category uniquely explains the other. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 05.3) | |
| A reaction: The conclusion doesn't seem to follow. It depends which one is found at the bottom level. It can go up from a basic disposition, to a categorical property, to another disposition - or the other way around. |
| 14332 | There are four reasons for seeing categorical properties as the most fundamental [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Four reasons for reducing everything to the categorical are: categorical predicates have wider scope; dispositions are variably realised by the categorical; categorical is 1st order, dispositions 2nd; categorical properties are explanatorily basic. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 08.5) | |
| A reaction: I particularly reject the fourth reason, as I take categorical properties as still in need of explanation. The categorical view is contingent (and Humean), but I take the categorical properties to be necessitated by the underlying powers. |
| 14302 | A lead molecule is not leaden, and macroscopic properties need not be microscopically present [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Though lead is said to be composed of molecules of lead, these molecules are not leaden in the everyday sense of the word. This suggests that a property need not be present at the microscopic level in order to be present at the macroscopic level. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 02.3) | |
| A reaction: [He quotes Joske] This strikes me as a key principle to grasp about properties. One H2O molecule is not water, any more than a brick is a house! Nearly all properties (or all?) are 'emergent' (in the sensible, non-mystical use of that word). |
| 14294 | Dispositions are attacked as mere regularities of events, or place-holders for unknown properties [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Dispositions are attacked as either just saying how something will behave (logical fictions about regularities of events), or as primitive pre-scientific terms like 'phlogiston', place-holders used when we are ignorant of real properties. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 01.1) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] The first view he calls the Ryle-Wittgenstein view, which seems to track back to Hume. |
| 14310 | Dispositions are classifications of properties by functional role [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: A dispositional property is the classification of a property according to its functional role....[p.85] What is essential to a disposition - its identity condition - is its functional role. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 04.5) | |
| A reaction: This is Mumford's view of dispositions. I am wary of any proposal to define something according to its role, because it must have an intrinsic nature which equips it to have that role. |
| 14317 | I say the categorical base causes the disposition manifestation [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The view I promote is one where the categorical base is a cause of the disposition manifestation. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 05.5) | |
| A reaction: It seems to me (I think) that the most basic thing has to be a power, whose nature is intrinsically beyond our grasp, and that categorical properties are the result of these powers. Powers are dispositional in character. |
| 14316 | If dispositions have several categorical realisations, that makes the two separate [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: We might claim that dispositions are variably realized by a number of categorical bases; therefore they must be distinct from those bases. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 05.4) | |
| A reaction: Cars can be realised by a variety of models, therefore models are not cars? This might work if dispositions are only characterised functionally, as Mumford proposes, but I'm not convinced. |
| 14313 | All properties must be causal powers (since they wouldn't exist otherwise) [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: It seems that every property must be a causal power, since every property must be causally potent (as a necessary condition of its very existence). | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 04.7) | |
| A reaction: Mumford cautiously endorses this idea, which seems to rest on the thesis that 'to exist is to have causal powers'. I think I am even keener on it than Mumford is. Powers and properties need to be disentangled, however. |
| 14318 | Intrinsic properties are just causal powers, and identifying a property as causal is then analytic [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Understanding intrinsic properties as being causal powers is likely to be most profitable, and, if true, renders the causal criterion of property existence true analytically. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.2) | |
| A reaction: [He cites E.Fales on this] I'm inclined to think that in the ultimate ontology the notion of a 'property' drops out. There are true causal powers, and then conventional human ways of grouping such powers together and naming them. |
| 14293 | Dispositions are ascribed to at least objects, substances and persons [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Dispositions are ascribed to at least three distinguishable classes of things: objects, substances, and persons. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 01.1) | |
| A reaction: Are dispositions not also ascribed to properties? Magnetism has a disposition to attract iron filings? |
| 14326 | Unlike categorical bases, dispositions necessarily occupy a particular causal role [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The idea of a disposition occupying a different causal role involves a conceptual confusion, ...but there is no conceptual or logical absurdity in a categorical base occupying a different causal role. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 07.3) | |
| A reaction: This is the core of Mumford's theory of dispositions. I'm beginning to think that dispositions are merely ways we have of describing and labelling functional mechanisms, and so 'dispositions' drop out of the final story. |
| 14298 | Dispositions can be contrasted either with occurrences, or with categorical properties [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: For some the notion of a disposition is contrasted with the notion of an occurrence; for others, it is contrasted with that of a categorical property. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 01.6) | |
| A reaction: I vote for dispositions over the other two, but I take the categorical properties to be the main rival. |
| 14314 | If dispositions are powers, background conditions makes it hard to say what they do [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The realist says that disposition ascriptions are ascriptions of real powers. This leaves unanswered the question, 'power to do what?' The problem of background conditions means that the realist cannot say what it is that a power is a power to do. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 04.9) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to say what a disposition will do, under any other account of dispositions. I would take a power to be defined by a 'modal profile', rather than an actual account of what it will lead to. |
| 14325 | Maybe dispositions can replace powers in metaphysics, as what induces property change [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Dispositions can regain the metaphysical role traditionally ascribed to real powers: the that-in-virtue-of-which-something-will-G, if F. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.9) | |
| A reaction: The attraction is that dispositions can be specified a little more clearly (especially in Mumford's functional version) whereas there may be no more to say about a power once it has been located and named. |
| 14312 | Orthodoxy says dispositions entail conditionals (rather than being equivalent to them) [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The orthodox realist view has it that what makes an ascription a disposition ascription is not that it is equivalent to a conditional proposition but that it entails one. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 04.7) | |
| A reaction: Mumford says that Martin has shown that dispositions need not entail conditionals (when a 'fink' is operating, something which intervenes between disposition and outcome). |
| 14291 | Dispositions are not just possibilities - they are features of actual things [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Dispositions should correctly be understood as more than mere possibilities. To say something has a disposition is to say something about how it is actually. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], Pref) | |
| A reaction: To me this is a basic axiom of metaphysics. The word 'power' serves well for the actual embodiment of a disposition. A power gives rise to one or more dispositions. Or one or more powers give rise to a disposition? |
| 14299 | There could be dispositions that are never manifested [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: It seems plausible that a disposition could be possessed though no manifestation events occur. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 01.6) | |
| A reaction: It is more than 'plausible' - it is screamingly obvious to everybody, apart from a few philosophers. "Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest" (Gray's Elegy). |
| 14323 | If every event has a cause, it is easy to invent a power to explain each case [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Given any event, and the assumption that every event has a cause, then some power can always be invented as the cause of that event. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.6) | |
| A reaction: This is a useful warning, and probably explains why 'powers' fell out of fashion in scientifice theorising. They seem to make a return, though, as an appropriate term for the bottom level of each of our explanations. |
| 14328 | Traditional powers initiate change, but are mysterious between those changes [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: In the old-fashioned sense, 'powers' are real potentialities that initiate changes but seem to have a mysterious existence in between those changes. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 07.10) | |
| A reaction: What is a person when they are asleep? What is a dishwasher when it isn't running? What is gunpowder when it doesn't explode? We all understand latent powers. To see them as a 'mystery' is to want to know too much. |
| 14331 | Categorical eliminativists say there are no dispositions, just categorical states or mechanisms [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The categorical eliminativist claims that there are no dispositional properties. All properties must be conceived of as categorical states or mechanisms, in the spirit of Boyle's explanation of powers. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 08.3A) | |
| A reaction: What is the difference between a structure and a mechanism? How do we distinguish an active from an inactive mechanism? Without powers or dispositions, nature is dead junk. |
| 16058 | Dion and Theon coexist, but Theon lacks a foot. If Dion loses a foot, he ousts Theon? [Chrysippus, by Philo of Alexandria] |
| Full Idea: If two individuals occupied one substance …let one individual (Dion) be thought of as whole-limbed, the other (Theon) as minus one foot. Then let one of Dion's feet be amputated. Theon is the stronger candidate to have perished. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Philo (Alex) - On the Eternity of the World 48 | |
| A reaction: [SVF 2.397 - from Chrysippus's lost 'On the Growing Argument'] This is the original of Tibbles the Cat. Dion must persist to change, and then ousts Theon (it seems). Philo protests at Theon ceasing to exist when nothing has happened to him. |
| 14295 | Many artefacts have dispositional essences, which make them what they are [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Thermostats, thermometers, axes, spoons, and batteries have dispositional essences, which make them what they are. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 01.2 iv) | |
| A reaction: I would have thought that we could extend this proposal well beyond artefacts, but it certainly seems particularly clear in artefacts, where a human intention seems to be inescapably involved. |
| 16059 | Change of matter doesn't destroy identity - in Dion and Theon change is a condition of identity [Chrysippus, by Long/Sedley] |
| Full Idea: The Growing Argument said any change of matter is a change of identity. Chrysippus presents it with a case (Dion and Theon) where material diminution is the necessary condition of enduring identity, since the diminished footless Dion survives. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by AA Long / DN Sedley - Hellenic Philosophers commentary 28:175 | |
| A reaction: [The example, in Idea 16058, is the original of Tibbles the Cat] This is a lovely bold idea which I haven't met in the modern discussions - that identity actually requires change. The concept of identity is meaningless without change? |
| 14309 | Truth-functional conditionals can't distinguish whether they are causal or accidental [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If a conditional remains truth-functional it is incapable of expressing the fact that the connection between antecedent and consequent in the conditional is a causal one rather than merely accidental | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 03.8) | |
| A reaction: This is the first step towards an account of conditionals which will work in real life rather than merely in classical logic. |
| 14311 | Dispositions are not equivalent to stronger-than-material conditionals [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The conclusion that disposition ascriptions are not equivalent to stronger-than-material conditionals is largely to be accepted. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 04.7) | |
| A reaction: [he attributes the view to C.B.Martin 1994] It is hard to see how to describe a disposition in anything other than conditional terms. Mumford's 'functional role' probably has to be described conditionally. It is how the conditional cashes out. |
| 14319 | Nomothetic explanations cite laws, and structural explanations cite mechanisms [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: A nomothetic explanation appeals to laws where the explanandum is shown to be an instance of a general law. ...The alternative is a structural explanation, which postulates a mechanism, opening up a hidden world. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.4) | |
| A reaction: [He cites E.McMullin 1978] I am very much in favour of structural explanations, and opposed to nomothetic ones. That is, nomothetic accounts are only the first step towards an explanation - perhaps a mere identification of the explanandum. |
| 14342 | General laws depend upon the capacities of particulars, not the other way around [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Laws, qua true generalities, if they exist at all, are ontologically parasitic upon the capacities of particulars, rather than the other way round. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.6) | |
| A reaction: Quite so. And hence trying to explain a particular behaviour by saying that it falls under a law is absurdly circular and vacuous. |
| 14322 | If fragile just means 'breaks when dropped', it won't explain a breakage [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If fragile means nothing more than 'breaks when dropped', then it is no explanation of why something breaks when dropped. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.5) | |
| A reaction: His point is that you have to unpack the notion of fragile, which presumably cites underlying mechanisms. This is the 'virtus dormitiva' problem - but that explanation of opium's dormitive powers is not entirely stupid. |
| 14337 | Maybe dispositions can replace the 'laws of nature' as the basis of explanation [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: I will consider the case for an ontology of real dispositions replacing the so-called laws of nature as the basic building blocks of explanation. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.1) | |
| A reaction: This precisely summarises the view I am exploring, with a particular focus on real essences. I certainly think the 'laws of nature' must go. See Mumford's second book on this. |
| 14343 | To avoid a regress in explanations, ungrounded dispositions will always have to be posited [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The nature of explanation is such that ungrounded dispositions will always have to be posited in order to avoid a regress of explanation. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.6) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be right, but leaves it open to mock the proposals as 'virtus dormitiva' - empty place-holders that ground explanations but do no explanatory work. What else can be done, though? |
| 14320 | Subatomic particles may terminate explanation, if they lack structure [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The behaviour of subatomic particles cannot be further analysed into structures and this may tempt us to regard these as instances of 'brute' ungrounded dispositions which end any possible regress of explanation. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.4) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, if it is 'structural' explanations we are after (as I think we are) which look for mechanisms. An electron seems to be just three dispositions and no structure, so there is nothing more to say. Ladyman scorns this account. |
| 14324 | Ontology is unrelated to explanation, which concerns modes of presentation and states of knowledge [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Nothing about ontology is at stake in questions of explanation, for explanatory success is contingent upon the modes of presentation of explanans and explananda, and relative states of knowledge and ignorance. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.8) | |
| A reaction: There are real facts about the immediate and unusual causes which immediately precede an event, and these might be candidates for a real explanation. There are also real mechanisms and powers which dictate a things behaviour. |
| 1875 | Dogs show reason in decisions made by elimination [Chrysippus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: A dog makes use of the fifth complex indemonstrable syllogism when, arriving at a spot where three ways meet, after smelling at two roads by which the quarry did not pass, he rushes off at once by the third without pausing to smell. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Outlines of Pyrrhonism I.69 | |
| A reaction: As we might say: either A or B or C; not A; not B; therefore C. I wouldn't want to trust this observation without a lot of analysis of slow-motion photography of dogs as crossroads. Even so, it is a nice challenge to Descartes' view of animals. |
| 20834 | Chrysippus allows evil to say it is fated, or even that it is rational and natural [Plutarch on Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus gives vice blatant freedom to say not only that it is necessary and according to fate, but even that it occurs according to god's reason and the best nature. | |
| From: comment on Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1050c | |
| A reaction: This is Plutarch's criticism of stoic determinism or fatalism. Zeno replied that the punishment for vice may also be fated. It seems that Chysippus did believe that punishments were too harsh, given that vices are fated [p.109]. |
| 20833 | A swerve in the atoms would be unnatural, like scales settling differently for no reason [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus argues against the 'swerve' of the Epicureans, on the grounds that they are doing violence to nature by positing something which is uncaused, and cites dice or scales, which can't settle differently without some cause or difference. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1045c | |
| A reaction: That is, the principle of sufficient reason (or of everything having a cause) is derived from observation, not a priori understanding. Pace Leibniz. As in modern discussion, free will or the swerve only occur in our minds, and not elsewhere. |
| 20835 | Chrysippus is wrong to believe in non-occurring future possibilities if he is a fatalist [Plutarch on Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus's accounts of possibility and fate are in conflict. If he is right that 'everything that permits of occurring even if it is not going to occur is possible', then many things are possible which are not according to fate. | |
| From: comment on Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1055e | |
| A reaction: A palpable hit, I think. Plutarch refers to Chrysippus's rejection of Diodorus Cronus's Master Argument. Fatalism seems to entail that the only future possibilities are the ones that actually occur. |
| 20808 | Everything is fated, either by continuous causes or by a supreme rational principle [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus says (in his 'On Fate') that everything happens by fate. Fate is a continuous string of causes of things which exist or a rational principle according to which the cosmos is managed. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.148 |
| 20837 | Fate is an eternal and fixed chain of causal events [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: Fate is a sempiternal and unchangeable series and chain of things, rolling and unravelling itself through eternal sequences of cause and effect, of which it is composed and compounded. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Aulus Gellius - Noctes Atticae 7.2.01 | |
| A reaction: It seems that Chrysippus (called by Aulus Gellius 'the chief Stoic philosopher') had a rather grandly rhetorical prose style. |
| 20836 | The Lazy Argument responds to fate with 'why bother?', but the bothering is also fated [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus responded to the Lazy Argument (that the outcome of an illness is fated, so there is no point in calling the doctor) by saying 'calling the doctor is fated just as much as recovering', which he calls 'co-fated'. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 28-30 | |
| A reaction: From a pragmatic point of view, this idea also nullifies fatalism, since you can plausibly fight against your fate to your last breath. No evidence could ever be offered in support of fatalism, not even the most unlikely events. |
| 21679 | When we say events are fated by antecedent causes, do we mean principal or auxiliary causes? [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: Some causes are perfect and principal, others auxiliary and proximate. Hence when we say that everything takes place by fate owing to antecedent causes, what we wish to be understood is not perfect and principal causes but auxiliary and proximate causes. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 18.41 | |
| A reaction: This move is described by Cicero as enabling Chrysippus to 'escape necessity and to retain fate'. |
| 5971 | Destiny is only a predisposing cause, not a sufficient cause [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus considered destiny to be not a cause sufficient of itself but only a predisposing cause. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 997) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1056b | |
| A reaction: This appears to be a rejection of determinism, and is the equivalent of Epicurus' introduction of the 'swerve' in atoms. They had suddenly become bothered about the free will problem in about 305 BCE. There must be other non-destiny causes? |
| 20787 | A proposition is what can be asserted or denied on its own [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: A proposition is what can be asserted or denied on its own, for example, 'It is day' or 'Dion is walking'. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.65 | |
| A reaction: Note the phrase 'on its own'. If you say 'it is day and Dion is walking', that can't be denied on its own, because first the two halves must each be evaluated, so presumably that doesn't count as a stoic proposition. |
| 20850 | Passions are judgements; greed thinks money is honorable, and likewise drinking and lust [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus says (in his On Passions) that the passions are judgements; for greed is a supposition that money is honorable, and similarly for drunkennes and wantonness and others. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.111 | |
| A reaction: This is an endorsement of Socrates's intellectualist reading of weakness of will, as against Aristotle's assigning it to overpowering passions. |
| 20869 | The highest degree of morality performs all that is appropriate, omitting nothing [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: He who makes moral progress to the highest degree performs all the appropriate actions in all circumstances, and omits none. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Sophocles - Sophocles' Electra 4.39.22 | |
| A reaction: Hence concerns about omission as well as commission in the practice of ethics can be seen in the light of character and virtue. The world is fully of nice people who act well, but don't do so well on omissions. Car drivers, for example. |
| 3044 | Stoics say that beauty and goodness are equivalent and linked [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Stoics say the beautiful is the only good. Good is an equivalent term to the beautiful; since a thing is good, it is beautiful; and it is beautiful, therefore it is good. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.59 |
| 20838 | Fate initiates general causes, but individual wills and characters dictate what we do [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: The order and reason of fate set in motion the general types and starting points of the causes, but each person's own will [or decisions] and the character of his mind govern the impulses of our thoughts and minds and our very actions. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Aulus Gellius - Noctes Atticae 7.2.11 | |
| A reaction: So if you try and fail it was fate, but if you try and succeed it was you? |
| 20813 | Human purpose is to contemplate and imitate the cosmos [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: The human being was born for the sake of contemplating and imitating the cosmos. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') 2.37 | |
| A reaction: [This seems to be an idea of Chrysippus] Remind me how to imitate the cosmos. Presumably this is living according to nature, but that becomes more obscure when express like this. |
| 3045 | Stoics say justice is a part of nature, not just an invented principle [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Stoics say that justice exists by nature, and not because of any definition or principle. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.66 | |
| A reaction: cf Idea 3024. Stoics thought that nature is intrinsically rational, and therein lies its justice. 'King Lear' enacts this drama about whether nature is just. |
| 20774 | Only nature is available to guide action and virtue [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: What am I to take as the principle of appropriate action and raw material for virtue if I give up nature and what is according to nature? | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - On Common Conceptions 1069e | |
| A reaction: 'Nature' is awfully vague as a guideline, even when we are told nature is rational. I can only make sense of it as 'human nature', which is more Aristotelian than stoic. 'Go with the flow' and 'lay the cards you are dealt' might capture it. |
| 20864 | Live in agreement, according to experience of natural events [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: The goal of life is to live in agreement, which is according to experience of the things which happen by nature. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 2.06a | |
| A reaction: Cleanthes added 'with nature' to Zeno's slogan, and Chyrisppus added this variation. At least it gives you some idea of what the consistent rational principle should be. You still have to assess which aspects of nature should influence us. |
| 5972 | Living happily is nothing but living virtuously [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: According to Chrysippus, living happily consists solely in living virtuously. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr139) by Plutarch - 72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions 1060d | |
| A reaction: This, along with 'live according to nature', is the essential doctrine of stoicism. This is 'eudaimonia', not the modern idea of feeling nice. Is it possible to admire another person for anything other than virtue? (Yes! Looks, brains, strength, wealth). |
| 1777 | Pleasure is not the good, because there are disgraceful pleasures [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Pleasure is not the good, because there are disgraceful pleasures, and nothing disgraceful is good. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.60 | |
| A reaction: I certainly approve of the idea that not all pleasure is intrinsically good. Indeed, I think good has probably got nothing to do with pleasure. 'Disgraceful' is hardly objective though. |
| 5973 | Justice can be preserved if pleasure is a good, but not if it is the goal [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus thinks that, while justice could not be preserved if one should set up pleasure as the goal, it could be if one should take pleasure to be not a goal but simply a good. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 23) by Plutarch - 72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions 1070d | |
| A reaction: This is an interesting and original contribution to the ancient debate about pleasure. It shows Aristotle's moderate criticism of pleasure (e.g. Idea 84), but attempts to pinpoint where the danger is. Aristotle says it thwarts achievement of the mean. |
| 20845 | There are shameful pleasures, and nothing shameful is good, so pleasure is not a good [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus (in his On Pleasure) denies even of pleasure that it is a good; for there are also shameful pleasures, and nothing shameful is good. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.103 | |
| A reaction: Socrates seems to have started this line of the thought, to argue that pleasure is not The Good. Stoics are more puritanical. Nothing counts as good if it is capable of being bad. Thus good pleasures are not good, which sounds odd. |
| 5967 | People need nothing except corn and water [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus praises ad nauseam the lines "For what need mortals save two things alone,/ Demeter's grain and draughts of water clear". | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1043e | |
| A reaction: "Oh, reason not the need!" says King Lear. The remark shows the close affinity of stoicism and cynicism, as the famous story of Diogenes is that he threw away his drinking cup when he realised you could drink with your hands. |
| 5966 | All virtue is good, but not always praised (as in not lusting after someone ugly) [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: Although deeds done in accordance with virtue are congenial, not all are cited as examples, such as courageously extending one's finger, or continently abstaining from a half-dead old woman, or not immediately agreeing that three is four. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 211), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1038f | |
| A reaction: Presumably the point (so elegantly expressed - what a shame we have lost most of Chrysippus) is that virtue comes in degrees, even though its value is an absolute. The same has been said (by Russell and Bonjour) about self-evidence. |
| 20855 | Chrysippus says virtue can be lost (though Cleanthes says it is too secure for that) [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus says that virtue can be lost, owing to drunkenness and excess of black bile, whereas Cleanthes says it cannot, because it consists in secure intellectual grasps, and it is worth choosing for its own sake. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.127 | |
| A reaction: Succumbing to drunkenness looks like evidence that you were not truly virtuous. Mental illness is something else. On the whole I agree the Cleanthes. |
| 5970 | Chrysippus says nothing is blameworthy, as everything conforms with the best nature [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus has often written on the theme that there is nothing reprehensible or blameworthy in the universe since all things are accomplished in conformity with the best nature. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1051b | |
| A reaction: This is Leibniz's "best of all possible worlds", but deriving the idea from the rightness of nature rather than the perfection of God. Chrysippus has a more plausible ground than Leibniz, as for him nasty things follow from conscious choice. |
| 20842 | Rational animals begin uncorrupted, but externals and companions are bad influences [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: The rational animal is corrupted, sometimes because of the persuasiveness of external activities and sometimes because of the influence of companions. For the starting points provided by nature are uncorrupted. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.89 | |
| A reaction: If companions corrupt us, what corrupted the companions? Aren't we all in this together? And where do the 'external activities' originate? |
| 20856 | Justice, the law, and right reason are natural and not conventional [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus says (in On the Honourable) that justice is natural and not conventional, as are the law and right reason. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.128 | |
| A reaction: How does he explain variations in the law between different states? Presumably some of them have got it wrong. What is the criterion for deciding which laws are natural? |
| 1779 | We don't have obligations to animals as they aren't like us [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: We have no obligations of justice to other animals, because they are dissimilar to us. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.66 | |
| A reaction: "Dissimilar" begs questions. Some human beings don't seem much like me. How are we going to treat visiting aliens? |
| 20857 | Justice is irrelevant to animals, because they are too unlike us [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: There is no justice between us and other animals because of the dissimilarity between us and them. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.129 | |
| A reaction: [from lost On Justice Bk 1] What would he make of modern revelations about bonobos and chimpanzees? If there is great dissimilarity between some peoples, does that invalidate justice between them? He also said animals exist for our use. |
| 20812 | Covers are for shields, and sheaths for swords; likewise, all in the cosmos is for some other thing [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: Just as the cover was made for the sake of the shield, and the sheath for the sword, in the same way everything else except the cosmos was made for the sake of other things. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') 2.37 | |
| A reaction: Chrysippus was wise to stop at the cosmos. Similarly, religious teleology had better not ask about the purpose of God. What does he think pebbles are for? Nature is the source of stoic value, so it needs to be purposeful. |
| 21403 | The later Stoics identified the logos with an air-fire compound, called 'pneuma' [Chrysippus, by Long] |
| Full Idea: From Chrysippus onwards, the Stoics identified the logos throughout each world-cycle not with pure fire, but with a compound of fire and air, 'pneuma'. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 4.4.2 | |
| A reaction: I suspect this was because breath is so vital to the human body. |
| 20828 | Fire is a separate element, not formed with others (as was previously believed) [Chrysippus, by Stobaeus] |
| Full Idea: In his theory fire is said independently to be an element, since it is not formed together with another one, whereas according to the earlier theory fire is formed with other elements. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.10.16c | |
| A reaction: The point is that fire precedes the other elements, and is superior to them. |
| 5975 | Stoics say earth, air, fire and water are the primary elements [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: The Stoics call the four bodies - earth and water and air and fire - primary elements. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 444) by Plutarch - 72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions 1085c | |
| A reaction: Elsewhere (fr 413) Chrysippus denies that they are all 'primary'. Essentially, though, he seems to be adopting the doctrine of Empedocles and Aristotle, in specific opposition to Epicurus' atomism. |
| 14344 | Natural kinds, such as electrons, all behave the same way because we divide them by dispositions [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Regularities exist because we classify kinds on the basis of their dispositions, not on pre-established divisions of kinds. The dispositions are the basis for the division into kinds, which is why all electrons behave in the same way. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.7) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as being so obvious that it is hardly worth saying, and yet an enormous number of philosophers seem to have been led up the garden path by the notion of a 'kind', probably under the influence of Kripke, Putnam and Wiggins. |
| 14338 | In the 'laws' view events are basic, and properties are categorical, only existing when manifested [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: In the 'laws' world view, events are the basic ontological unit and properties are parasitic upon them. Properties exist only in virtue of their instantiation in events. Properties are categorical, because they are only manifested in the present. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.2) | |
| A reaction: Mumford rejects this view, and I am with him all the way. The first requirement is that properties be active, and not inert. See Leibniz on this. |
| 14339 | Without laws, how can a dispositionalist explain general behaviour within kinds? [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The problem is how, without general laws, can the dispositionalist explain why generalities in behaviour are true of kinds. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: And the answer is to make kinds depend on individuals, and not vice versa, and then point to the necessary patterns that arise from conjunctions of individual dispositions, given their identity in many individuals. |
| 14341 | Dretske and Armstrong base laws on regularities between individual properties, not between events [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The improved Dretske/Armstrong regularity view of laws dispenses with the empiricist articulation of them in terms of events, and construes them as singular statements of fact that describe relations between properties. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: They then seem to go a bit mystical, by insisting that the properties are 'universals' (even if they have to be instantiated). Universals explain nothing. |
| 14340 | It is a regularity that whenever a person sneezes, someone (somewhere) promptly coughs [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: It is no doubt a true regularity that every time I sneeze, someone, somewhere in the world, immediately coughs. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: Not a huge problem for the regularity theory of laws, but the first challenge that it must meet. |
| 14345 | The necessity of an electron being an electron is conceptual, and won't ground necessary laws [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The logical necessity of physical laws is not required by dispositional essentialism. An electron would not be an electron if its behaviour were different from the behaviour it has in the actual world, but this necessity is purely conceptual. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.8) | |
| A reaction: [He is particularly aiming this at Ellis and Lierse 1994] This may be missing the point. Given those electron dispositions, the electrons necessitate law-like happenings. Whether a variable entity is called an 'electron' is trivial. |
| 14307 | Some dispositions are so far unknown, until we learn how to manifest them [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: It seems reasonable to assume that there are some dispositions of some things of which we are not aware because we have not yet discovered the way to get these dispositions to manifest. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 03.7) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a pretty good description of what scientists are currently doing when, for example, they build a new particle accelerator. |
| 20819 | The past and the future subsist, but only the present exists [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: When he wished to be subtle, Chrysippus wrote that the past part of time and the future part do not exist but subsist, and only the present exists. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - On Common Conceptions 1081f | |
| A reaction: [from lost On Void] I think I prefer the ontology of Idea 20818. Idea 20819 does not offer an epistemology. Is the present substantial enough to be known? The word 'subsist' is an ontological evasion (even though Russell briefly relied on it). |
| 20818 | The present does not exist, so our immediate experience is actually part past and part future [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Stoics do not allow a minimal time to exist, and do not want to have a partless 'now'; so what one thinks one has grasped as present is in part future and in part past. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - On Common Conceptions 1081c | |
| A reaction: [from lost On Parts Bk3-5] I agree with the ontology here, but I take our grasp of the present to be very short-term memory of the past. I ignore special relativity. Chrysippus expressed two views about this; in the other one he was a Presentist. |
| 20821 | Time is continous and infinitely divisible, so there cannot be a wholly present time [Chrysippus, by Stobaeus] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus says most clearly that no time is wholly present; for since the divisibility of continuous things is infinite, time as a whole is also subject to infinite divisibility by this method of division. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42 | |
| A reaction: But what is his reason for thinking that time is a continuous thing? There is a minimum time in quantum mechanics (the Planck Time), but do these quantum intervals overlap? Compare Idea 20819. |
| 3048 | Stoics say that God the creator is the perfection of all animals [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Stoics say that God is an animal immortal, rational, perfect, and intellectual in his happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil, having a foreknowledge of the world; however, he is not the figure of a man, and is the creator of the universe. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.72 |
| 20773 | The origin of justice can only be in Zeus, and in nature [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: One can find no other starting point or origin for justice except the one derived from Zeus and that derived from the common nature; for everything like this must have that starting point, if we are going to say anything at all about good and bad things. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1035c | |
| A reaction: [in lost 'On Gods' bk 3] This appears to offer two starting points, in the mind of Zeus, and in nature, though since nature is presumed to be rational the two may run together. Is Zeus the embodiment, or the unconscious source, or the maker of decrees? |
| 5965 | The source of all justice is Zeus and the universal nature [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: It is not possible to discover any other beginning of justice or any source for it other than that from Zeus and from the universal nature. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 326), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1035c | |
| A reaction: If the source is 'universal nature', that could agree with Plato, but if the source is Zeus, then stoicism is a religion rather than a philosophy. |
| 3042 | Stoics teach that law is identical with right reason, which is the will of Zeus [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Stoics teach that common law is identical with that right reason which pervades everything, being the same with Zeus, who is the regulator and chief manager of all existing things. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.53 |
| 1782 | Stoics teach that God is a unity, variously known as Mind, or Fate, or Jupiter [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Stoics teach that God is unity, and that he is called Mind, and Fate, and Jupiter, and by many names besides. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.68 |
| 20830 | Death can't separate soul from body, because incorporeal soul can't unite with body [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: Death is a separation of soul from body. But nothing incorporeal can be separated from a body. For neither does anything incorporeal touch a body, and the soul touches and is separated from the body. Therefore the soul is not incorporeal. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Tertullian - The Soul as an 'Astral Body' 5.3 | |
| A reaction: This is the classic interaction difficulty for substance dualist theories of mind. |
| 21404 | There is a rationale in terrible disasters; they are useful to the whole, and make good possible [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: The evil which occurs in terrible disasters has a rationale [logos] peculiar to itself: for in a sense it occurs in accordance with universal reason, and is not without usefulness in relation to the whole. For without it there could be no good. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 4.4.5 | |
| A reaction: [a quotation from Chrysippus. Plutarch, Comm Not 1065b] A nice question about any terrible disaster is whether it is in some way 'useful', if we take a broader view of things. Almost everything has a good aspect, from that perspective. |