162 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? |
| 2136 | Philosophers become as divine and orderly as possible, by studying divinity and order [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Because a philosopher's links are with a realm which is divine and orderly, he becomes as divine and orderly as is humanly possible. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 500d) | |
| A reaction: Can you be too orderly? Without order nothing of any interest (to gods or men) could ever happen. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 23767 | The winds of the discussion should decide its destination [Plato] |
| Full Idea: We must let our destination be decided by the winds of the discussion. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 394d) | |
| A reaction: Always loved that one. Had it on the wall of my teaching room. I take it that the aim is to follow reason, rather than the powerful rhetoric of some member of the group. The spirit of philosophy is to avoid prejudgement of your enquiry. |
| 23682 | It would be absurd to be precise about the small things, but only vague about the big things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It would be absurd to devote all our energies to securing the greatest possible precision and clarity in matters of little consequence, and not to demand the highest precision in the most important things of all. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 504e) | |
| A reaction: I offer this to modern analytic philosophers, who often strike me as having this priority the wrong way round. Their defence, of course, is that the important things depend on the things of little consequence - but they can lose the plot with big things. |
| 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'. |
| 2151 | Dialectic is the only method of inquiry which uproots the things which it takes for granted [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Dialectic is the only field of inquiry whose quest for certainty causes it to uproot the things it takes for granted in the course of its journey. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 533c) |
| 2154 | The ability to take an overview is the distinguishing mark of a dialectician [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The ability to take an overview is the distinguishing mark of a dialectician. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 537c) |
| 4011 | For Plato, rationality is a vision of and love of a cosmic rational order [Plato, by Taylor,C] |
| Full Idea: In Plato's theory, to be rational is to have a vision of rational order, and to love this order. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 537d) by Charles Taylor - Sources of the Self §4.1 | |
| A reaction: There may be a worrying elitism in this, but it helps to pinpoint the sense in which 'all philosophers are Platonists'. |
| 2093 | You must never go against what you actually believe [Plato] |
| Full Idea: You must never go against what you actually believe. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 350e) |
| 2130 | People often merely practice eristic instead of dialectic, because they don't analyse the subject-matter [Plato] |
| Full Idea: People often think they are practising dialectic when they are practising eristic; this is because of their inability to conduct the enquiry by dividing the subject-matter into its various aspects. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 454a) |
| 11223 | Definitions usually have a term, a 'definiendum' containing the term, and a defining 'definiens' [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: Many definitions have three elements: the term that is defined, an expression containing the defined term (the 'definiendum'), and another expression (the 'definiens') that is equated by the definition with this expression. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 2) | |
| A reaction: He notes that the definiendum and the definiens are assumed to be in the 'same logical category', which is a right can of worms. |
| 11215 | Notable definitions have been of piety (Plato), God (Anselm), number (Frege), and truth (Tarski) [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: Notable examples of definitions in philosophy have been Plato's (e.g. of piety, in 'Euthyphro'), Anselm's definition of God, the Frege-Russell definition of number, and Tarski's definition of truth. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], Intro) | |
| A reaction: All of these are notable for the extensive metaphysical conclusions which then flow from what seems like a fairly neutral definition. We would expect that if we were defining essences, but not if we were just defining word usage. |
| 11225 | A definition needs to apply to the same object across possible worlds [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: In a modal logic in which names are non-vacuous and rigid, not only must existence and uniqueness in a definition be shown to hold necessarily, it must be shown that the definiens is satisfied by the same object across possible worlds. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 2.4) |
| 11227 | The 'revision theory' says that definitions are rules for improving output [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: The 'revision theory' of definitions says definitions impart a hypothetical character, giving a rule of revision rather than a rule of application. ...The output interpretation is better than the input one. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 2.7) | |
| A reaction: Gupta mentions the question of whether such definitions can extend into the trans-finite. |
| 11224 | Traditional definitions are general identities, which are sentential and reductive [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: Traditional definitions are generalized identities (so definiendum and definiens can replace each other), in which the sentential is primary (for use in argument), and they involve reduction (and hence eliminability in a ground language). | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 2.2) |
| 11226 | Traditional definitions need: same category, mention of the term, and conservativeness and eliminability [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: A traditional definition requires that the definiendum contains the defined term, that definiendum and definiens are of the same logical category, and the definition is conservative (adding nothing new), and makes elimination possible. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 2.4) |
| 11221 | A definition can be 'extensionally', 'intensionally' or 'sense' adequate [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: A definition is 'extensionally adequate' iff there are no actual counterexamples to it. It is 'intensionally adequate' iff there are no possible counterexamples to it. It is 'sense adequate' (or 'analytic') iff it endows the term with the right sense. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 1.4) |
| 11217 | Chemists aim at real definition of things; lexicographers aim at nominal definition of usage [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: The chemist aims at real definition, whereas the lexicographer aims at nominal definition. ...Perhaps real definitions investigate the thing denoted, and nominal definitions investigate meaning and use. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: Very helpful. I really think we should talk much more about the neglected chemists when we discuss science. Theirs is the single most successful branch of science, the paradigm case of what the whole enterprise aims at. |
| 11216 | If definitions aim at different ideals, then defining essence is not a unitary activity [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: Some definitions aim at precision, others at fairness, or at accuracy, or at clarity, or at fecundity. But if definitions 'give the essence of things' (the Aristotelian formula), then it may not be a unitary kind of activity. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 1) | |
| A reaction: We don't have to accept this conclusion so quickly. Human interests may shift the emphasis, but there may be a single ideal definition of which these various examples are mere parts. |
| 11218 | Stipulative definition assigns meaning to a term, ignoring prior meanings [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: Stipulative definition imparts a meaning to the defined term, and involves no commitment that the assigned meaning agrees with prior uses (if any) of the term | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: A nice question is how far one can go in stretching received usage. If I define 'democracy' as 'everyone is involved in decisions', that is sort of right, but pushing the boundaries (children, criminals etc). |
| 11220 | Ostensive definitions look simple, but are complex and barely explicable [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: Ostensive definitions look simple (say 'this stick is one meter long', while showing a stick), but they are effective only because a complex linguistic and conceptual capacity is operative in the background, of which it is hard to give an account. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: The full horror of the situation is brought out in Quine's 'gavagai' example (Idea 6312) |
| 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). |
| 2145 | In mathematics certain things have to be accepted without further explanation [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The practitioners of maths take certain things as basic, and feel no further need to explain them. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 510c) |
| 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. |
| 11222 | The ordered pair <x,y> is defined as the set {{x},{x,y}}, capturing function, not meaning [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: The ordered pair <x,y> is defined as the set {{x},{x,y}}. This does captures its essential uses. Pairs <x,y> <u,v> are identical iff x=u and y=v, and the definition satisfies this. Function matters here, not meaning. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: This is offered as an example of Carnap's 'explications', rather than pure definitions. Quine extols it as a philosophical paradigm (1960:§53). |
| 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. |
| 8726 | Geometry can lead the mind upwards to truth and philosophy [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Geometry can attract the mind towards truth. It can produce philosophical thought, in the sense that it can reverse the midguided downwards tendencies we currently have. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 527b) | |
| A reaction: Hence the Academy gate bore the inscription "Let no one enter here who is ignorant of geometry". He's not necessarily wrong. Something in early education must straighten out some of the kinks in the messy human mind. |
| 9863 | We aim for elevated discussion of pure numbers, not attaching them to physical objects [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Our discussion of numbers leads the soul forcibly upward and compels it to discuss the numbers themselves, never permitting anyone to propose for discussion numbers attached to visible or tangible bodies. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 525d) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as very important, because it shows that the platonist view of numbers places little or no importance on counting, inviting the question of whether they could be understood in complete ignorance of the process of counting. |
| 9864 | In pure numbers, all ones are equal, with no internal parts [Plato] |
| Full Idea: With those numbers that can be grasped only in thought, ..each one is equal to every other, without the least difference and containing no internal parts. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 526a) | |
| A reaction: [Two voices in the conversation are elided] Intriguing and tantalising. Does 13 have internal parts, in the platonist view? If so, is it more than the sum of its parts? Is Plato committed to numbers being built from indistinguishable abstract units/ |
| 8727 | Geometry is not an activity, but the study of unchanging knowledge [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Geometers talk as if they were actually doing something, and the point of their theorems is to have some effect (like 'squaring'). ...But the sole purpose is knowledge, of things which exist forever, not coming into existence and passing away. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 527a) | |
| A reaction: Modern Constructivism defends the view which Plato is attacking. The existence of real infinities can be doubted simply because we have not got enough time to construct them. |
| 9861 | The same thing is both one and an unlimited number at the same time [Plato] |
| Full Idea: We see the same thing to be both one and an unlimited number at the same time. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 525a) | |
| A reaction: Frege makes the same point, that a pair of boots is both two and one. The point is at its strongest in opposition to empirical accounts of arithmetic. However, Mill observes that pebbles can be both 5 and 3+2, without contradiction. |
| 9862 | To become rational, philosophers must rise from becoming into being [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers must rise up out of becoming and grasp being, if they are ever to become rational. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 525b) | |
| A reaction: I am never quite sure what 'being' means in such contexts, and it seems suffused with mysticism. In Plato's case, it is obviously related to what is unchanging, but why would something lack 'being', just because it underwent change? |
| 21818 | Being depends on the Good, which is not itself being, but superior to being [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Not only do the objects of knowledge owe their being known to the good, but their being is also due to it, although the good is not being, but superior to it in rank and power. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 509b) | |
| A reaction: I was surprised to find that in Plotinus the One is not being, because it is the source of being, and thus superior to being. Then a footnote sent me here, and I realise that Plato thought that the Form of the Good is superior to Being. |
| 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. |
| 2061 | The best things (gods, healthy bodies, good souls) are least liable to change [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The best things (such as a god, a healthy body, or a good soul) are least liable to alteration or change. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 380e) |
| 6562 | Plato's reality has unchanging Parmenidean forms, and Heraclitean flux [Plato, by Fogelin] |
| Full Idea: For Plato, the intelligible world - the world of eternal and unchanging forms - is Parmenidean; the world of appearances - the world of flux we inhabit - is Heraclitean. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: Parmenides said reality is 'One'; Heraclitus said reality is 'flux'. This is a nice summary of Plato's view, and encapsulates two key influences on Plato, though the mathematical reality of Pythagoras should also be mentioned on the 'forms' side. |
| 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 |
| 2142 | The plurality of beautiful things must belong to a single class, because they have a single particular character [Plato] |
| Full Idea: All the things we refer to as pluralities (e.g. beautiful things) we also count as belonging to a single class by virtue of the fact that they have a single particular character. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 507b) |
| 5094 | Plato's Forms are said to have no location in space [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Plato claims that the Forms are not beyond the heavens, because they are not anywhere. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 203a09 | |
| A reaction: This is an important corrective to caricature accounts of Plato's Forms (encouraged, I'm afraid, by 'Phaedrus'), when critics talk about 'Platonic Heaven'. Forms are not part of space-time. I like the view that they are hypothetical truths. |
| 12043 | Forms are not universals, as they don't cover every general term [Plato, by Annas] |
| Full Idea: Despite a widely misinterpreted passage in the Republic, Plato does not think that there is a Form for every general term; Forms are not what came to be called universals. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Julia Annas - Ancient Philosophy: very short introduction Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: Hm. This is a bit of a blow to someone who has catalogued Platonic Forms under 'Universals'. See also Idea 12042, for what Annas thinks Plato may really have had in mind. |
| 2159 | Craftsmen making furniture refer to the form, but no one manufactures the form of furniture [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The manufacture of beds and tables involves the craftsman looking to the form and then making the furniture. The form itself is not manufactured by anyone. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 596b) |
| 17 | A Form applies to a set of particular things with the same name [Plato] |
| Full Idea: We always postulate a single form for each set of particular things, to which we apply the same name. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 596a) | |
| A reaction: This implies that the Forms have a great deal in common with the things, but also hints at the possibility of the Form being quite different from the particular things. |
| 12122 | Plato mistakenly thought forms were totally abstracted away from matter [Bacon on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato lost the real fruit of his opinion, by considering forms as absolutely abstracted from matter, and not confined and determined by matter. | |
| From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Francis Bacon - The Advancement of Learning II.VII.5 | |
| A reaction: This thought is roughly what got me interested in abstraction, on which you will find many ideas in this database. Research into Bacon's thought is hampered by that fact that the logicians have hijacked abstraction in recent philosophy. |
| 5574 | Plato's Forms not only do not come from the senses, but they are beyond possibility of sensing [Plato, by Kant] |
| Full Idea: In Plato's use of the expression 'idea' we can see that he understood by it something that not only could never be borrowed from the senses, but even goes beyond the concepts of the understanding, since nothing in experience could be congruent to it. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Immanuel Kant - Critique of Pure Reason B370 | |
| A reaction: This is why Kant is not a Platonist - because he thinks the limits of our world are the limits of our capacity for possible experience, and Platonic Forms exceed that limit. Personally I am with Plato. I'll never experience a quark either. |
| 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. |
| 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? |
| 2133 | Knowledge must be of the permanent unchanging nature of things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Those who can see each thing in itself, in its permanent and unvarying nature, we'll say they have knowledge and are not merely entertaining beliefs. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 479e) |
| 2162 | If theory and practice conflict, the best part of the mind accepts theory, so the other part is of lower grade [Plato] |
| Full Idea: When appearance and measure conflict…it is the best part of the mind which accepts measurements and calculations, and the part which opposes them, therefore, must be a low-grade part of the mind. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 603a) |
| 2140 | True belief without knowledge is like blind people on the right road [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Don't people who have a correct belief but no knowledge strike you as exactly like blind people who happen to be taking the right road? | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 506c) | |
| A reaction: Good. I love the style of this. Most philosophical points can be made in one concise sentence, and it is only the industry of journals and academe that forces points to be extended so much. |
| 2096 | Is the function of the mind management, authority and planning - or is it one's whole way of life? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Does the mind have a function - say, management, authority and planning? And isn't one's way of life a function of the mind? | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 353d) | |
| A reaction: Note that this is Plato, not some Darwinian materialist. This strikes me as the correct starting point - what does a mind appear to be for (with or without the help of Darwin)? Plato's proposals seem good (though we could cut 'authority'). |
| 6009 | Psychic conflict is clear if appetite is close to the body and reason fairly separate [Plato, by Modrak] |
| Full Idea: Plato makes psychic conflict intelligible by appeal to a conception of the soul such that the soul is closely connected to the body at the level of appetite and relatively separate from the body at the level of reason. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 339b) by Deborah K.W. Modrak - Classical theories of Mind | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure about this at the level of biology or ontology, but at the phenomenal level this is obviously right. Hunger makes consciousness feel like a physical event, but doing arithmetic doesn't seem remotely physical. |
| 6041 | There is a third element to the mind - spirit - lying between reason and appetite [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Is the third element of the mind a form of reason, so that there are only two elements to it, reason and appetite? There must be a third element, if spirit ('thumos') can be shown to be distinct - and you can see it in children when they are born. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 441a) | |
| A reaction: This is Plato's famous tripartite doctrine of the soul, though in other dialogues he says that there is only reason and appetite. The suspicion is that he fixed the soul having three parts, to match the three parts of his republic's social structure. |
| 2127 | The mind has parts, because we have inner conflicts [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If someone is thirsty but something is making the mind resist the pull of its thirst, isn't this bound to be a different part of the mind from the thirsty part? | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 439b) | |
| A reaction: For Descartes there is one mind pulled by appetite and the 'natural light'. For Hume they don't seem to be 'parts' of anything. For Fodor there is an integrated team of modules. I like Fodor, and good integration is virtue. |
| 1737 | The soul seems to have an infinity of parts [Aristotle on Plato] |
| Full Idea: There seem in a way to be an infinity of parts of the soul, and not only those that some have given, distinguishing the reasoning, spirited and desiderative parts, or with others the rational and irrational. | |
| From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 439b) by Aristotle - De Anima 432a25 | |
| A reaction: This seems a nice response to Plato's proposal that the psuché has two or three parts. He could have said that the soul was a unity, and has no parts, but the proposal of infinite parts seems much closer to the modern neurological view of the mind. |
| 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. |
| 5945 | The 'Republic' is a great work of rhetorical theory [Lawson-Tancred on Plato] |
| Full Idea: The 'Republic' is the greatest single achievement of ancient rhetorical theory. | |
| From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Hugh Lawson-Tancred - Plato's Republic and Greek Enlightenment Ch.9 | |
| A reaction: A lovely inversion of our normal reading of Plato! Is the real aim of philosophy the making of good speeches? Is the great aim to display the true beauty of the human mind, as the Olympics display the beauty of the body? |
| 23316 | For Plato and Aristotle there is no will; there is only rational desire for what is seen as good [Plato, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: Neither Plato nor Aristotle has a notion of the will. …Willing is a form of desire which is specific to reason. If reason perceives something as good, it wills or desires it. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 577e) by Michael Frede - A Free Will 1 | |
| A reaction: [Frede cites 577e, Aris. 413c8, 1113a15-, 1136b6] How do they explain the apparent decisions of non-rational animals? No modern neuroscientist thinks there is a physical object called a person's 'will'. |
| 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. |
| 16 | We avoid evil either through a natural aversion, or because we have acquired knowledge [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Unless a man is born with a heaven-sent aversion to wrong-doing, or acquires the knowledge to refrain from it, he will never do right of his own free will. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 366c) | |
| A reaction: This is the territory explored so carefully by Aristotle (after he had read Republic!). It is hard to see what the knowledge could be, other than awareness of consequences. |
| 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. |
| 16565 | Without the surface decoration, poetry shows only appearances and nothing of what is real [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If you strip a poet's works of their musical colorings and take them by themselves, I think you know what they look like. …We say that a maker of an image - an imitator - knows nothing about that which is but only about its appearance. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 601a) | |
| A reaction: Knowing the appearances well is more than most people can manage, and aspirations to know the true reality may be an idle dream. Poets are, I presume, welcome in the Cave. |
| 2160 | Representation is two steps removed from the truth [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The province of representation is indeed two steps removed from the truth. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 602c) |
| 2163 | Artists should be excluded from a law-abiding community, because they destroy the rational mind [Plato] |
| Full Idea: We are right to refuse admission to artists in any community which is going to respect convention, because he destroys the rational mind and feeds the irrational - it is like destroying good citizens by giving ruffians power. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 605b) |
| 2135 | Truth is closely related to proportion [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Truth is closely related to proportion. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 486d) |
| 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 |
| 2141 | I suggest that we forget about trying to define goodness itself for the time being [Plato] |
| Full Idea: I suggest that we forget about trying to define goodness itself for the time being. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 506e) | |
| A reaction: This was a source of some humour in the ancient world (in the theatre). Goodness is like some distant glow, which can never be approached in order to learn of its source. |
| 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? |
| 1869 | The good cannot be expressed in words, but imprints itself upon the soul [Plato, by Celsus] |
| Full Idea: Plato points to the truth about the highest good when he says that it cannot be expressed in words, but rather comes from familiarity - like a flash from the blue, imprinting itself upon the soul. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Celsus - On the True Doctrine (Against Christians) VII | |
| A reaction: It is reasonable to be drawn to something inexpressible, such as an appealing piece of music, but not good philosophy to build a system around something so obscure. |
| 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. |
| 4115 | Plato found that he could only enforce rational moral justification by creating an authoritarian society [Williams,B on Plato] |
| Full Idea: For Plato, the problem of making the ethical into a force was the problem of making society embody rational justification, and that problem could only have an authoritarian solution. | |
| From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Ch. 2 | |
| A reaction: Plato's citizens were largely illiterate. We can be more carrot and less stick. |
| 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. |
| 4547 | Plato measured the degree of reality by the degree of value [Nietzsche on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato measured the degree of reality by the degree of value. | |
| From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 518d) by Friedrich Nietzsche - The Will to Power (notebooks) §572 | |
| A reaction: A most interesting comment. It epitomises the Nietzschean reading of Plato, in which the will to power leads the sense of value, which in turn creates the metaphysics. |
| 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. |
| 2094 | A thing's function is what it alone can do, or what it does better than other things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The function of anything is what it alone can do, or what it can do better than anything else. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 353a) | |
| A reaction: I take this concept to be the lynchpin of Aristotle's virtue ethics. Note that it arises earlier, in Plato. Perhaps he should say what it is 'meant to do'. |
| 2095 | If something has a function then it has a state of being good [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Anything which has been endowed with a function also has a state of being good. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 353b) | |
| A reaction: 'ought' from 'is'? |
| 2129 | Goodness is mental health, badness is mental sickness [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Goodness is a state of mental health, bloom and vitality; badness is a state of mental sickness, deformity and infirmity. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 444e) | |
| A reaction: A nice statement of the closeness of goodness to health for the Greeks. The key point is that health is a deeply natural concept, which bridges the fact-value divide. |
| 12 | If we were invisible, would the just man become like the unjust? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Glaucon: with a ring of invisibility 'the just man would differ in no way from the unjust'. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 360c) | |
| A reaction: I think a highly altruistic person would behave well with the ring, but I'm sure Glaucon would claim that these habits would wear off after a while. But I doubt that. |
| 2168 | Clever criminals do well at first, but not in the long run [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Clever criminals are exactly like those runners who do well on the way up the track, and then flag on the way back. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 613b) | |
| A reaction: Presumably there is some concept of natural justice lurking behind this comparison. Apart from the money, though, it is hard to imagine any professional criminal leading a flourishing life. |
| 2137 | The main aim is to understand goodness, which gives everything its value and advantage [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The most important thing to try to understand is the character of goodness, because this is where anything which is moral (or whatever) gets its value and advantages from. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 505a) | |
| A reaction: I think I'm with Aristotle on this. I understand a good lunch or a good person, but pure goodness just seems to be an empty placeholder. A vote in favour. |
| 2139 | Every person, and every activity, aims at the good [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The Good is something which everyone is after, and is the goal of all their activities. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 505d) | |
| A reaction: An obvious danger of tautology. If a blood crazed army is 'after' a massacre of some sort, that seems to qualify. What proportion is needed for 'everyone'? |
| 2143 | Good has the same role in the world of knowledge as the sun has in the physical world [Plato] |
| Full Idea: As goodness stands in the intelligible realm to intelligence and the things we know, so in the visible realm the sun stands to sight and the things we see. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 508c) | |
| A reaction: The claim seems to be that only goodness makes the world intelligible, but that strikes as closer to mysticism than to objective observation. |
| 2147 | The sight of goodness leads to all that is fine and true and right [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The sight of goodness shows that it is responsible for everything that is right and fine,…and it is the source and provider of truth and knowledge. It is necessary for intelligent conduct of private and public affairs. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 517c) | |
| A reaction: As so often with Plato, I am baffled by such a claim. I sometimes see things in the world which strike me as right or fine, but I cannot conceive of a separate 'sight of goodness'. |
| 2144 | Goodness makes truth and knowledge possible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is goodness which gives the things we know their truth and makes it possible for people to have knowledge. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 508e) | |
| A reaction: If we take truth to be the hallmark of successful thinking, then I have no idea what this means. I can't see how truth would disappear in an amoral cosmos. |
| 2164 | Bad is always destructive, where good preserves and benefits [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Badness always manifests in destruction and corruption, while goodness always manifests in preservation and benefit. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 608e) | |
| A reaction: Suspicions of tautology in this one. Can we have any concepts of good or bad which are not linked to desirable or undesirable outcomes? |
| 4007 | For Plato we abandon honour and pleasure once we see the Good [Plato, by Taylor,C] |
| Full Idea: For Plato, once we see the Good, we cease to be fascinated by and absorbed in the search for honour and pleasure as we were before. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 505d) by Charles Taylor - Sources of the Self §3.2 | |
| A reaction: This is the quasi-religious aspect of the Good - that it is more like a vision than a reason |
| 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). |
| 2138 | Pleasure is commonly thought to be the good, though the more ingenious prefer knowledge [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The usual view of goodness is that it is pleasure, while there's also a more ingenious view that it is knowledge. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 505b) | |
| A reaction: Pleasure clearly has an attraction for everyone (even puritans), and is thus a plausible natural candidate. Is this pure or instrumental knowledge? Hard to justify the former. |
| 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. |
| 2070 | Even people who think pleasure is the good admit that there are bad pleasures [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Those who define good as pleasure are clearly confused, and are compelled to admit that there are bad pleasures, so that the same thing is both good and bad. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 505c) | |
| A reaction: The issue is whether the pleasure can be disentangled from the action. 'It was a hideous murder, but at least the murderer enjoyed it'. Sounds wrong to me. |
| 2157 | Nice smells are intensive, have no preceding pain, and no bad after-effect [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Nice smells have no preceding feeling of pain, they are very intense, and they leave no distress when they are over. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 584b) | |
| A reaction: A nice example for extreme puritans to contemplate. Objections to enjoying nice smells seem almost inconceivable. Puritans will, I suppose, say 'slippery slope'. |
| 2134 | Philosophers are concerned with totally non-physical pleasures [Plato] |
| Full Idea: A person concerned with learning is concerned with purely mental pleasure, having nothing to do with pleasures reaching the mind through the body - assuming the person is a genuine philosopher. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 485d) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to find any argument which can demonstrate that mental pleasures are superior to physical ones. Mill notably failed to do it. |
| 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. |
| 2156 | There are three types of pleasure, for reason, for spirit and for appetite [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Each of the three mental categories (reason, spirit, appetite) has its own particular pleasure, so that there are three kinds of pleasure. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 580d) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure why the types of pleasure are distinguished by mental faculties, rather than by the variety of sources of the pleasure. |
| 2158 | Pleasure-seekers desperately seek illusory satisfaction, like filling a leaky vessel [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Pleasure-seekers desperately and violently seek satisfaction in unreal things for a part of themselves which is also unreal - a leaky vessel they're trying to fill. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 586b) | |
| A reaction: Plato dreams of some enduring 'satisfaction' which never fades. He should have attended more to Heraclitus, and less to Parmenides. |
| 2123 | Excessive pleasure deranges people, making the other virtues impossible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Self-discipline and excessive pleasure cannot go together, because pleasure deranges people just as much as distress. Excessive pleasure cannot partner any of the other virtues. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 402e) | |
| A reaction: This invites an examination of the word 'excessive', which seems too subjective. Aristotle says any good is improved by the addition of pleasure. Pleasure can certainly derange people. |
| 2166 | We should behave well even if invisible, for the health of the mind [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There's nothing better for the mind than morality, and a person ought to behave morally whether or not he owns Gyges' ring. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 612b) |
| 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. |
| 2097 | Isn't it better to have a reputation for goodness than to actually be good? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Unless I gain a reputation for morality, my actually being moral will do me no good, but an immoral person who has managed to get a reputation for morality is said to have a wonderful life. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 365b) |
| 19946 | Morality is a compromise, showing restraint, to avoid suffering wrong without compensation [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The origin and nature of morality is a compromise between the ideal of doing wrong without paying for it, and the worst situation, which is having wrong done to one while lacking the means of exacting compensation. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 359a) | |
| A reaction: This idea is from Glaucon, and is not endorsed by Socrates. Hobbes thought it was right, though he emphasised safety. Game theory makes this approach to moraliy much more plausible. |
| 5 | Justice is merely the interests of the stronger party [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Thrasymachus: Justice or right is simply what is in the interest of the stronger party. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 338c) | |
| A reaction: Not sure whether this is cynicism about the brutal realities of life, or cynicism about the very concept of justice. |
| 7 | Surely you don't return a borrowed weapon to a mad friend? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If one borrowed a weapon from a friend who subsequently went out of his mind and then asked for it back, surely one ought not to return it? | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 331c) | |
| A reaction: Only a Kantian would think of disagreeing with this obvious truth. There is no promise here, but an implicit moral commitment. Such things should always have an all-things-being-equal clause. |
| 8 | Is right just the interests of the powerful? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Thrasymachus: right is the interest of the established government. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 339a) | |
| A reaction: To believe this you would have to believe the powerful control not what is judged to be right, but also the ordinary language which expresses such judgements. Marxism explains that. |
| 15 | Sin first, then sacrifice to the gods from the proceeds [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The thing to do is to sin first and sacrifice afterwards from the proceeds. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 365e) | |
| A reaction: A bit like Graham Greene's Catholicism. One Greek view of the gods seems to be that they are quite myopic and naïve. |
| 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. |
| 5944 | For Plato, virtue is its own reward [Lawson-Tancred on Plato] |
| Full Idea: The 'Republic' is the first sustained philosophical defence of the idea that virtue is its own reward. | |
| From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], Ch.9) by Hugh Lawson-Tancred - Plato's Republic and Greek Enlightenment | |
| A reaction: Sceptics might say that at the heart of his claim is the idea that the virtuous life is the best means of achieving long-term pleasure (as opposed to short-sighted hedonism). What is it about people which could make virtue attractive to them? |
| 2155 | True goodness requires mental unity and harmony [Plato] |
| Full Idea: True goodness requires mental unity and harmony. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 554e) |
| 2126 | A good community necessarily has wisdom, courage, self-discipline and morality [Plato] |
| Full Idea: A good community has everything which is good, so it necessarily has wisdom, courage, self-discipline and morality. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 427e) |
| 23562 | If the parts of our soul do their correct work, we will be just people, and will act justly [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Each one of us in whom each part is doing its own work will himself be just and do his own. …So it is appropriate for the rational part to rule …and for the spirited part to obey. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 441d) | |
| A reaction: 'Do his own' must mean play his own part in society correctly, because his internal faculties are also correctly focused on their role. So balancing the three parts in persons and society is not just an analogy, but one leads to the other. See 443e. |
| 2092 | Simonides said morality is helping one's friends and harming one's enemies [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Simonides claims that morality is doing good to one's friends and harm to one's enemies. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 332d) |
| 19889 | People need society because the individual has too many needs [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Society originates because the individual is not self-sufficient, but has many needs which he cannot supply himself. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 369b) | |
| A reaction: Notice that Plato has the liberal individualist approach to problem, of starting with isolated individuals, and asking why they need to gang together. This is despite the dependency of children, and the proximity of extended families. |
| 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? |
| 19890 | All exchanges in a community are for mutual benefit [Plato] |
| Full Idea: In the community all mutual exchanges are made on the assumption that the parties to them stand to gain. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 369c) | |
| A reaction: The sole purpose of his society appears to be trading, either of goods or of services. The assumption is that if each individual were self-sufficient there would be no society, which strikes me as unlikely. Aristotle offers a better picture. |
| 10 | After a taste of mutual harm, men make a legal contract to avoid it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Once people experience committing wrong and suffering it, they see the disadvantages are unavoidable and the benefits unobtainable, ...so they enter into a contract, guaranteeing no permitting or receiving wrong, ...and they then make laws and decrees. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 359a) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the earliest statement of the social contract idea. Here it both sets up the state and creates morality. This is Glaucon speaking, and is NOT endorsed by Socrates. |
| 23561 | People doing their jobs properly is the fourth cardinal virtue for a city [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The power that consists in everyone's doing his own work rivals wisdom, moderation, and courage in its contribution to the virtue of the city. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 433d) | |
| A reaction: Making conscientious the fourth cardinal virtue. Well said! My maxim for the modern world is that nearly all human misery consists of either bad health or other people not doing their jobs properly. You know I'm right. |
| 2149 | Reluctant rulers make a better and more unified administration [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The less keen the would-be rulers of a community are to rule, the better and less divided the administration of that community are bound to be. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 520d) |
| 2132 | Only rule by philosophers of integrity can keep a community healthy [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Unless communities have philosophers as kings, or the people who are currently called kings and rulers practise philosophy with enough integrity, there can be no end to political troubles. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 473d) |
| 2131 | Is there anything better for a community than to produce excellent people? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Is anything better for a community than for it to engender women and men who are exceptionally good? | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 456e) |
| 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? |
| 2148 | To gain knowledge, turn away from the world of change, and focus on true goodness [Plato] |
| Full Idea: To gain knowledge we must turn the mind away from the world of becoming, until it becomes capable of bearing the sight of real being and reality at its most bright, which we are saying is goodness. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 518c) |
| 2152 | Dialectic is the highest and most important part of the curriculum [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Dialectic occupies the highest position and forms, as it were, the copestone of the curriculum. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 534e) |
| 2153 | Compulsory intellectual work never remains in the mind [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Compulsory intellectual work never remains in the mind. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 536e) |
| 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. |
| 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 |
| 2630 | If Plato's God is immaterial, he will lack consciousness, wisdom, pleasure and movement, which are essential to him [Cicero on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato holds God to be without a body, immaterial; but this is an incomprehensible idea. Such a god would inevitably lack any consciousness, any wisdom and any pleasure (…or motion), all of which are bound up in our idea of God. | |
| From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.30 |
| 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 |
| 14 | If the gods are non-existent or indifferent, why bother to deceive them? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If there are no gods or if they care nothing for human affairs, why should we bother to deceive them? | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 365d) | |
| A reaction: There is incipient deism here, as well as atheism. |
| 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 |
| 2165 | Something is unlikely to be immortal if it is imperfectly made from diverse parts [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Something is unlikely to be immortal if it's a compound, formed imperfectly from diverse parts. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 611b) |
| 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. |
| 13 | Is the supreme reward for virtue to be drunk for eternity? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: (the poets think) 'the supreme reward of virtue was to be drunk for eternity'. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 363d) | |
| A reaction: A perceptive thought. Most people consider the best life to contain endless fun and physical pleasure, so a boozy bawdy holiday in the sunshine ticks all the boxes. |
| 2120 | God is responsible for the good things, but we must look elsewhere for the cause of the bad things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: God and God alone must be held responsible for the good things, but responsibility for bad things must be looked for elsewhere, and not attributed to God. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 379c) |
| 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. |