3 ideas
| 6215 | 'Contingent' means that the cause is unperceived, not that there is no cause [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: For contingent, men do not mean that which hath no cause, but that which hath not for cause any thing that we perceive, as when a traveller meets a shower, they both had sufficient causes, but they didn't cause one another, so we say it was contingent. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Of Liberty and Necessity [1654], §95) | |
| A reaction: Contingent nowadays means 'might not have happened', or 'does not happen in all possible worlds'. Personally I share Hobbes' doubts about the concept of contingency, and this is quite a good account of the misunderstanding. |
| 7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
| Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
| From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
| A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate'). |
| 16745 | No one even knows the nature and properties of a fly - why it has that colour, or so many feet [Bacon,R] |
| Full Idea: No one is so wise regarding the natural world as to know with certainty all the truths that concern the nature and properties of a single fly, or to know the proper causes of its color and why it has so many feet, neither more nor less. | |
| From: Roger Bacon (Opus Maius (major works) [1254], I.10), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.6 | |
| A reaction: Pasnau quotes this in the context of 'occult' qualities. It is scientific essentialism, because Bacon clearly takes it that the explanation of these things would be found within the essence of the fly, if we could only get at it. |