9 ideas
| 22115 | Wise people should contemplate and discuss the truth, and fight against falsehood [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: The role of the wise person is to meditate on the truth, especially the truth regarding the first principle, and to discuss it with others, but also to fight against the falsity that is its contrary. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Summa Contra Gentiles [1268], I.1.6), quoted by Kretzmann/Stump - Aquinas, Thomas 14 | |
| A reaction: So nice to hear someone (from no matter how long ago) saying that wisdom is concerned with truth. If you lose your grip on truth (which many thinkers seem to have done) you must also abandon wisdom. Then fools rule. |
| 3296 | Sense-data are a false objectification of what is essentially subjective [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The private object or sense datum view is an instance of the false objectification of what is essentially subjective. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Subjective and Objective [1979], p.207) |
| 3295 | Inner v outer brings astonishment that we are a particular person [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The problem of reconciling the objective and subjective points of view takes its purest form in a sense of incredulity that one should be anyone in particular. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Subjective and Objective [1979], p.206) | |
| A reaction: Nice observation. This idea has always struck me forcibly, and seems to be one of those basic intuitions which motivates philosophy, and yet the subject has almost nothing to say about it. Of course you are you, or you wouldn't be amazed by it… |
| 3293 | If you assert that we have an ego, you can still ask if that future ego will be me [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The metaphysical ego, if it is a continuing individual with its identity over time, is just one more thing about which the same problem can be raised - will that ego still be me? | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Subjective and Objective [1979], p.200) | |
| A reaction: You can worry too much about some philosophical questions. If it is me now, and it has continuing individual identity over time, I'm not going to lose sleep over the possibility that it might nevertheless somehow cease to be me. I'm overrated. |
| 3292 | The most difficult problem of free will is saying what the problem is [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The most difficult problem of free will is saying what the problem is. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Subjective and Objective [1979], p.198) |
| 20700 | Without God's influence every operation would stop, so God causes everything [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: If God's divine influence stopped, every operation would stop. Every operation, therefore, of everything is traced back to him as cause. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Summa Contra Gentiles [1268], III.67), quoted by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 3 'Freedom' | |
| A reaction: If the systematic interraction of mind and body counts as an 'operation', then this seems to imply Occasionalism. |
| 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'). |
| 3294 | As far as possible we should become instruments to realise what is best from an eternal point of view [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The right thing to do is to turn oneself as far as possible into an instrument for the realisation of what is best 'sub specie aeternitatis'. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Subjective and Objective [1979], p.204) |
| 15202 | Eternity coexists with passing time, as the centre of a circle coexists with its circumference [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: The centre of a circle is directly opposite any designated point on the circumference. In this way, whatever is in any part of time coexists with what is eternal as being present to it even though past or future with respect to another part of time. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Summa Contra Gentiles [1268], I.66), quoted by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 2 c | |
| A reaction: A nice example of a really cool analogy which almost gets you to accept something which is actually completely incomprehensible. |