57 ideas
| 224 | When questions are doubtful we should concentrate not on objects but on ideas of the intellect [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Doubtful questions should not be discussed in terms of visible objects or in relation to them, but only with reference to ideas conceived by the intellect. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135e) |
| 232 | Opposites are as unlike as possible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Opposites are as unlike as possible. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159a) |
| 8937 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic [Hegel on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic. | |
| From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Georg W.F.Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit Pref 71 | |
| A reaction: It is a long way from the analytic tradition of philosophy to be singling out a classic text for its 'artistic' achievement. Eventually we may even look back on, say, Kripke's 'Naming and Necessity' and see it in that light. |
| 2653 | If the parts of the universe are subject to the law of nature, the whole universe must also be subject to it [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: If the parts of the universe are subject to the law of nature, then the universe itself must be subject to this law. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.86) |
| 13986 | Plato found antinomies in ideas, Kant in space and time, and Bradley in relations [Plato, by Ryle] |
| Full Idea: Plato (in 'Parmenides') shows that the theory that 'Eide' are substances, and Kant that space and time are substances, and Bradley that relations are substances, all lead to aninomies. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Gilbert Ryle - Are there propositions? 'Objections' |
| 14150 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made [Russell on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made. | |
| From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Bertrand Russell - The Principles of Mathematics §337 |
| 16150 | One is, so numbers exist, so endless numbers exist, and each one must partake of being [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If one is, there must also necessarily be number - Necessarily - But if there is number, there would be many, and an unlimited multitude of beings. ..So if all partakes of being, each part of number would also partake of it. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 144a) | |
| A reaction: This seems to commit to numbers having being, then to too many numbers, and hence to too much being - but without backing down and wondering whether numbers had being after all. Aristotle disagreed. |
| 229 | The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 155d) |
| 21821 | Plato's Parmenides has a three-part theory, of Primal One, a One-Many, and a One-and-Many [Plato, by Plotinus] |
| Full Idea: The Platonic Parmenides is more exact [than Parmenides himself]; the distinction is made between the Primal One, a strictly pure Unity, and a secondary One which is a One-Many, and a third which is a One-and-Many. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08 | |
| A reaction: Plotinus approves of this three-part theory. Parmenides has the problem that the highest Being contains no movement. By placing the One outside Being you can give it powers which an existent thing cannot have. Cf the concept of God. |
| 221 | Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The absolute good and the beautiful and all which we conceive to be absolute ideas are unknown to us. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 134c) |
| 227 | You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name [Plato] |
| Full Idea: You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 147d) |
| 223 | If you deny that each thing always stays the same, you destroy the possibility of discussion [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If a person denies that the idea of each thing is always the same, he will utterly destroy the power of carrying on discussion. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135c) |
| 210 | It would be absurd to think there were abstract Forms for vile things like hair, mud and dirt [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Are there abstract ideas for such things as hair, mud and dirt, which are particularly vile and worthless? That would be quite absurd. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 130d) |
| 220 | The concept of a master includes the concept of a slave [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Mastership in the abstract is mastership of slavery in the abstract. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133e) |
| 211 | If admirable things have Forms, maybe everything else does as well [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is troubling that if admirable things have abstract ideas, then perhaps everything else must have ideas as well. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 130d) |
| 219 | If absolute ideas existed in us, they would cease to be absolute [Plato] |
| Full Idea: None of the absolute ideas exists in us, because then it would no longer be absolute. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133c) |
| 228 | Greatness and smallness must exist, to be opposed to one another, and come into being in things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: These two ideas, greatness and smallness, exist, do they not? For if they did not exist, they could not be opposites of one another, and could not come into being in things. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 149e) |
| 16151 | Plato moves from Forms to a theory of genera and principles in his later work [Plato, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: It seems to me that Plato in the later dialogues, beginning with the second half of 'Parmenides', wants to substitute a theory of genera and theory of principles that constitute these genera for the earlier theory of forms. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Title, Unity, Authenticity of the 'Categories' V | |
| A reaction: My theory is that the later Plato came under the influence of the brilliant young Aristotle, and this idea is a symptom of it. The theory of 'principles' sounds like hylomorphism to me. |
| 218 | Participation is not by means of similarity, so we are looking for some other method of participation [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Participation is not by means of likeness, so we must seek some other method of participation. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133a) |
| 212 | The whole idea of each Form must be found in each thing which participates in it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The whole idea of each form (of beauty, justice etc) must be found in each thing which participates in it. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 131a) |
| 213 | Each idea is in all its participants at once, just as daytime is a unity but in many separate places at once [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Just as day is in many places at once, but not separated from itself, so each idea might be in all its participants at once. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 131b) |
| 216 | If things are made alike by participating in something, that thing will be the absolute idea [Plato] |
| Full Idea: That by participation in which like things are made like, will be the absolute idea, will it not? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132e) |
| 215 | If things partake of ideas, this implies either that everything thinks, or that everything actually is thought [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If all things partake of ideas, must either everything be made of thoughts and everything thinks, or everything is thought, and so can't think? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132c) |
| 217 | Nothing can be like an absolute idea, because a third idea intervenes to make them alike (leading to a regress) [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible for anything to be like an absolute idea, because a third idea will appear to make them alike, and if that is like anything, it will lead to another idea, and so on. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133a) |
| 214 | If absolute greatness and great things are seen as the same, another thing appears which makes them seem great [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If you regard the absolute great and the many great things in the same way, will not another appear beyond, by which all these must appear to be great? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132a) |
| 15851 | Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The part would not be the part of many things or all, but of some one character ['ideas'] and of some one thing, which we call a 'whole', since it has come to be one complete [perfected] thing composed [created] of all. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157d) | |
| A reaction: A serious shot by Plato at what identity is. Harte quotes it (125) and shows that 'character' is Gk 'idea', and 'composed' will translate as 'created'. 'Form' links this Platonic passage to Aristotle's hylomorphism. |
| 15846 | In Parmenides, if composition is identity, a whole is nothing more than its parts [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: At the heart of the 'Parmenides' puzzles about composition is the thesis that composition is identity. Considered thus, a whole adds nothing to an ontology that already includes its parts | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 2.5 | |
| A reaction: There has to be more to a unified identity that mere proximity of the parts. When do parts come together, and when do they actually 'compose' something? |
| 15849 | Plato says only a one has parts, and a many does not [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: In 'Parmenides' it is argued that a part cannot be part of a many, but must be part of something one. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 3.2 | |
| A reaction: This looks like the right way to go with the term 'part'. We presuppose a unity before we even talk of its parts, so we can't get into contradictions and paradoxes about their relationships. |
| 15850 | Anything which has parts must be one thing, and parts are of a one, not of a many [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The whole of which the parts are parts must be one thing composed of many; for each of the parts must be part, not of a many, but of a whole. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
| A reaction: This is a key move of metaphysics, and we should hang on to it. The other way madness lies. |
| 13259 | It seems that the One must be composed of parts, which contradicts its being one [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The One must be composed of parts, both being a whole and having parts. So on both grounds the One would thus be many and not one. But it must be not many, but one. So if the One will be one, it will neither be a whole, nor have parts. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137c09), quoted by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2 | |
| A reaction: This is the starting point for Plato's metaphysical discussion of objects. It seems to begin a line of thought which is completed by Aristotle, surmising that only an essential structure can bestow identity on a bunch of parts. |
| 15847 | Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Everything is surely related to everything as follows: either it is the same or different; or, if it is not the same or different, it would be related as part to whole or as whole to part. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 146b) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a really helpful first step in trying to analyse the nature of identity. Two things are either two or (actually) one, or related mereologically. |
| 2628 | Why would mind mix with matter if it didn't need it? [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: If the gods have no need of the sensible world, why mix up mind with water and water with mind, if mind can exist by itself without any need of matter? | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.24) | |
| A reaction: This question migrates into our puzzles about why a separate mental substance would be produced by evolution. If it is device physical systems use to promote themselves, mental substance is reduced to an inferior and dependent role. |
| 20814 | Eloquence educates, exhorts, comforts, distracts and unites us, and raises us from savagery [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: How wonderful is the power of eloquence! It enables us to learn and to teach. We use it to exhort and persuade, to comfort the unfortunate, to distract the timid and calm the passionate. It unites us in law and society, and raises us from savagery. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], 2.147) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Cicero would have been well aware of the doubts about rhetoric felt by Socrates (and possibly Plato). Cicero was probably the greatest Roman orator. |
| 2640 | We have the death penalty, but still have thousands of robbers [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: We have robbers by the thousand, although they have the penalty of death before their eyes. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.86) |
| 222 | Only a great person can understand the essence of things, and an even greater person can teach it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Only a man of very great natural gifts will be able to understand that everything has a class and absolute essence, and an even more wonderful man can teach this. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135a) |
| 4677 | If suicide is wrong because only God disposes of our lives, it must also be wrong to save lives [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Were the disposal of human life so much the peculiar province of the Almighty that it were an encroachment on His right, for men to dispose of their own lives; it would be equally criminal to act for the preservation of life as for its destruction. | |
| From: David Hume (On suicide [1775]), quoted by Jonathan Glover - Causing Death and Saving Lives §13 | |
| A reaction: A characteristically wicked and neat point. Maybe we can intervene in the environment (diverting a falling stone), but not directly in a life? Life is sacred, but stones are not? |
| 2652 | Some regard nature simply as an irrational force that imparts movement [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Some regard nature as an irrational force which merely imparts a mechanical motion to material bodies. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.81) |
| 225 | The unlimited has no shape and is endless [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The unlimited partakes neither of the round nor of the straight, because it has no ends nor edges. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137e) |
| 233 | Some things do not partake of the One [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The others cannot partake of the one in any way; they can neither partake of it nor of the whole. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159d) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 231 |
| 2062 | The only movement possible for the One is in space or in alteration [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If the One moves it either moves spatially or it is altered, since these are the only motions. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 138b) |
| 231 | Everything partakes of the One in some way [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The others are not altogether deprived of the one, for they partake of it in some way. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 233. |
| 2645 | Why shouldn't the gods fear their own destruction? [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Why should the gods not be apprehensive of their own possible dissolution? | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.114) |
| 2627 | I wonder whether loss of reverence for the gods would mean the end of all virtue [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: I do not know whether, if our reverence for the gods were lost, we should not also see the end of good faith, of human brotherhood, and even of justice itself, which is the keystone of all the virtues. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.3) |
| 2651 | God doesn't obey the laws of nature; they are subject to the law of God [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: God is not subject to obey the laws of nature. It is nature that is subject to the laws of God. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.77) |
| 2634 | It seems clear to me that we have an innate idea of the divine [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Let us take it as agreed that we have a preconception or "an innate idea" (as I have called it) or a prior knowledge of the divine. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.44) |
| 234 | We couldn't discuss the non-existence of the One without knowledge of it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There must be knowledge of the one, or else not even the meaning of the words 'if the one does not exist' would be known. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 160d) |
| 2636 | Many primitive people know nothing of the gods [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: There must be many wild and primitive peoples who have no idea of the gods at all. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.62) |
| 2647 | It is obvious from order that someone is in charge, as when we visit a gymnasium [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: If one comes into a gymnasium and sees everything properly arranged and carried on in order, one does not imagine these arrangements to be accidental, but infers that there is someone in command whose orders are obeyed. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.15) |
| 2655 | If the barbarians of Britain saw a complex machine, they would be baffled, but would know it was designed [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: If someone were to take the celestial globe of Posidonius and show it to the people of Britain, would a single one of those barbarians fail to see that it was the product of a conscious intelligence? | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.88) |
| 2656 | Chance is no more likely to create the world than spilling lots of letters is likely to create a famous poem [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: If someone thinks chance made the world, he should also think that if an infinite number of the letters of the alphabet were shaken together and poured out on the ground it would be possible for them to spell out the whole 'Annals' of Ennius. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.93) |
| 2650 | If a person cannot feel the power of God when looking at the stars, they are probably incapable of feeling [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: If any man cannot feel the power of God when he looks upon the stars, then I doubt whether he is capable of any feeling at all. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.55) |
| 2657 | If everything with regular movement and order is divine, then recurrent illnesses must be divine [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Are we to find a divinity in every regular movement and in everything which happens in a constant order? If so, we shall have to say that tertian and quartan agues are divine because their course and recurrence is absolutely uniform. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], III.24) |
| 2638 | Either the gods are identical, or one is more beautiful than another [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Are the gods all exactly the same? If not, then one must be more beautiful than another. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.80) |
| 2635 | The gods are happy, so virtuous, so rational, so must have human shape [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: We agree the gods are happy, and no happiness is possible without virtue: there is no virtue without reason: and reason is associated only with the human form: then it must follow that the gods themselves have human shape. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.48) |
| 2641 | Why believe in gods if you have never seen them? [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Did you ever actually see a god? Then why do you believe that gods exist? | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.88) |
| 2659 | The lists of good men who have suffered and bad men who have prospered are endless [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Time would fail me if I tried to list all the good men for whom things have turned out badly. So it would if I tried to mention all the wicked who have prospered. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], III.80) |
| 2658 | The gods blame men for having vices, but they could have given us enough reason to avoid them [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: You gods say that the fault lies in the vices of mankind. But you could have endowed men with reason in a form which would exclude all vice and crime. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], III.76) |