75 ideas
| 14179 | The finest branch of wisdom is justice and moderation in ordering states and families [Plato] |
| Full Idea: By far the greatest and fairest branch of wisdom is that which is concerned with the due ordering of states and families, whose name is moderation and justice. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 209a) | |
| A reaction: ['Justice' is probably 'dikaiosune'] It is hard to disagree with this, and it relegates ivory tower philosophical contemplation to second place, unlike the late books of Aristotle's Ethics. |
| 9136 | The paradox of analysis says that any conceptual analysis must be either trivial or false [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: The paradox of analysis says if a conceptual analysis states exactly what the original statement says, then the analysis is trivial; if it says something different from the original, then the analysis is mistaken. All analyses are trivial or false. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 8.5) | |
| A reaction: [source is G.E. Moore] Good analyses typically give explanations, or necessary and sufficient conditions, or inferential relations. At their most trivial they at least produce a more profound dictionary than your usual lexicographer. Not guilty. |
| 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) |
| 9131 | Two long understandable sentences can have an unintelligible conjunction [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: If there is an upper bound on the length of understandable sentences, then two understandable sentences can have an unintelligible conjunction. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 6.4) | |
| A reaction: Not a huge paradox about the use of the word 'and', perhaps, but a nice little warning to be clear about what is being claimed before you cheerfully assert a screamingly obvious law of thought, such as conjunction. |
| 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. |
| 9139 | If nothing exists, no truthmakers could make 'Nothing exists' true [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: If nothing exists, then there are no truthmakers that could make 'Nothing exists' true. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 11.2) | |
| A reaction: [He cites David Lewis] We may be confusing truth with facts. I take facts to be independent of minds, but truth only makes sense as a concept in the presence of minds which are endeavouring to think well. |
| 9140 | Which toothbrush is the truthmaker for 'buy one, get one free'? [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: If I buy two toothbrushes on a 'buy one, get one free' offer, which one did I buy and which one did I get free? Those who believe that each contingent truth has a truthmaker are forced to believe that 'buy one, get one free' is false. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 11.6) | |
| A reaction: Nice. There really is no fact of which toothbrush is the free one. The underlying proposition must presumably be 'two for the price of one'. But you could hardly fault the first slogan under the Trades Descriptions Act. |
| 9119 | No attempt to deny bivalence has ever been accepted [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: The history of deviant logics is without a single success. Bivalence has been denied at least since Aristotle, yet no anti-bivalent theory has ever left the philosophical nursery. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This is part of a claim that nothing in reality is vague - it is just our ignorance of the truth or falsity of some propositions. Personally I don't see why 'Grandad is bald' has to have a determinate truth value. |
| 9135 | We now see that generalizations use variables rather than abstract entities [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: As philosophers gradually freed themselves from the assumption that all words are names, ..they realised that generalizations really use variables rather than names of abstract entities. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 8.4) | |
| A reaction: This looks like a key thought in trying to understand abstraction - though I don't think you can shake it off that easily. (For all x)(x-is-a-bird then x-has-wings) seems to require a generalised concept of a bird to give a value to the variable. |
| 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 |
| 9125 | Denying problems, or being romantically defeated by them, won't make them go away [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: An unsolvable problem is still a problem, despite Wittgenstein's view that there are no genuine philosophical problems, and Kant's romantic defeatism in his treatment of the antinomies of pure reason. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: I like the spin put on Kant, that he is a romantic in his defeatism. He certainly seems reluctant to slash at the Gordian knot, e.g. by being a bit more drastically sceptical about free will. |
| 9137 | Banning self-reference would outlaw 'This very sentence is in English' [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: The old objection to the ban on self-reference is that it is too broad; it bans innocent sentences such as 'This very sentence is in English'. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 11.1) | |
| A reaction: Tricky. What is the sigificant difference between 'this sentence is in English' and 'this sentence is a lie'? The first concerns context and is partly metalinguistic. The second concerns semantics and truth. Concept and content.. |
| 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) |
| 9116 | Vague words have hidden boundaries [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: Vague words have hidden boundaries. The subtraction of a single grain of sand might turn a heap into a non-heap. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], Intro) | |
| A reaction: The first sentence could be the slogan for the epistemic view of vagueness. The opposite view is Sainsbury's - that vague words are those which do not have any boundaries. Sorensen admits his view is highly counterintuitive. I think I prefer Sainsbury. |
| 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) |
| 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. |
| 1607 | Diotima said the Forms are the objects of desire in philosophical discourse [Plato, by Roochnik] |
| Full Idea: According to Diotima, the Forms are the objects of desire operative in philosophical discourse. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 210a4-) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.199 |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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. |
| 9132 | An offer of 'free coffee or juice' could slowly shift from exclusive 'or' to inclusive 'or' [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: Sometimes an exclusive 'or' gradually develops into an inclusive 'or'. A restaurant offers 'free coffee or juice'. The customers ask for both, and gradually they are given it, first as a courtesy, and eventually as an expectation. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 7.2) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] A very nice example - of the rot of vagueness even seeping into the basic logical connectives. We don't have to accept it, though. Each instance of usage of 'or', by manager or customer, might be clearly one or the other. |
| 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. |
| 9128 | It is propositional attitudes which can be a priori, not the propositions themselves [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: The primary bearer of apriority is the propositional attitude (believing, knowing, guessing and so on) rather than the proposition itself. A proposition could be a priori to homo sapiens but a posteriori to Neandethals. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 6.3) | |
| A reaction: A putative supreme being is quite useful here, who might even see the necessity of Arsenal beating Manchester United next Saturday. Unlike infants, adults know a priori that square pegs won't fit round holes. |
| 9130 | Attributing apriority to a proposition is attributing a cognitive ability to someone [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: Every attribution of apriority to a proposition is tacitly an attribution of a cognitive ability to some thinker. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 6.3) | |
| A reaction: The ability would include a range of background knowledge, as well as a sheer power of intellect. If you know all of Euclid's theorems, you will spot facts about geometrical figues quicker than me. His point is important. |
| 9118 | The colour bands of the spectrum arise from our biology; they do not exist in the physics [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: The bands of colour in a colour spectrum do not correspond to objective discontinuities in light wavelengths. These apparently external bands arise from our biology rather than simple physics. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], Intro) | |
| A reaction: If any more arguments are needed to endorse the fact that some qualities are clearly secondary (and, to my amazement, such arguments seem to be very much needed), I would take this to be one of the final conclusive pieces of evidence. |
| 9124 | We are unable to perceive a nose (on the back of a mask) as concave [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: The human perceptual system appears unable to represent a nose as concave rather than convex. If you look at the concave side of a mask, you see the features as convex. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: I don't think that is quite true. You wouldn't put a mask on if you thought it was convex. It is usually when seen at a distance with strong cross-lighting that the effect emerges. Nevertheless, it is an important point. |
| 174 | True opinion without reason is midway between wisdom and ignorance [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There is a state of mind half-way between wisdom and ignorance - having true opinions without being able to give reasons for them. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 202a) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 2140, where Plato scorns this state of mind. What he describes could be split into two - purely lucky true beliefs, and 'externalist knowledge', with non-conscious justification. |
| 9126 | Bayesians build near-certainty from lots of reasonably probable beliefs [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: Bayesians demonstrate that a self-correcting agent can build an imposing edifice of near-certain knowledge from numerous beliefs that are only slightly more probable than not. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as highly significant for the coherence account of justification, even if one is sceptical about the arithmetical approach to belief of Bayesianism. It seems obvious that lots of quite likely facts build towards certainty, Watson. |
| 9121 | Illusions are not a reason for skepticism, but a source of interesting scientific information [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers tend to associate illusions with skepticism. But since illusions are signs of modular construction, they are actually reason for scientific hope. Illusions have been very useful in helping us to understand vision. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice reversal of the usual view. If I see double, it reveals to me that my eyes are not aligned properly. Anyone led to scepticism by illusions should pay more attention to themselves, and less to the reality they hope to know directly. |
| 180 | We call a person the same throughout life, but all their attributes change [Plato] |
| Full Idea: During the period from boyhood to old age, man does not retain the same attributes, though he is called the same person. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 207d) | |
| A reaction: This precisely identifies the basic problem of personal identity over time. If this is the problem, DNA looks more and more significant for the answer, though it would be an awful mistake to think a pattern of DNA was a person. |
| 181 | Only the gods stay unchanged; we replace our losses with similar acquisitions [Plato] |
| Full Idea: We retain identity not by staying the same (the preserve of gods) but by replacing losses with new similar acquisitions. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 208b) | |
| A reaction: Any modern student of personal identity should be intrigued by this remark! It appears to take a rather physical view of the matter, and to be aware of human biology as a process. Are my continuing desires token-identical, or just 'similar'? |
| 9134 | The negation of a meaningful sentence must itself be meaningful [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: The negation of any meaningful sentence must itself be meaningful. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 8.1) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Compare 'there is another prime number beyond the highest one we have found' with its negation. The first seems verifiable in principle, but the second one doesn't. So the verificationist must deny Sorensen's idea? |
| 9133 | Propositions are what settle problems of ambiguity in sentences [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: Propositions play the role of dis-ambiguators; they are the things between which utterances are ambiguous. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 7.7) | |
| A reaction: I have become a great fan of propositions, and I think this is one of the key reasons for believing in them. The proposition is what we attempt to pin down when asked 'what exactly did you mean by what you just said?' |
| 4026 | Beauty is harmony with what is divine, and ugliness is lack of such harmony [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Ugliness is out of harmony with everything that is godly; beauty, however, is in harmony with the divine. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 206d) | |
| A reaction: This remark shows how the concept of 'harmony' is at the centre of Greek thought (and is a potential bridge of the is/ought gap). |
| 172 | Love of ugliness is impossible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There cannot be such a thing as love of ugliness. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 201a) |
| 173 | Beauty and goodness are the same [Plato] |
| Full Idea: What is good is the same as what is beautiful. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 201c) |
| 183 | Stage two is the realisation that beauty of soul is of more value than beauty of body [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The second stage of progress is to realise that beauty of soul is more valuable than beauty of body. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 210b) |
| 184 | Progress goes from physical beauty, to moral beauty, to the beauty of knowledge, and reaches absolute beauty [Plato] |
| Full Idea: One should step up from physical beauty, to moral beauty, to the beauty of knowledge, until at last one knows what absolute beauty is. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 211c) | |
| A reaction: Presumably this is why Socrates refused sexual favours to Alcibiades. The idea is inspiring, and yet it is a rejection of humanity. |
| 171 | Music is a knowledge of love in the realm of harmony and rhythm [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Music may be called a knowledge of the principles of love in the realm of harmony and rhythm. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 187c) |
| 176 | Love follows beauty, wisdom is exceptionally beautiful, so love follows wisdom [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Wisdom is one of the most beautiful of things, and Love is love of beauty, so it follows that Love must be a love of wisdom. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 204b) | |
| A reaction: Good, but wisdom isn't the only exceptionally beautiful thing. Music is beautiful partly because it is devoid of ideas. |
| 14177 | Love assists men in achieving merit and happiness [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Phaedrus: Love is not only the oldest and most honourable of the gods, but also the most powerful to assist men in the acquisition of merit and happiness, both here and hereafter. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 180b) | |
| A reaction: Maybe we should talk less of love as a feeling, and more as a motivation, not just in human relationships, but in activities like gardening and database compilation. |
| 179 | Love is desire for perpetual possession of the good [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Love is desire for perpetual possession of the good. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 206a) | |
| A reaction: Even the worst human beings often have lovers. 'Perpetual' is a nice observation. |
| 177 | If a person is good they will automatically become happy [Plato] |
| Full Idea: 'What will be gained by a man who is good?' 'That is easy - he will be happy'. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 205a) | |
| A reaction: Suppose you tried to assassinate Hitler in 1944 (a good deed), but failed. Happiness presumably results from success, rather than mere good intentions. |
| 14178 | Happiness is secure enjoyment of what is good and beautiful [Plato] |
| Full Idea: By happy you mean in secure enjoyment of what is good and beautiful? - Certainly. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 202c) | |
| A reaction: We seem to have lost track of the idea that beauty might be an essential ingredient of happiness. |
| 170 | The only slavery which is not dishonourable is slavery to excellence [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The only form of servitude which has no dishonour has for its object the acquisition of excellence. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 184c) |
| 182 | The first step on the right path is the contemplation of physical beauty when young [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The man who would pursue the right way to his goal must begin, when he is young, by contemplating physical beauty. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 210a) |
| 9129 | I can buy any litre of water, but not every litre of water [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: I am entitled to buy any litre of water, but I am not entitled to buy every litre of water. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 6.3) | |
| A reaction: A decent social system must somehow draw a line between buying up all the water and buying up all the paintings of Vermeer. Even the latter seems wicked, but it is hard to pin down the reason. |
| 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) |
| 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. |
| 175 | Gods are not lovers of wisdom, because they are already wise [Plato] |
| Full Idea: No god is a lover of wisdom or desires to be wise, for he is wise already. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 204a) |
| 9122 | God cannot experience unwanted pain, so God cannot understand human beings [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: Theologians worry that God may be an alien being. God cannot feel pain since pain is endured against one's will. God is all powerful and suffers nothing against His Will. To understand pain, one must experience pain. So God's power walls him off from us. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: I can't think of a good theological reply to this. God, and Jesus too (presumably), can only experience pain if they volunteer for it. It is inconceivable that they could be desperate for it to stop, but were unable to achieve that. |
| 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) |