Zeno Of Elea And His Paradoxes, Part 1

Studying under the great Parmenides, Zeno of Elea lived from 490 to 430 BCE, writing on topics ranging from mathematics, science, and philosophy. From all academic perspectives, Zeno's significance to intellectual history lies in his contribution to and development of the concept of infinity. In fact, most consider Zeno to be the first thinker in the West to demonstrate the problems with infinity in practical application.

Although we lack almost all of Zeno's work, we learn most about him through Plato, Aristotle, Proclus, and Simplicius. The majority of our sources, however, derive from Aristotle's writing on Zeno. In fact, because we have almost no primary sources, many scholars have filled in the missing gaps of Zeno's arguments with educated and very researched guesses.

It is important that I also highlight some interpretive issues. Zeno spent a majority of his time on what is currently referred to as his "Paradoxes." Most philosophers traditionally interpret Zeno's paradoxes as supporting arguments to the monistic metaphysics of his teacher, Parmenides. Others interpreters say he meant to oppose Parmenides, while some contend he merely meant to contest the ideas of motion that were commonly held in his time. Still yet, recent researchers claim his paradoxes responded to Pythagorean philosophy.

Since scholarship finds Zeno's philosophy very problematic to interpret, and thorough contemplation of Zeno's work requires more mathematics than I am willing to write about, I will espouse here the nine paradoxes that scholars have extrapolated from Zeno's philosophy by means of the traditional interpretation when applicable.

The Achilles Paradox. Imagine Achilles and another -- obviously slower -- runner. When the slower man starts running, Achilles then chases after him. However, by the time Achilles reaches the point where the other man presently is, the runner will have moved on to a new point. Then Achilles must run to a new point, from which the runner, again, has already moved, ad infinitum. From the traditional interpretation, Zeno wishes to discredit motion, or change, as a mere illusion in accordance with Parmenides' philosophy.

The Racetrack Paradox. Scholars also refer to this as the progressive dichotomy. The paradox supposes a runner that begins a race at a fixed point, the starting line, and quickly moves to another fixed point, the finish line. However, according to Zeno, by the time he traverses half the distance of the track, the distance between start and finish, he must again traverse half the distance of the remainder, then half of the next remainder, ad infinitum. We see in yet another way how Zeno suggests motion and change is an illusion, or better yet, an impossible goal.

The Arrow Paradox. We see here another paradox on the illusion of movement. If we assume that time exists as a succession of "timeless" moments, Zeno suggests the idea of an archer. The archer will shoot an arrow, but this arrow can only take up a distance in space that equals the length of the bow. Since in every "moment" the arrow cannot move in or out of this space, because that would require time, or a new moment, then the arrow stays perpetually in some place. Since a place cannot move, the arrow itself never moves but stays stuck in a particular place. Motion is only illusory.

The Stadium or Moving Rows Paradox. Zeno here proposes a very weak paradox, at least in its assumption, but highlights a very important concept in Physics. However, this paradox will take several sentences to explain. In this paradox, he wishes to refute a commonly held belief of the time. The belief held said that a body of fixed length that traverses the fixed distance of another body will do so in the same amount of time if the former body were to traverse the second distance (or body) again.

Zeno contests this theory, proposing another paradox. Imagine a stadium where there are three equal, parallel, horizontal, and linear tracks. On track A, there is a stationary vehicle A, that rests in the center of the track; on track B, there is a vehicle B that starts from the very left of the track and moves at a constant speed, X, toward the right of the track; and on track C, there is a vehicle C that starts from the very right of the track and moves at a constant speed, X, toward the left of the track. It turns out that vehicles B and C pass one another in half the time that it takes for either vehicle B or C to pass A. He merely points out what we now consider relative velocity, but in this scenario, he stretches the analogy in attempt to state the following point that Aristotle rephrases in his Physica: "it turns out that half the time is equal to its double."

For diagrams and a similar, yet longer explanation, read this article on Zeno's Moving Rows in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Limited and Unlimited Paradox. Should there exist many things in the world but only in a limited amount, in contrast to a world in which only one thing exists, we may suppose at first two things existing. Zeno would state, that for these two objects to exist, they must have distinctive characteristics that separate them, but for the objects to be separated, there must also exist a third thing, whether it be a generic thing, a space of separation, or a quality of separation. For three things to exist, then there must be a fourth... ad infinitum. In order that many things could exist in a limited amount, they must actually be unlimited as well, and this is an obvious contradiction. Zeno, as a result, concludes with Parmenides' thesis that the world is One.

In the second and final segment, I shall continue with the final four paradoxes of Zeno and consider their importance to the intellectual history of philosophy, mathematics, and science.

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Edmund Husserl on the Essential Laws of Consciousness

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"If all consciousness is subject to essential laws in a manner similar to that in which spatial reality is subject to mathematical laws, then these essential laws will be of most fertile significance in investigating facts of the conscious life of human and brute animals."

-Edmund Husserl

A video on Husserl, Heidegger and Phenomenology:

Primary Source: The Essential Husserl: Basic Writings in Transcendental Phenomenology (Studies in Continental Thought) by Edmund Husserl

Secondary Source: Husserl (The Routledge Philosophers) by David Woodruff Smith

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Thomas Hobbes on Facts as the 'Brute Beasts' of the Intellectual Domain

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"All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called "Facts". They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain."

-Thomas Hobbes

A video of a class lecture at Yale on the sovereign state and Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan:

Primary Source: The Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

Secondary Source: Hobbes: A Very Short Introduction by Richard Tuck

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Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibniz on Simple Ideas and Primary Principles

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"Finally there are simple ideas of which no definition can be given; there are also axioms or postulates, or in a word primary principles, which cannot be proved and have no need of proof."

-Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibniz

 

A video about Leibniz, Modality and Possible Worlds:

Primary Sources: Discourse on Metaphysics and Other Essays by Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibniz

Secondary Sources: Cambridge Companion to Leibniz by Nicholas Jolley

Leibniz: An Intellectual Biography by Maria Rosa Antognazza

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Gilles Deleuze on Power, Impotence, and Maliciousness

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"It is always from the depths of its impotence that each power center draws its power, hence their extreme maliciousness, and vanity."

-Gilles Deleuze

Again... another video from the European Graduate School. These guys have some really good stuff, you should check out their page on YouTube. In any event, here is a 2004 lecture that Jacques Derrida gave on Gilles Deleuze.

Primary Source: Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari

Secondary Source: Gilles Deleuze (Routledge Critical Thinkers) by Claire Colebrook

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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel on Thinking and Generalization

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"An idea is always a generalization, and generalization is a property of thinking. To generalize means to think."

-Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Another video from the European Graduate School. Slavoj Zizek speaks on "A Return to Hegel" : 

Primary Source: The Science of Logic by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Secondary Source: The Accessible Hegel by Michael Allen Fox

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Hannah Arendt on Freedom and Necessity

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"Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because his freedom is always won in his never wholly successful attempts to liberate himself from necessity."

-Hannah Arendt

This is a lecture put on by the European Graduate School by Judith Butler, in which she discusses Hannah Arendt, Ethics, and Responsibility:

Primary Source: The Portable Hannah Arendt by Hannah Arendt edited by Peter Baehr

Secondary Source: Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World, Second Edition by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl

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John Dewey on the Gravity of Thinking

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"Anyone who has begun to think, places some portion of the world in jeopardy."

-John Dewey

A short video by Davidson Films on the life and works of John Dewey:

Primary Source: Liberalism and Social Action by John Dewey

Secondary Source: John Dewey and American Democracy by Robert B. Westbrook

 

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Plato on Philosophy as Music

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"Philosophy is the highest music." 

-Plato

A version of Plato's Allegory of the Cave in clay:

Primary Source: Five Dialogues of Plato edited by G.M.A. Grube

Secondary Source: Introduction to Philosophy and Writings of Plato by Thomas Taylor

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Friedrich Nietzsche on Friends and Writing

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"A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends."

-Friedrich Nietzsche

A short exposition on Nietzsche's idea of Nihilism and the Death of God:

Primary Source: Basic Writings of Nietzsche (Modern Library Classics) by Friedrich Nietzsche 

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Secondary Source: Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist by Walter Kaufmann

 

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Michel Foucault on Archaeology and Mankind

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"As the archaeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end."

-Michel Foucault

John Frow of the University of Melbourne gives a lecture on Michel Foucault:

Primary Source: Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault

Secondary Source: Cambridge Introduction to Foucault (Cambridge Introductions to Literature) by Lisa Downing

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Parmenides Of Elea

Parmenides of Elea, often consider the Grandfather or Father of Western Philosophy, lived and wrote during the early to middle part of the fifth century BCE. His didactic poem On Nature survives only in fragments, while the "Proem," the introductory verses to On Nature, have been fully preserved.

The story begins with Parmenides traveling to the home, or underworld, in which the goddesses Day and Night reside. Two parts make up the work, the first being "The Way of Truth" and the second "The Way of Appearance." Parmenides writes in an apocalyptic style which begs a number of hermeneutical questions; however, Parmenides seeks to critique the metaphysical theories proposed before him.

Truth, to Parmenides, was necessarily eternal and immutable. He lays out a thought experiment. First, two methods of inquiry exist, to seek that which is and that which is not. Something either is or is not. To him, the latter is impossible because to speak of something that is not is unintelligible. Something cannot be known if it does not exist. Therefore, inquiry seeks that which is.

Thinkers prior to his era proposed metaphysical first principles that fundamentally required change or motion, a necessity Parmenides found absurd. For change and motion exist, something must transition from an is not to an is, and that which is notis an impossibility. Therefore, his first principle(s) started with the purest form of that which is: eternity and immutability.

Parmenides' conclusions leave us with quite a few reservations. From his perspective, our empirical view of the world must change and/or re-explain notions such as change, generation, motion, and asymmetry. On the other hand, this narrative may caution us against the fallible reasons of man, as explained in a lengthy cosmology put forth by the goddess.

Parmenides certainly questioned the thinkers of his day, but thinkers today are still up in the air about his work. The most common interpretation of Parmenides reads him as a material monist, where the prime substance of the world is simply eternity and immutability. This is, however, very short-sighted. A better interpretation may suggest that Parmenides wishes to juxtapose two ways of thinking: Truth versus appearance, theory versus practice, reason versus experience, so on and so forth. This interpretation allows for Parmenides critique of earlier philosophers and suggests that metaphysics must not only consider change and motion as fundamental principles but also eternity and immutability.

An additional interpretation explains that Parmenides is developing a "meta" physics, an eternal and immutable substance/world, from which the changing and moving physical world, known as physics, comes. Likewise, scholars have built on this interpretation with modal and perspectival adjustments, in which "appearances" are different modes or perspectives of some monistic substance.

In any event, Parmenides opens up new questions to the dialogue of philosophy that proceeded him. Plato, in particular, based hisParmenides on his work, about which he probably learned a great deal from Socrates, who Parmenides supposedly met in Socrates' younger days on a trip to Athens. Likewise, Plato's Republic certainly shares many themes with Parmenides' work, most obviously through Plato's "Allegory of the Cave."

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Soren Kierkegaard on Happiness

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"A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him."

-Soren Kierkegaard

An old and rather poor visual quality video on Kierkegaard by Dr. Rick Roderick: 

Primary Source: The Essential Kierkegaard compiled and edited by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong

 

Secondary Source: Kierkegaard in the Present Age (Marquette Studies in Philosophy) by Gordon Daniel Marino

Baruch Spinoza on Understanding and Freedom

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"The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free."

-Baruch Spinoza

A video on Spinoza's Ethics:

Primary Source: Ethics by Baruch Spinoza

 

Secondary Source: Cambridge Companion to Spinoza edited by Don Garrett

 

John Locke on Mankind, Equality and Independence

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"All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions."

-John Locke 

Three Minute Philosophy on the great John Locke:

Primary Sources: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke

Two Treatises of Government and a Letter Concerning Toleration by John Locke

  

Secondary Source: John Locke and Modern Life by Lee Ward

  

David Hume on Eloquence and Understanding

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"Eloquence, at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the desires and affections, captivating the willing hearers, and subduing their understanding."

-David Hume

A BBC video on David Hume's theory of knowledge:

Primary Source: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume 

 

Secondary Source: Cambridge Companion to Hume by David Fate Norton and Jacqueline Taylor

St. Thomas Aquinas on Philosophers, Poets and Wonder

"Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder."

-St. Thomas Aquinas

An introduction to the life and works of St. Thomas Aquinas:

Primary Source: Thomas Aquinas: Selected Writings edited by Ralph McInerny 

 

Secondary Source: Aquinas 101: A Basic Introduction to the Thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas by Francis Selman

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Saussure on Difference, Phenomena and Language

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"It is useful to the historian, among others, to be able to see the commonest forms of different phenomena, whether phonetic, morphological or other, and how language lives, carries on and changes over time."

-Ferdinand de Saussure

Paul Fry, a Yale Professor, examines semiotics and structuralism with respect to the thought of Ferdinand de Saussure. 

Primary Source: Writings in General Linguistics by Ferdinand de Saussure

 

Secondary Source: Cambridge Companion to Saussure by Carol Sanders

Plato on Democracy and Tyranny

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"Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty."

-Plato

Encyclopedia Channel on Plato:

Primary Source: Plato's Republic by Plato, translated by Allan Bloom

 

Secondary Source: Companion to Plato's Republic by Nicholas P. White

 

Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi on Prejudice and Principles

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"To lay aside all prejudices, is to lay aside all principles. He who is destitute of principles is governed by whims."

-Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi

No videos today, but take a look at the introduction to Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Polemicist, socialite, and literary figure, Jacobi was an outspoken critic, first of the rationalism of German late Enlightenment philosophy, then of Kant's Transcendental Idealism, especially in the form that the early Fichte gave to it, and finally of the Romantic Idealism of the late Schelling. In all cases, his opposition to the philosophers was based on his belief that their passion for explanation unwittingly led them to confuse conditions of conceptualization with conditions of existence, thereby denying all room for individual freedom or for a personal God. Jacobi made this point, in defence of individualism and personalistic values, in a number of public controversies, in the course of which he put in circulation expressions and themes that resonate to this day. He was the one who invited Lessing, who he thought was walking on his head in the manner of all philosophers, to perform a salto mortale (a jump heels over head) that would redress his position and thus allow him to move again on the ground of common sense. He was also responsible for forging the concept of ‘nihilism’ — a condition of which he accused the philosophers — and thereby initiating the discourse associated with it. His battle cry, which he first directed at the defenders of Enlightenment rationalism and then at Kant and his successors, was that ‘consistent philosophy is Spinozist, hence pantheist, fatalist and atheist’. The formula had the effect of bringing Spinoza to the centre of the philosophical discussion of the day. In the face Kant and his idealistic successors, Jacobi complained that they had subverted the language of the ‘I’ by reintroducing it on the basis of abstractions that in fact negated its original value. They had thus replaced real selfhood with the mere illusion of one.

But perhaps the most influential of Jacobi's formulas was the claim that there is no ‘I’ without a ‘Thou’, and that the two can recognize and respect one another only in the presence of a transcendent and personal God. Because of his defence of the individual and the ‘exception’, Jacobi is sometime taken as a proto-existentialist. This view must be balanced by the consideration that Jacobi was a defender of conservative values that he felt threatened by the culture of the day; that he never considered himself an irrationalist; on the contrary, that he thought his ‘faith’ to be essentially and truly rational; and that he tried more than once to develop a positive theory of reason. As a literary figure, he criticized the Sturm und Drang movement and dramatized in two novels the problem of reconciling individualism with social obligation. An exponent of British economic and political liberalism, Jacobi was an early critic of the French revolution, the destructiveness of which he considered the practical counterpart of the speculative nihilism of the philosophers... Continue reading at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi

Primary Source: The Main Philosophy Writings by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi

Secondary Source: Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi: A Study of the Origin of German Realism by Norman Wilde

Immanuel Kant on Knowledge by Intuition

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"All thought must, directly or indirectly, by way of certain characters, relate ultimately to intuitions, and therefore, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us."

-Immanuel Kant

A video from a documentary on Modern Philosophy, in which Kant is described as the great synthesizer of empiricism (i.e., Hume) and rationalism (i.e., Descartes):

Primary Source: Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

 

Secondary Source: Cambridge Companion to Kant (Cambridge Companion to Philosophy) by Paul Guyer

Martin Heidegger on Beings in Time

"Time is not a thing, thus nothing which is, and yet it remains constant in its passing away without being something temporal like the beings in time."

-Martin Heidegger

A BBC video on the life and philosophy of Martin Heidegger:

Primary Sources: Being and Time by Martin Heidegger

 

Basic Writings by Martin Heidegger, compiled by Harper Perennial Modern Classics 

 

Secondary Source: Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Martin Heidegger and Being and Time by Stephen Mulhall

 

Slavoj Zizek on Cinema

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"Cinema is the ultimate pervert art. It doesn't give you what you desire - it tells you how to desire."

-Slavoj Zizek

A video of a Zizek lecture on "What it means to be a revolutionary today"

Primary Source: First As Tragedy, Then as Farce by Slavoj Zizek

 

Secondary Source: Zizek: A (Very) Critical Introduction by Marcus Pound

Gottfried Wilhem Freiherr von Leibniz on Ideas and First Principles

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"Finally there are simple ideas of which no definition can be given; there are also axioms or postulates, or in a word primary principles, which cannot be proved and have no need of proof."

-Gottfried Leibniz

Yet another BBC video, Anthony Quinton talks about Spinoza and Leibniz:

Primary Source: Discourse on Metaphysics and Other Essays by Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibniz

 

Secondary Source: Leibniz (The Routledge Philosophers) by Nicholas Jolley

Arthur Schopenhauer on Truth

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

-Arthur Schopenhauer

A short video on Schopenhauer's work The World as Will and Idea: Part I

Primary Source: Translated by one of my college professors, Richard Aquila

Secondary Source: Schopenhauer: A Biography, by David E. Cartwright

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Ricoeur on Man

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"Man is this plural and collective unity in which the unity of destination and the differences of destinies are to be understood through each other."

-Paul Ricoeur

Professor Anthony Thistleton introduces the works on Paul Ricoeur and their importance in the academic world.

Primary Source: Memory, History, Forgetting by Paul Ricoeur

Secondary Source: Paul Ricoeur (Routledge Critical Thinkers) by Karl Simms

 

William James on Feeling and Action

"Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not."

-William James

This isn't exactly a video on William James, but does examine briefly the importance of American Pragmatism, of which James was a key thinker.

 

Primary Source: Pragmatism by William James

Secondary Source: William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism by Robert D. Richardson

 

Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations

Production Description (Amazon.com):

This thoughtful new abridgment is enriched by the brilliant commentary which accompanies it. In it, Laurence Dickey argues that the "Wealth of Nations" contains - and conceals - a great deal of how Smith actually thought a commercial society works. Guided by his conviction that the so-called 'Adam Smith Problem' - the relationship between ethics and economics in Smith's thinking - is a core element in the argument of the work itself, Dickey's commentary focuses on the devices Smith uses to ground his economics in broadly ethical and social categories. This is an unparalleled guide to an often difficult and perplexing work.

 

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Francis Bacon on Age

"Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read."

-Francis Bacon

Not many good videos on Francis Bacon exist on youtube, so I thought I would share this video about the lead up to the Copernican revolution and the Renaissance, the time period in which Francis Bacon developed his philosophy and scientific theories. 

 

Primary Source: Oxford World Classics' Francis Bacon: The Major Works

 

Benjamin Franklin on Empire

A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.

-Benjamin Franklin

This video lists a long collection of Benjamin Franklin's wise addages:

 

Suggested reading on Benjamin Franklin: 

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Description:

(1771-1790) - Published Posthumously, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, includes Franklin's Thirteen Virtues (Section Thirty Seven) and a guide to how he uses his "little Book" of Virtues on a daily and weekly basis--Franklin's "Day Planner" (Section Thirty Eight and Thirty Nine).

Fichte on Philosophy and Freedom

By philosophy the mind of man comes to itself, and from henceforth rests on itself without foreign aid, and is completely master of itself, as the dancer of his feet, or the boxer of his hands.

-Johann Gottlieb Fichte

And as always, a little video. Fichte on Man's Destiny:

 

Book suggestion: Fichte: Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation

 

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Pythagoras on Friendship

"Friends are as companions on a journey, who ought to aid each other to persevere in the road to a happier life."

-Pythagoras

3 Minute Philosophy on Pythagoras gives a humorous, but yet very informative, video on Pythagoras and his contribution to Philosophy and Math:

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Shakespeare and Continental Philosophy

I just stumbled upon this video on Youtube. The author analyzes Shakespeare's Henry V with some postmodern themes.

You all should check it out. 

 

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Althusser on Ideology

Ideology... is indispensable in any society if men are to be formed, transformed and equipped to respond to the demands of their conditions of existence. 

-Louis Althusser

Here's a video on Althusser:

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Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Embryonic stem cells used for the first time in patient: See Dan Vergano's article at USA Today

Here's a little video on stem cell research:

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Aristotle on the City

"A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one."

-Aristotle

Here's a lecture on Aristotle's politics from Yale University:

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Derrida on Phenomenology

"Contrary to what phenomenology- which is always phenomenology of perception- has tried to make us believe, contrary to what our desire cannot fail to be tempted into believing, the thing itself always escapes."

-Jacques Derrida

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Hegel on Thinking

An idea is always a generalization, and generalization is a property of thinking. To generalize means to think. 

-Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

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Berlin Circle, The

http://www.iep.utm.edu/berlincr/

Hegel on Right and Wrong

"Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights."

-Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Adorno on Society

"An emancipated society, on the other hand, would not be a unitary state, but the realization of universality in the reconciliation of differences."

-Theodor Adorno

The Unreal Universe

http://www.thulasidas.com/2010-09/the-unreal-universe.htm

Jeremy Bentham on Evil

"As to the evil which results from a censorship, it is impossible to measure it, for it is impossible to tell where it ends."

-Jeremy Bentham

Jean Jacques Rousseau

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rousseau/

Friedrich Engels on Civilization

"From the first day to this, sheer greed was the driving spirit of civilization."

-Friedrich Engels 

Principle of Sufficient Reason

Principle of Sufficient Reason

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

[New Entry by Yitzhak Melamed and Martin Lin on September 14, 2010.] The Principle of Sufficient Reason is a powerful and controversial philosophical principle stipulating that everything must have a reason or cause. This simple demand for thoroughgoing intelligibility yields some of the boldest and most challenging theses in the history of metaphysics and epistemology. In this entry we begin with explaining the Principle, and then turn to the history of the debates around it. A section on recent discussions of the Principle will be added in...

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Epicurus on the Study of Philosophy

"Let no one delay the study of philosophy while young nor weary of it when old."

-Epicurus

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von Walland Writing Services is now on Facebook! Check it out http://tinyurl.com/2977mjs

 

Anaximenes and the Material Monism of Water

Most only know Anaximenes for his doctrine of air as the fundamental, metaphysical substance.  Air, Anaximenes argued, is found everywhere. Natural forces acted on the air to transform the substance into new materials.

Ancient Greek literature often correlated air with the soul. Anaximenes articulates, “Air differs in essence in accordance with its rarity or density. The material change in the world moves along a continuum of air density. The earth and other heavenly bodies arose by a “felting” of air, a compression of air into other materials. 

Read the rest of the article here. 

Aristotle on Democracy and Freedom

"Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal."

-Aristotle

Francis Bacon on Certainty

"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties."

 

-Francis Bacon

Jaspers on Philosophical Practice

"If philosophy is practice, a demand to know the manner in which its history is to be studied is entailed: a theoretical attitude toward it becomes real only in the living appropriation of its contents from the texts."

-Karl Jaspers

Plato on the Philosopher King

"There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands."

-Plato

Heidegger on Freedom

"If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life - and only then will I be free to become myself."

-Martin Heidegger

Ludwig Wittgenstein on Philosophy

"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language."

-Ludwig Wittgenstein

Spinoza on New Ideas

"Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many."

-Baruch Spinoza

The Subjective Universe

Check this article out: http://tinyurl.com/29xrrb2

 

BBC - Ethics: Guide to moral and ethical issues

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/guide/

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide." One of the most appropriate quotes about the question that keeps me awake at nights.

http://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/dc4ke/there_is_but_one_truly_seri...

Nietzsche on Writing

A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends. 

 

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Plato on Prosperity

"Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation."

-Plato

Justice as a Virtue

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-virtue/

Einstein On Philosophy

"When I study philosophical works I feel I am swallowing something which I don't have in my mouth."

Albert Einstein

Pascal on Creatio ex Nihilo

All things have sprung from nothing and are borne forward to infinity. Who can follow out such an astonishing career? The Author of these wonders, and He alone, can comprehend them.

-Blaise Pascal

Benjamin Franklin on Liberty

"Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security."

 

Karl Marx on Commodity

"A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties." 

Derrida on Language

"No one gets angry at a mathematician or a physicist whom he or she doesn't understand, or at someone who speaks a foreign language, but rather at someone who tampers with your own language."

St. Augustine:

"Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation."

Voltaire On Philosophy

“When he who hears does not know what he who speaks means, and when he who speaks does not know what he himself means, that is philosophy”

Thales Quote:

"Nothing is more active than thought, for it travels over the universe, and nothing is stronger than necessity for all must submit to it."