哲学塑造的世界
最新书摘：
-
xc2025-03-20对理论知识的寻求是数千年来的集体任务；对目标、幸福与德性的追求是一生中迫切的个人任务。这两个任务并不冲突，前者能够有助于后者。但它们是不同的。
-
xc2025-03-20除了为理性思考和几乎每个领域中的理论知识探究奠定了基础以外，希腊哲学家（尤其是苏格拉底和柏拉图）还将对理论真理的探索与个人对意义的紧迫追寻关联起来。他们之所以如此引人注目，是因为他们把一个观念——任何领域的客观知识都需要精确定义的概念——放在了他们对美好生活的愿景的中心。他们认为，为了过这样的生活，人们应该努力了解善和幸福的本质。虽然苏格拉底没有声称自己拥有这样的知识，但他确实声称他知道只有通过严格的推理才能获得这些知识。他还认为，知道什么是善就是有足够的动力去行善。因此，他推论道，一个人过上良好生活的最大希望就是尽可能多地获取关于自身、自身的本性以及关于善的知识。
-
兰德尔2023-09-03[T]he whole of philosophy is like a tree. The roots are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches emerging from the trunk are all the other sciences, which may be reduced to three princi ple ones, namely medicine, mechanics, and morals. By “morals” I understand the highest and most perfect moral system, which presupposes complete knowledge of the other sciences, and is the ultimate level of wisdom.
-
兰德尔2023-09-03Ockham decisively rejected the Aristotelian account of terrestrial projectiles, while the philosopher, physicist, and rector of the University of Paris John Buridan (died 1360) rejected Aristotelian physics as being incapable of explaining the motion of a spinning top. Nicholas Oresme (died 1382), who also taught at Paris, argued that the hypothesis that the earth rotates can’t be disproved by observation, and, although he didn’t endorse the idea, he did suggest that there are some grounds for taking it to be true.
-
兰德尔2023-09-03(Roger Bacon (circa 1212–1292)) took the earth to be spherical and very small compared to the heavens. He also wrote about light, eclipses, tides, the structure of the eye, and the principles of vision. His work on reflection and refraction was devoted to learning how we could make small things appear large, and distant things near. Although he didn’t invent the telescope, he did discover principles that others would use to do so. (Opus Maius)
-
兰德尔2023-09-03the distinguished historian of Greek mathe matics Sir Thomas Heath estimates thatthere is . . . probably little in the whole compass of the Elements of Euclid, except the new theory of proportions due to Eudoxus . . . , which was not in substance included in the recognized content of geometry and arithmetic by Plato’s time.
-
兰德尔2023-09-03The observations (prob ably not proofs) of Thales a) that a circle is bisected by its diameter,b) that the angles at the base of a triangle with two equal sides are equal, andc) that triangles with an equal side and two equal angles are themselves equal.The proofs by followers of Pythagorasa) that the sum of the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles (prior to 450 BCE),b) that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other sides (prior to 450),c) that the square root of 2 is irrational, i.e., a number that can’t be expressed as a fraction (prior to 450),andd) that the square roots of 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, and 17 are (like that of 2) also irrational (Theodorus, pupil of Protagoras and teacher of Plato, circa 400).The discove...
-
兰德尔2023-09-03Of these, the central figure is Plato—in part because Aristotle was his student ...
-
兰德尔2023-09-03we philosophers have many productive, though rather specialized, professional contacts with mathematicians, physicists, biologists, psychologists, linguists, cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, economists, political scientists, law professors, historians, classicists, and others.