The Philosophy Book

10 annotations • Mar 2023 • data

Pythagoras had now proved not only that the structure of the universe can be explained in mathematical terms—"number is the ruler of forms"—but also that acoustics is an exact science, and number governs harmonious proportions. He then started to apply his theories to the whole cosmos, demonstrating the harmonic relationship of the stars, planets, and elements. His idea of harmonic relationships between the stars was eagerly taken up by medieval and Renaissance astronomers, who developed whole theories around the idea of the music of the spheres, and his suggestion that the elements were arranged harmoniously was revisited over 2,000 years after his death. In 1865 English chemist John Newlands discovered that when the chemical elements are arranged according to atomic weight, those with similar properties occur at every eighth element, like notes of music. This discovery became known as the Law of Octaves, and it helped lead to the development of the Periodic Law of chemical elements still used today.

Like most Eastern philosophers, he was not interested in the unanswerable questions of metaphysics that preoccupied the Greeks. Dealing with entities beyond our experience, this kind of enquiry was senseless speculation. Instead, he concerned himself with the question of the goal of life, which in turn involved examining the concepts of happiness, virtue, and the "good" life.

Confucius does not prescribe what to do, only what not to do, emphasizing restraint rather than action. This implies modesty and humility—values traditionally held in high regard in Chinese society, and which for Confucius express our true nature

Socrates is often referred to as one of the founders of Western philosophy, and yet he wrote nothing, established no school, and held no particular theories of his own. What he did do, however, was persistently ask the questions that interested him, and in doing so evolved a new way of thinking, or a new way of examining what we think

However, he was not interested in winning arguments, or arguing for the sake of making money—a charge that was leveled at many of his contemporaries. Nor was he seeking answers or explanations—he was simply examining the basis of the concepts we apply to ourselves (such as "good", "bad", and "just"), for he believed that understanding what we are is the first task of philosophy.
But what exactly is involved in this examination of life? For Socrates it was a process of questioning the meaning of essential concepts that we use every day but have never really thought about, thereby revealing their real meaning and our own knowledge or ignorance.
It was the conversation itself, with Socrates guiding it, that provided him with insights. Through a series of questions, he revealed the ideas and assumptions his opponent held, then exposed the contradictions within them and brought them to agree to a new set of conclusions.

Voltaire refutes the idea of certainty in two ways. First, he points out that apart from a few necessary truths of mathematics and logic, nearly every fact and theory in history has been revised at some point in time. So what appears to be "fact" is actually little more than a working hypothesis. Second, he agrees with Locke that there is no such thing as an innate idea, and points out that ideas we seem to know as true from birth may be only cultural, as these change from country to country.

In one of his most famous discussions of the psychology of bargaining, he contends that the most frequent opening gambit in a bargain is for one party to urge the other—"the best way for you to get what you want is for you to give me what I want." In other words, "we address ourselves, not to [another's] humanity, but to their self-love."

According to Kant, we can only experience time through things in the world that move or change, such as the hands of a clock. So time is only ever experienced by us indirectly.