Philosophy Concordance - online philosophical quotations

The peculiar difference between a string meaning something and a meaningless chain of sounds or scribbles is obvious, and the metaphor that the former, in contrast to the latter, is animated appears to be peculiarly apt. The common metaphor of living (= meaningful) and dead (= meaningless) signs does render something intuitively very vital.

The space of meaningfulness The physical space in which we live our lives is formed by certain laws – the laws making some of the things we can think of doing (flying by ourselves, living under water ...) impossible, thereby delimiting a certain spectrum of possibilities.

And thus, without in appearance living otherwise than those who, with no other occupation than that of spending their lives agreeably and innocently, study to sever pleasure from vice, and who, that they may enjoy their leisure without ennui, have recourse to such pursuits as are honorable, I was nevertheless prosecuting my design, and making greater progress in the knowledge of truth, than I might, perhaps, have made had I been engaged in the perusal of books merely, or in holding converse with men of letters.

The first was to obey the laws and customs of my country, adhering firmly to the faith in which, by the grace of God, I had been educated from my childhood and regulating my conduct in every other matter according to the most moderate opinions, and the farthest removed from extremes, which should happen to be adopted in practice with general consent of the most judicious of those among whom I might be living.

Part III And finally, as it is not enough, before commencing to rebuild the house in which we live, that it be pulled down, and materials and builders provided, or that we engage in the work ourselves, according to a plan which we have beforehand carefully drawn out, but as it is likewise necessary that we be furnished with some other house in which we may live commodiously during the operations, so that I might not remain irresolute in my actions, while my reason compelled me to suspend my judgement, and that I might not be prevented from living thenceforward in the greatest possible felicity, I formed a provisory code of morals, composed of three or four maxims, with which I am desirous to make you acquainted.

Our intelligence, for example, consists of faculties dedicated to reasoning about space, number, probability, logic, physical objects, living things, artifacts, and minds.

The organs of computation that make up the human mind are not tailored to solve arbitrary computational problems but only those that increased the reproductive chances of our ancestors living as foragers in pre-state societies.

Rather than comprising a single set of rules that apply across the board to all propositions in memory, the human mind organizes its understanding of reality into several domains, such as physical objects, living things, other minds, and artifacts.

Living things are self-propelled and self-organized owing to a hidden essence.

Now, the subject matter of evolutionary biology is living things.