There is a persistent rumor, perpetuated primarily by historians of astronomy, that G.W.F. Hegel provided a logical proof that there could only be seven planets in the solar system. This diabolical proof supposedly lurks within his 1801 doctoral dissertation. However, in the only section that could possibly contain such a claim, that entitled ‘De orbitis planetarum’, the proof is difficult to spot …
According to Immanuel Kant, it is better for a woman to die resisting rape than suffer the ‘dishonour’ of submitting to her attacker:
No matter what torments I have to suffer, I can live morally. I must suffer them all, including the torments of death, rather than commit a disgraceful action. The moment I can no longer live in honour but become unworthy of life by such an action, I can no longer live at all. Thus it is far better to die honoured and respected than to prolong one’s life … by a disgraceful act …
In his posthumous work On Certainty, Ludwig Wittgenstein made a number of statments regarding the possiblity/impossibility of travelling to the moon. There is no small amount of confusion about his comments amongst philosophers, due in part to Wittgenstein making more than one reference to moon travel …
The lengthy and expansive discourse Timaeus is Plato’s account of the formation of the universe out of chaos by the Demiurge. Towards the end, he discusses the origin of women:
A brief mention may be made of the generation of other animals, so far as the subject admits of brevity; in this manner our argument will best attain a due proportion. On the subject of animals, then, the following remarks may be offered. Of the men who came into the world, those who were cowards or led unrighteous lives may with reason be supposed to have changed into the nature of women in the second generation …