Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Bryan van Norden, Ludwig Wittgenstein and A.J. Ayer

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7 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 3. Non-Contradiction

6566	The problem is to explain the role of contradiction in social life [Wittgenstein]
	Full Idea: When a contradiction appears, we say: "I didn't mean it like that"; the civil status of a contradiction, or its status in civil life: there is the philosophical problem.
	From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §125), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.2
	A reaction: The point is that logical concepts such as contradiction are conventional, and not all-or-nothing, so we might agree that you didn't really contradict yourself (when perhaps you uttered a witty ironic paradox). I don't see the problem as philosophical.

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor

2939	If a sign is useless it is meaningless; that is the point of Ockham's maxim [Wittgenstein]
	Full Idea: If a sign is useless it is meaningless. That is the point of Occam's maxim.
	From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 3.328)

2. Reason / E. Argument / 3. Analogy

5331	You can't infer that because you have a hidden birth-mark, everybody else does [Ayer]
	Full Idea: My knowing that I had a hidden birth-mark would not entitle me to infer with any great degree of confidence that the same was true of everybody else.
	From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.E)
	A reaction: This is the notorious 'induction from a single case' which was used by Mill to prove that other minds exist. It is a very nice illustration of the weakness of arguments from analogy. Probably analogy on its own is useless, but is a key part of induction.

2. Reason / F. Fallacies / 1. Fallacy

19463	Induction assumes some uniformity in nature, or that in some respects the future is like the past [Ayer]
	Full Idea: In all inductive reasoning we make the assumption that there is a measure of uniformity in nature; or, roughly speaking, that the future will, in the appropriate respects, resemble the past.
	From: A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.viii)
	A reaction: I would say that nature is 'stable'. Nature changes, so a global assumption of total uniformity is daft. Do we need some global uniformity assumptions, if the induction involved is local? I would say yes. Are all inductions conditional on this?

2. Reason / F. Fallacies / 8. Category Mistake / a. Category mistakes

18706	Words of the same kind can be substituted in a proposition without producing nonsense [Wittgenstein]
	Full Idea: 'Blue' and 'brown' are of the same kind, for the substitution of one for the other, though it may falsify the proposition, does not make nonsense of it.
	From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], A I.4)
	A reaction: He chooses an easy example, because they are determinates of the determinable 'coloured'. What if I say 'the sky is blue', and then substitute 'frightening' for 'blue'?

2. Reason / F. Fallacies / 8. Category Mistake / b. Category mistake as syntactic

18735	Talking nonsense is not following the rules [Wittgenstein]
	Full Idea: Talking nonsense is not following the rules.
	From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], C X)
	A reaction: He doesn't seem to distinguish between syntax and semantics, and makes it sound as if all nonsense is syntactic, which it isn't.

18719	Grammar says that saying 'sound is red' is not false, but nonsense [Wittgenstein]
	Full Idea: If grammar says that you cannot say that a sound is red, it means not that it is false to say so but that it is nonsense - i.e. not a language at all.
	From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B IX.6)
	A reaction: I am baffled as to why he thinks 'grammar' is what prohibits such a statement. Surely the world, the nature of sound and colour, is what makes the application of the predicate wrong. Sounds aren't coloured, so they can't be red. False, not nonsense.