3 ideas
18988 | Behind the bare phenomenal facts there is nothing [Wright,Ch] |
Full Idea: Behind the bare phenomenal facts, as my tough-minded old friend Chauncey Wright, the great Harvard empiricist of my youth, used to say, there is nothing. | |
From: Chauncey Wright (talk [1870]), quoted by William James - Pragmatism - eight lectures Lec 7 | |
A reaction: This is the best slogan for strong phenomenalism ever coined! It also seems to fit David Lewis's approach to philosophy, as the pure study of the mosaic of experiences. |
3061 | Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing [Anaxarchus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing. | |
From: report of Anaxarchus (fragments/reports [c.340 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.10.1 |
21650 | No language is semantically referential; it all occurs at the level of thought or utterance [Pietroski, by Hofweber] |
Full Idea: For Paul Pietroski no expression in natural language is semantically referential. ....Reference to objects occurs not at the level of semantics, but at the level of thought or utterance. | |
From: report of Paul M. Pietroski (Events and Semantic Architecture [2004]) by Thomas Hofweber - Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics 07.2 | |
A reaction: Love this. It has always struck me that reference is what speakers do. Try taking any supposedly referential description and sticking 'so-called' in front of it. That seems to leave you with the reference even though you have denied the description. |