46 ideas
| 19648 | Since Kant we think we can only access 'correlations' between thinking and being [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The central notion of philosophy since Kant is 'correlation' - that we only ever have access to the correlation between thinking and being, and never to either term considered apart from the other. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux's charge is that philosophy has thereby completely failed to grasp the scientific revolution, which has used mathematics to make objectivity possible. Quine and Putnam would be good examples of what he has in mind. |
| 19674 | The Copernican Revolution decentres the Earth, but also decentres thinking from reality [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The Copernican Revolution is not so much the decentring of observers in the solar system, but (by the mathematizing of nature) the decentring of thought relative to the world within the process of knowledge. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 5) | |
| A reaction: In other words, I take it, the Copernican Revolution was the discovery of objectivity. That is a very nice addition to my History of Ideas collection. |
| 19657 | In Kant the thing-in-itself is unknowable, but for us it has become unthinkable [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The major shift that has occurred in the conception of thought from Kant's time to ours is from the unknowability of the thing-in-itself to its unthinkability. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux is making the case that philosophy is alienating us more and more from the triumphant realism of the scientific revolution. He says thinking has split from being. He's right. Modern American pragmatists are the worst (not Peirce!). |
| 19675 | Since Kant, philosophers have claimed to understand science better than scientists do [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Ever since Kant, to think science as a philosopher has been to claim that science harbours a meaning other than the one delivered by science itself. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 5) | |
| A reaction: The point is that science discovered objectivity (via the mathematising of nature), and Kant utterly rejected objectivity, by enmeshing the human mind in every possible scientific claim. This makes Meillassoux and I very cross. |
| 19649 | Since Kant, objectivity is defined not by the object, but by the statement's potential universality [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Since Kant, objectivity is no longer defined with reference to the object in itself, but rather with reference to the possible universality of an objective statement. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux disapproves of this, as a betrayal by philosophers of the scientific revolution, which gave us true objectivity (e.g. about how the world was before humanity). |
| 19666 | If we insist on Sufficient Reason the world will always be a mystery to us [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: So long as we continue to believe that there is a reason why things are the way they are rather than some other way, we will construe this world is a mystery, since no such reason will every be vouchsafed to us. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Giving up sufficient reason sounds like a rather drastic response to this. Put it like this: Will we ever be able to explain absolutely everything? No. So will the world always be a little mysterious to us? Yes, obviously. Is that a problem? No! |
| 19656 | Non-contradiction is unjustified, so it only reveals a fact about thinking, not about reality? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The principle of non-contradiction itself is without reason, and consequently it can only be the norm for what is thinkable by us, rather than for what is possible in the absolute sense. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: This is not Meillassoux's view, but describes the modern heresy of 'correlationism', which ties all assessments of how reality is to our capacity to think about it. Personally I take logical non-contradiction to derive from non-contradiction in nature. |
| 19663 | We can allow contradictions in thought, but not inconsistency [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: For contemporary logicians, it is not non-contradiction that provides the criterion for what is thinkable, but rather inconsistency. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: The point is that para-consistent logic might permit isolated contradictions (as true) within a system, but it is only contradiction across the system (inconsistencies) which make the system untenable. |
| 19664 | Paraconsistent logics are to prevent computers crashing when data conflicts [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Paraconsistent logics were only developed in order to prevent computers, such as expert medical systems, from deducing anything whatsoever from contradictory data, because of the principle of 'ex falso quodlibet'. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) |
| 19665 | Paraconsistent logic is about statements, not about contradictions in reality [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Paraconsistent logics are only ever dealing with contradictions inherent in statements about the world, never with the real contradictions in the world. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: Thank goodness for that! I can accept that someone in a doorway is both in the room and not in the room, but not that they are existing in a real state of contradiction. I fear that a few daft people embrace the logic as confirming contradictory reality. |
| 15105 | F(x) walked into a bar. The barman said.. [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: F(x) walked into a bar. The barman said, 'Sorry, we don't cater for functions'. | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 19677 | What is mathematically conceivable is absolutely possible [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: We must establish the thesis that what is mathematically conceivable is absolutely possible. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 5) | |
| A reaction: The truth of this thesis would permanently establish mathematics as the only possible language of science. Personally I have no idea how you could prove or assess such a thesis. It is a lovely speculation, though. 'The structure of the possible' (p,127) |
| 19659 | The absolute is the impossibility of there being a necessary existent [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: We maintain that it is absolutely necessary that every entity might not exist. ...The absolute is the absolute impossibility of a necessary being. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: This is the main thesis of his book. The usual candidates for necessary existence are God, and mathematical objects. I am inclined to agree with Meillassoux. |
| 12408 | Sartre to Waitress: Coffee with no cream, please... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: Sartre to Waitress: Coffee with no cream, please. Waitress: Sorry, we're out of cream; would no milk do? | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 19662 | It is necessarily contingent that there is one thing rather than another - so something must exist [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: It is necessary that there be something rather than nothing because it is necessarily contingent that there is something rather than something else. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: The great charm of metaphysics is the array of serious answers to the question of why there is something rather than nothing. You'll need to read Meillassoux's book to understand this one. |
| 19654 | We must give up the modern criterion of existence, which is a correlation between thought and being [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: It is incumbent upon us to break with the ontological requisite of the moderns, according to which 'to be is to be a correlate'. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: He blames Kant for this pernicious idea, which has driven philosophy away from realist science, when it should be supporting and joining it. As a realist I agree, and find Meillassoux very illuminating on the subject. |
| 12397 | Said Plato: 'The things that we feel... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: Said Plato: 'The things that we feel/ Are not ontologically real,/ But just the excrescence/ Of numinous essence/ Our senses can never reveal.' [Basil Ransome-Davis] | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 19660 | Possible non-being which must be realised is 'precariousness'; absolute contingency might never not-be [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: My term 'precariousness' designates a possibility of not-being which must eventually be realised. By contrast, absolute contingency designates a pure possibility; one which may never be realised. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: I thoroughly approve of this distinction, because I have often enountered the assumption that all contingency is precariousness, and I have never seen why that should be so. In Aquinas's Third Way, for example. The 6 on a die may never come up. |
| 19671 | The idea of chance relies on unalterable physical laws [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The very notion of chance is only conceivable on condition that there are unalterable physical laws. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Laws might be contingent, even though they never alter. Chance in horse racing relies on the stability of whole institution of horse racing. |
| 12407 | Barman to Descartes: Would you like another drink?... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: Barman to Descartes: Would you like another drink? Descartes: I think not (...and promptly vanishes) | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 12399 | There was a young student called Fred... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: There was a young student called Fred,/ Who was questioned on Descartes and said:/ 'It's perfectly clear/ That I'm not really here,/ For I haven't a thought in my head.' [V.R. Ormerod] | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 20963 | A philosopher and his wife are out for a drive... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: A philosopher and his wife are out for a drive in the country. 'Oh look!' she says, 'Those sheep have been shorn.' 'Yes', says the philosopher, 'on this side'. | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 19651 | Unlike speculative idealism, transcendental idealism assumes the mind is embodied [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: What distinguishes transcendental idealism from speculative idealism is the fact that the former does not posit the existence of the transcendental subject apart from its bodily individuation. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: These modern French philosophers explain things so much more clearly than the English! The 'speculative' version is seen in Berkeley. On p.17 he says transcendental idealism is 'civilised', and speculative idealism is 'uncouth'. |
| 12404 | Dear Sir, Your astonishment's odd.... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: (reply to 12403) Dear Sir, Your astonishment's odd:/ I am always about in the Quad./ And that's why the tree/ Will continue to be,/ Since observed by Yours faithfully, God.' [anon] | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 12403 | There once was a man who said: 'God... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: There once was a man who said: 'God/ Must think it exceedingly odd/ If he finds that this tree/ Continues to be,/ When there's no-one about in the Quad.' [Ronald Knox] (reply in 12404) | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 12402 | ..But if he's a student of Berkeley... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: (continued from 12401) ..But if he's a student of Berkeley,/ One thing will emerge, rather starkly,/ That he ought to believe/ What his senses perceive,/ No matter how dimly or darkly. [Leslie Johnson] | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 12409 | The philosopher Berkeley once said.. [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: The philosopher Berkeley once said/ In the dark to a maid in his bed:/ 'No perception, my dear,/ Means I'm not really here,/ But only a thought in your head.' [P.W.R. Foot] | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 14694 | "My dog's got synaesthesia." How does he smell? ..... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: "My dog's got synaesthesia." How does he smell? "Purple." | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 19647 | The aspects of objects that can be mathematical allow it to have objective properties [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: All aspects of the object that can give rise to a mathematical thought rather than to a perception or a sensation can be meaningfully turned into the properties of the thing not only as it is with me, but also as it is without me. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: This is Meillassoux's spin on the primary/secondary distinction, which he places at the heart of the scientific revolution. Cartesian dualism offers a separate space for the secondary qualities. He is appalled when philosophers reject the distinction. |
| 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 |
| 12401 | A toper who spies in the distance... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: A toper who spies in the distance,/ Striped tigers, will get some assistance/ From reading Descartes,/ Who holds that it's part/ Of his duty to doubt their existence. ... [Leslie Johnson] - (continued in 12402) | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 19652 | How can we mathematically describe a world that lacks humans? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: How is mathematical discourse able to describe a reality where humanity is absent? | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: He is referring to the prehistoric world. He takes this to be a key question about the laws of nature. We extrapolate mathematically from the experienced world, relying on the stability of the laws. Must they be necessary to be stable? No, it seems. |
| 19668 | Hume's question is whether experimental science will still be valid tomorrow [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Hume's question can be formulated as follows: can we demonstrate that the experimental science which is possible today will still be possible tomorrow? | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Could there be deep universal changes going on in nature which science could never, even in principle, detect? |
| 19650 | The transcendental subject is not an entity, but a set of conditions making science possible [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The transcendental subject simply cannot be said to exist; which is to say that the subject is not an entity, but rather a set of conditions rendering objective scientific knowledge of entities possible. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux treats this as part of the Kantian Disaster, which made an accurate account of the scientific revolution impossible for philosophers. Kant's ego seems to have primarily an epistemological role. |
| 12410 | There once was a man who said 'Damn!... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: There once was a man who said 'Damn!/ It is borne in upon me I am/ An engine that moves/ In predestinate grooves:/ I'm not even a bus, I'm a tram.' [M.E. Hare] | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 9392 | How do behaviourists greet each other? [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: How do behaviourists greet each other? Hi - you're fine, how am I? | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 12405 | 'If you're aristocratic,' said Nietzsche... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: 'If you're aristocratic,' said Nietzsche,/ 'It's thumbs up, you're OK. Pleased to mietzsche./ If you're working-class bores,/ It's thumbs down and up yours!/ If you don't know your place, then I'll tietzsche.' [Gerry Hamill] | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 9391 | Why do anarchists drink herbal tea? [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: Why do anarchists drink herbal tea? Because proper tea is theft. | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 12400 | Cries the maid: 'You must marry me Hume!'... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: Cries the maid: 'You must marry me Hume!'/ A statement that made David fume./ He said: 'In cause and effect,/ There is a defect;/ That it's mine you can only assume.' [P.W.R. Foot] | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 16527 | Causation - we all thought we knew it/ Till Hume came along and saw through it/…. [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: Causation - we all thought we knew it / Till Hume came along and saw through it / We notice that A / Follows B every day / And frankly that's all there is to it. | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 19667 | If the laws of nature are contingent, shouldn't we already have noticed it? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The standard objection is that if the laws of nature were actually contingent, we would already have noticed it. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux offers a sustained argument that the laws of nature are necessarily contingent. In Idea 19660 he distinguishes contingencies that must change from those that merely could change. |
| 19670 | Why are contingent laws of nature stable? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: We must ask how we are to explain the manifest stability of physical laws, given that we take these to be contingent? | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Meissalloux offers a very deep and subtle answer to this question... It is based on the possibilities of chaos being an uncountable infinity... It is a very nice question, which physicists might be able to answer, without help from philosophy. |
| 17592 | The barman called 'Time!', and Augustine said..... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: The barman called 'Time!'. Augustine: 'I don't know what you mean, though I did before you said that'. | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 15208 | The past, present and future walked into a bar.... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: The past, present and future walked into a bar. It was tense. | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
| 19653 | The ontological proof of a necessary God ensures a reality external to the mind [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Since Descartes conceives of God as existing necessarily, whether I exist to think of him or not, Descartes assures me of a possible access to an absolute reality - a Great Outdoors that is not a correlate of my thought. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: His point is that the ontological argument should be seen as part of the scientific revolution, and not an anomaly within it. Interesting. |
| 19658 | Now that the absolute is unthinkable, even atheism is just another religious belief (though nihilist) [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Once the absolute has become unthinkable, even atheism, which also targets God's inexistence in the manner of an absolute, is reduced to a mere belief, and hence to a religion, albeit of the nihilist kind. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: An interesting claim. Rather hard to agree or disagree, though the idea that atheism must qualify as a religion seems odd. If it is unqualified it does have the grand quality of a religion, but if it is fallibilist it just seems like an attitude. |