19 ideas
12268 | Contradiction is impossible [Antisthenes (I), by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Antisthenes said that contradiction is impossible. | |
From: report of Antisthenes (Ath) (fragments/reports [c.405 BCE]) by Aristotle - Topics 104b21 | |
A reaction: Aristotle is giving an example of a 'thesis'. It should be taken seriously if a philosopher proposes it, but dismissed as rubbish if anyone else proposes it! No context is given for the remark. |
602 | Some fools think you cannot define anything, but only say what it is like [Antisthenes (I), by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: There is an application of that old chestnut of the cynic Antisthenes' followers (and other buffoons of that kind). Their claim was that a definition of what something is is impossible. You cannot define silver, though you can say it is like tin. | |
From: report of Antisthenes (Ath) (fragments/reports [c.405 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1043b |
10017 | Truth in a model is more tractable than the general notion of truth [Hodes] |
Full Idea: Truth in a model is interesting because it provides a transparent and mathematically tractable model - in the 'ordinary' rather than formal sense of the term 'model' - of the less tractable notion of truth. | |
From: Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984], p.131) | |
A reaction: This is an important warning to those who wish to build their entire account of truth on Tarski's rigorously formal account of the term. Personally I think we should start by deciding whether 'true' can refer to the mental state of a dog. I say it can. |
10018 | Truth is quite different in interpreted set theory and in the skeleton of its language [Hodes] |
Full Idea: There is an enormous difference between the truth of sentences in the interpreted language of set theory and truth in some model for the disinterpreted skeleton of that language. | |
From: Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984], p.132) | |
A reaction: This is a warning to me, because I thought truth and semantics only entered theories at the stage of 'interpretation'. I must go back and get the hang of 'skeletal' truth, which sounds rather charming. [He refers to set theory, not to logic.] |
10015 | Higher-order logic may be unintelligible, but it isn't set theory [Hodes] |
Full Idea: Brand higher-order logic as unintelligible if you will, but don't conflate it with set theory. | |
From: Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984], p.131) | |
A reaction: [he gives Boolos 1975 as a further reference] This is simply a corrective, because the conflation of second-order logic with set theory is an idea floating around in the literature. |
10011 | Identity is a level one relation with a second-order definition [Hodes] |
Full Idea: Identity should he considered a logical notion only because it is the tip of a second-order iceberg - a level 1 relation with a pure second-order definition. | |
From: Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984]) |
10016 | When an 'interpretation' creates a model based on truth, this doesn't include Fregean 'sense' [Hodes] |
Full Idea: A model is created when a language is 'interpreted', by assigning non-logical terms to objects in a set, according to a 'true-in' relation, but we must bear in mind that this 'interpretation' does not associate anything like Fregean senses with terms. | |
From: Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984], p.131) | |
A reaction: This seems like a key point (also made by Hofweber) that formal accounts of numbers, as required by logic, will not give an adequate account of the semantics of number-terms in natural languages. |
10027 | Mathematics is higher-order modal logic [Hodes] |
Full Idea: I take the view that (agreeing with Aristotle) mathematics only requires the notion of a potential infinity, ...and that mathematics is higher-order modal logic. | |
From: Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984]) | |
A reaction: Modern 'modal' accounts of mathematics I take to be heirs of 'if-thenism', which seems to have been Russell's development of Frege's original logicism. I'm beginning to think it is right. But what is the subject-matter of arithmetic? |
10026 | Arithmetic must allow for the possibility of only a finite total of objects [Hodes] |
Full Idea: Arithmetic should be able to face boldly the dreadful chance that in the actual world there are only finitely many objects. | |
From: Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984], p.148) | |
A reaction: This seems to be a basic requirement for any account of arithmetic, but it was famously a difficulty for early logicism, evaded by making the existence of an infinity of objects into an axiom of the system. |
10021 | It is claimed that numbers are objects which essentially represent cardinality quantifiers [Hodes] |
Full Idea: The mathematical object-theorist says a number is an object that represents a cardinality quantifier, with the representation relation as the entire essence of the nature of such objects as cardinal numbers like 4. | |
From: Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984]) | |
A reaction: [compressed] This a classic case of a theory beginning to look dubious once you spell it our precisely. The obvious thought is to make do with the numerical quantifiers, and dispense with the objects. Do other quantifiers need objects to support them? |
10022 | Numerical terms can't really stand for quantifiers, because that would make them first-level [Hodes] |
Full Idea: The dogmatic Frege is more right than wrong in denying that numerical terms can stand for numerical quantifiers, for there cannot be a language in which object-quantifiers and objects are simultaneously viewed as level zero. | |
From: Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984], p.142) | |
A reaction: Subtle. We see why Frege goes on to say that numbers are level zero (i.e. they are objects). We are free, it seems, to rewrite sentences containing number terms to suit whatever logical form appeals. Numbers are just quantifiers? |
10023 | Talk of mirror images is 'encoded fictions' about real facts [Hodes] |
Full Idea: Talk about mirror images is a sort of fictional discourse. Statements 'about' such fictions are not made true or false by our whims; rather they 'encode' facts about the things reflected in mirrors. | |
From: Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984], p.146) | |
A reaction: Hodes's proposal for how we should view abstract objects (c.f. Frege and Dummett on 'the equator'). The facts involved are concrete, but Hodes is offering 'encoding fictionalism' as a linguistic account of such abstractions. He applies it to numbers. |
3488 | Freud treats the unconscious as intentional and hence mental [Freud, by Searle] |
Full Idea: Freud thinks that our unconscious mental states exist as occurrent intrinsic intentional states even when unconscious. Their ontology is that of the mental, even when they are unconscious. | |
From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by John Searle - The Rediscovery of the Mind Ch. 7.V | |
A reaction: Searle states this view in order to attack it. Whether such states are labelled as 'mental' seems uninteresting. Whether unconscious states can be intentional is crucial, and modern scientific understanding of the brain strongly suggest they can. |
5689 | Freud and others have shown that we don't know our own beliefs, feelings, motive and attitudes [Freud, by Shoemaker] |
Full Idea: Freud persuaded many that beliefs, wishes and feelings are sometimes unconscious, and even sceptics about Freud acknowledge that there is self-deception about motive and attitudes. | |
From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by Sydney Shoemaker - Introspection p.396 | |
A reaction: This seems to me obviously correct. The traditional notion is that the consciousness is the mind, but now it seems obvious that consciousness is only one part of the mind, and maybe even a peripheral (epiphenomenal) part of it. |
23950 | Freud said passions are pressures of some flowing hydraulic quantity [Freud, by Solomon] |
Full Idea: Freud argued that the passions in general …were the pressures of a yet unknown 'quantity' (which he simply designated 'Q'). He first thought this flowed through neurones, …and always couched the idea in the language of hydraulics. | |
From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by Robert C. Solomon - The Passions 3.4 | |
A reaction: This is the main target of Solomon's criticism, because its imagery has become so widespread. It leads to talk of suppressing emotions, or sublimating them. However, it is not too different from Nietzsche's 'drives' or 'will to power'. |
22344 | Freud is pessimistic about human nature; it is ambivalent motive and fantasy, rather than reason [Freud, by Murdoch] |
Full Idea: Freud takes a thoroughly pessimistic view of human nature. ...Introspection reveals only the deep tissue of ambivalent motive, and fantasy is a stronger force than reason. Objectivity and unselfishness are not natural to human beings. | |
From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900], II) by Iris Murdoch - The Sovereignty of Good II | |
A reaction: Interesting. His view seems to have coloured the whole of modern culture, reinforced by the hideous irrationality of the Nazis. Adorno and Horkheimer attacking the Enlightenment was the last step in that process. |
1664 | I would rather go mad than experience pleasure [Antisthenes (I)] |
Full Idea: I would rather go mad than experience pleasure. | |
From: Antisthenes (Ath) (fragments/reports [c.405 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 06.3 | |
A reaction: Did he actually prefer pain? If both experiences would drive him mad, it seems like a desire for death. I cannot understand why anyone is opposed to harmless pleasures. |
21385 | Antisthenes said virtue is teachable and permanent, is life's goal, and is like universal wealth [Antisthenes (I), by Long] |
Full Idea: The moral propositions of Antisthenes foreshadowed the Stoics: virtue can be taught and once acquired cannot be lost (fr.69,71); virtue is the goal of life (22); the sage is self-sufficient, since he has (by being wise) the wealth of all men (8o). | |
From: report of Antisthenes (Ath) (fragments/reports [c.405 BCE]) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 1 | |
A reaction: [He cites Caizzi for the fragments] The distinctive idea here is (I think) that once acquired virtue can never be lost. It sounds plausible, but I'm wondering why it should be true. Is it like riding a bicycle, or like learning to speak Russian? |
2631 | Antisthenes says there is only one god, which is nature [Antisthenes (I), by Cicero] |
Full Idea: Antisthenes says there is only one god, which is nature. | |
From: report of Antisthenes (Ath) (fragments/reports [c.405 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.32 |