7 ideas
| 5435 | An interpreter of a text, because of wider knowledge, can understand it better than its author [Schleiermacher, by Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Schleiermacher proposed that an interpreter of a text may be in a better position to see the author's life and work and historical setting as a whole, and so understand the text better than its author. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Schleiermacher (works [1825]) by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.248 | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a very quaintly old-fashioned enlightenment view which has been swept away by post-modernism, which is why I agree with it. We have a perspective on Descartes now which he could never have dreamt of. |
| 22028 | Unity emerges from understanding particulars, so understanding is prior to seeing unity [Schleiermacher] |
| Full Idea: We only gradually arrive at the knowledge of the inner unity via the understanding of individual utterances, and therefore the art of explication is also presupposed if the inner unity is to be found....The task is infinite, and can never be accomplished. | |
| From: Friedrich Schleiermacher (works [1825], p.235), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 06 | |
| A reaction: [p.235 in ed Bowie 1998] This is the first statement of the hermeneutic circle, which needs whole to grasp parts, and parts to grasp whole. Personally I think the dangers of circles in philosophy are greatly exaggerated. |
| 13007 | Archimedes defined a straight line as the shortest distance between two points [Archimedes, by Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Archimedes gave a sort of definition of 'straight line' when he said it is the shortest line between two points. | |
| From: report of Archimedes (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Gottfried Leibniz - New Essays on Human Understanding 4.13 | |
| A reaction: Commentators observe that this reduces the purity of the original Euclidean axioms, because it involves distance and measurement, which are absent from the purest geometry. |
| 20959 | Concepts are only analytic once the predicate is absorbed into the subject [Schleiermacher] |
| Full Idea: The difference between analytic and synthetic judgements is an unimportant fluid one. 'Ice melts' is analytic if it is already taken up into the concept of ice, and synthetic if not yet taken up. It is just a different state of the formation of concepts. | |
| From: Friedrich Schleiermacher (Dialektik [1833], p.563), quoted by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 8 'Scientific' | |
| A reaction: [compressed] I wonder if Quine ever encountered this quotation. The idea refers to Kant's notion of analyticity, and makes the good point that predicates only become 'contained in the subject' once the situation is very familiar. |
| 1466 | Claims about God don't seem to claim or deny anything tangible, so evidence is irrelevant [Flew, by PG] |
| Full Idea: An assertion is logically equivalent to denying its opposite, but claims about a 'gardener', or God, make neither claims nor denials of anything, so no evidence can count against the claim, or for it. | |
| From: report of Antony Flew (Theology and Falsification [1950]) by PG - Db (ideas) |
| 1465 | You can't claim a patch of land is tended by a 'gardener' if there is no evidence, and all counter-evidence is rejected [Flew, by PG] |
| Full Idea: If someone claimed a patch of land was tended by a 'gardener', but there was never a shred of evidence to support this view, the claim would gradually dissolve into meaninglessness, especially if it was suggested that evidence was irrelevant. | |
| From: report of Antony Flew (Theology and Falsification [1950]) by PG - Db (ideas) |
| 1467 | Religious people seem unwilling to accept any evidence that God does not love us, so their claim is unfalsifiable [Flew, by PG] |
| Full Idea: Religious people seem unwilling to accept any evidence which shows that God does not love us, so what would they accept? If nothing counts that way, their claim is unfalsifiable, and hence meaningless. | |
| From: report of Antony Flew (Theology and Falsification [1950]) by PG - Db (ideas) |