8 ideas
8251 | The logical space of reasons is a natural phenomenon, and it is the realm of freedom [McDowell] |
Full Idea: The logical space of reasons is just part of the logical space of nature. ...And, in a Kantian slogan, the space of reasons is the realm of freedom. | |
From: John McDowell (Mind and World [1994], Intro 7) | |
A reaction: [second half on p.5] This is a modern have-your-cake-and-eat-it view of which I am becoming very suspicious. The modern Kantians (Davidson, Nagel, McDowell) are struggling to naturalise free will, but it won't work. Just dump it! |
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. |
8128 | Representation must be propositional if it can give reasons and be epistemological [McDowell, by Burge] |
Full Idea: McDowell has claimed that one cannot make sense of representation that plays a role in epistemology unless one takes the representation to be propositional, and thus capable of yielding reasons. | |
From: report of John McDowell (Mind and World [1994]) by Tyler Burge - Philosophy of Mind: 1950-2000 p.456 | |
A reaction: A transcendental argument leads back to a somewhat implausible conclusion. I suspect that McDowell has a slightly inflated (Kantian) notion of the purity of the 'space of reasons'. Do philosophers just imagine their problems? |
19092 | There is no pure Given, but it is cultured, rather than entirely relative [McDowell, by Macbeth] |
Full Idea: McDowell argues that the Myth of the Given shows not that there is no content to a concept that is not a matter of its inferential relations to other concepts but only that awareness of the sort that we enjoy ...is acquired in the course of acculturation. | |
From: report of John McDowell (Mind and World [1994]) by Danielle Macbeth - Pragmatism and Objective Truth p.185 | |
A reaction: The first view is of Wilfred Sellars, who derives pragmatic relativism from his rejection of the Myth. This idea is helpful is seeing why McDowell has a good proposal. As I look out of my window, my immediate experience seems 'cultured'. |
8253 | Sense impressions already have conceptual content [McDowell] |
Full Idea: The world's impressions on our senses are already possessed of conceptual content. | |
From: John McDowell (Mind and World [1994], I.6) | |
A reaction: This is a key idea of McDowell's, which challenges most traditional empiricist views, and (maybe) offers a solution to the rationalist/empiricist debate. His commitment to the 'space of reasons' strikes me as an optional extra. |
8254 | Forming concepts by abstraction from the Given is private definition, which the Private Lang. Arg. attacks [McDowell] |
Full Idea: The idea that concepts can be formed by abstraction from the Given just is the idea of private ostensive definition. So the Private Language Argument just is the rejection of the Given, in so far as it bears on the possibilities for language. | |
From: John McDowell (Mind and World [1994], I.7) | |
A reaction: I'm not clear why the process of abstraction from raw impressions shouldn't be a matter of public, explicit, community negotiation. We seem to be able to share and compare fairly raw impressions without much trouble (discussing sunsets). |
16713 | Philosophers are the forefathers of heretics [Tertullian] |
Full Idea: Philosophers are the forefathers of heretics. | |
From: Tertullian (works [c.200]), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 20.2 |
6610 | I believe because it is absurd [Tertullian] |
Full Idea: I believe because it is absurd ('Credo quia absurdum est'). | |
From: Tertullian (works [c.200]), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason n4.2 | |
A reaction: This seems to be a rather desperate remark, in response to what must have been rather good hostile arguments. No one would abandon the support of reason if it was easy to acquire. You can't deny its engaging romantic defiance, though. |