17 ideas
8083 | Boole applied normal algebra to logic, aiming at an algebra of thought [Boole, by Devlin] |
Full Idea: Boole proposed to use the entire apparatus of a school algebra class, with operations such as addition and multiplication, methods to solve equations, and the like, to produce an algebra of thought. | |
From: report of George Boole (The Laws of Thought [1854]) by Keith Devlin - Goodbye Descartes Ch.3 | |
A reaction: The Stoics didn’t use any algebraic notation for their study of propositions, so Boole's idea launched full blown propositional logic, and the rest of modern logic followed. Nice one. |
7727 | Boole's notation can represent syllogisms and propositional arguments, but not both at once [Boole, by Weiner] |
Full Idea: Boole introduced a new symbolic notation in which it was possible to represent both syllogisms and propositional arguments, ...but not both at once. | |
From: report of George Boole (The Laws of Thought [1854], Ch.3) by Joan Weiner - Frege | |
A reaction: How important is the development of symbolic notations for the advancement of civilisations? Is there a perfect notation, as used in logical heaven? |
8686 | Boole made logic more mathematical, with algebra, quantifiers and probability [Boole, by Friend] |
Full Idea: Boole (followed by Frege) began to turn logic from a branch of philosophy into a branch of mathematics. He brought an algebraic approach to propositions, and introduced the notion of a quantifier and a type of probabilistic reasoning. | |
From: report of George Boole (The Laws of Thought [1854], 3.2) by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics | |
A reaction: The result was that logic not only became more mathematical, but also more specialised. We now have two types of philosopher, those steeped in mathematical logic and the rest. They don't always sing from the same songsheet. |
22277 | Boole's method was axiomatic, achieving economy, plus multiple interpretations [Boole, by Potter] |
Full Idea: Boole's work was an early example of the axiomatic method, whereby intellectual economy is achieved by studying a set of axioms in which the primitive terms have multiple interpretations. | |
From: report of George Boole (The Laws of Thought [1854]) by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 02 'Boole' | |
A reaction: Unclear about this. I suppose the axioms are just syntactic, and a range of semantic interpretations can be applied. Are De Morgan's Laws interpretations, or implications of the syntactic axioms? The latter, I think. |
22076 | Being is only perceptible to itself as becoming [Schelling] |
Full Idea: Being is only perceptible to itself in the state of becoming. | |
From: Friedrich Schelling (Of Human Freedom [1809], p.403), quoted by Jean-François Courtine - Schelling p.90 | |
A reaction: Is the Enlightenment the era of Being, and the Romantic era that of Becoming? They like process, fluidity, even chaos. |
16643 | Accidents always remain suited to a subject [Bonaventura] |
Full Idea: An accident's aptitudinal relationship to a subject is essential, and this is never taken away from accidents….for it is true to say that they are suited to a subject. | |
From: Bonaventura (Commentary on Sentences [1252], IV.12.1.1.1c) | |
A reaction: This is the compromise view that allows accidents to be separated, for Transubstantiation, while acknowledging that we identify them with their subjects. |
16696 | Successive things reduce to permanent things [Bonaventura] |
Full Idea: Everything successive reduces to something permanent. | |
From: Bonaventura (Commentary on Sentences [1252], II.2.1.1.3 ad 5), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.2 | |
A reaction: Avicenna first took successive entities seriously, but Bonaventure and Aquinas seem to have rejected them, or given reductive accounts of them. It resembles modern actualists versus modal realists. |
22072 | Schelling always affirmed the absolute status of freedom [Schelling, by Courtine] |
Full Idea: Throughout Schelling's work we find the affirmation of absolute freedom or of the absolute as freedom. | |
From: report of Friedrich Schelling (Philosophy of Revelation [1843], Vol.13 p.359) by Jean-François Courtine - Schelling p.83 | |
A reaction: Of all of the German idealists, Schelling may be the closest to modern existentialism. |
21925 | For Schelling the Absolute spirit manifests as nature in which self-consciousness evolves [Schelling, by Lewis,PB] |
Full Idea: (Like Schopenhauer) Schelling understood the Absolute - spirit rather than will - to manifest itself as nature in which man evolves with self-consciousness. | |
From: report of Friedrich Schelling (Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature [1799]) by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 4 | |
A reaction: The influence of Spinoza seems strong here. Is his Absolute just Spinoza's 'God'? |
22045 | Metaphysics aims at the Absolute, which goes beyond subjective and objective viewpoints [Schelling, by Pinkard] |
Full Idea: Schelling never lost his youthful conviction that any metaphysics had to be an explication of the 'absolute' as something that went beyond both subjective and objective points of view. | |
From: report of Friedrich Schelling (Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature [1799]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 12 | |
A reaction: Even for a scientific and analytic modern philosopher there must be a target of an ideal account that includes human subjectivity within an objective view of the world. Even Mysterians like McGinn would like that. |
22074 | We must show that the whole of nature, because it is effective, is grounded in freedom [Schelling] |
Full Idea: What is required is to show that everything that is effective (nature, the world of things) is grounded in activity, life, freedom. | |
From: Friedrich Schelling (Of Human Freedom [1809], p.351), quoted by Jean-François Courtine - Schelling | |
A reaction: I take the ancestor of this view of nature to be the monads of Leibniz, as the active principle in nature. Because this is an idealist view, it starts with the absolute freedom of the Self, and presumably sees nature in its own image. |
22073 | The basis of philosophy is the Self prior to experience, where it is the essence of freedom [Schelling] |
Full Idea: The highest principle of all philosophy is the Self insofar as it is purely and simply Self, not yet conditioned by an object, but where it is formulated by freedom. The alpha and omega of all philosophy is freedom. | |
From: Friedrich Schelling (Letters to Hegel [1795], 1795 02 04), quoted by Jean-François Courtine - Schelling p.83 | |
A reaction: A common later response to this (e.g. in Schopenhauer) is that there is no concept of the Self prior to experience. The idealists seem to adore free will, while offering no reply to Spinoza on the matter, with whom they were very familiar. |
22075 | Only idealism has given us the genuine concept of freedom [Schelling] |
Full Idea: Until the discovery of idealism, the genuine concept of freedom has been missing from every modern system, whether it be that of Leibniz or of Spinoza. | |
From: Friedrich Schelling (Of Human Freedom [1809], p.345), quoted by Jean-François Courtine - Schelling p.87 | |
A reaction: Spinoza denied free will, and Leibniz fudged it. Evidently more medieval theological accounts were not good enough. I presume Fichte is Schelling's hero, and he seems to see freedom as axiomatic about the Self. |
20956 | Ultimately, all being is willing. The nature of primal being is the same as the nature of willing [Schelling] |
Full Idea: In the last and highest instance there is no other being but willing. Willing is primal being, and all the predicates of primal being only fit willing: groundlessness, eternity, being independent of time, self-affirmation. | |
From: Friedrich Schelling (On the Essence of Human Freedom [1809], I.7.350), quoted by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 5 'Reason' | |
A reaction: Insofar as this says that 'primal being' must be active in character, I love this idea. Not the rest of the idea though! Bowie says this essay clearly influenced Schopenhauer. It looks as if Nietzsche must be read it too. |
20957 | We don't choose our characters, yet we still claim credit for the actions our characters perform [Schelling] |
Full Idea: Nobody has chosen their character; and yet this does not stop anybody attributing the action which follows from his character to themself as a free action. | |
From: Friedrich Schelling (The Ages of the World [1810], I.93) | |
A reaction: This pinpoints a very nice ambivalence about our attitudes to our own characters. We all have some pride and shame about who we are, without having chosed who we are. At least when we are young. But we make the bed we lie in. |
22057 | Schelling sought a union between the productivities of nature and of the mind [Schelling, by Bowie] |
Full Idea: Schelling's philosophy of nature aims to connect nature's 'unconscious productivity' with the mind's 'conscious productivity'. | |
From: report of Friedrich Schelling (Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature [1799]) by Andrew Bowie - German Philosophy: a very short introduction 3 | |
A reaction: If you have a fairly active view of nature (as Leibniz did), then this is a promising line. I like the unpopular view that the modern idea of spontaneous 'powers' in nature is applicable to explanations of mind. |
22031 | Schelling made organisms central to nature, because mere mechanism could never produce them [Schelling, by Pinkard] |
Full Idea: Schelling made the image of the 'organism' central to his conception of nature, arguing that merely mechanical processes could never produce 'life' (as a self-producing, self-sustaining, self-directing process). | |
From: report of Friedrich Schelling (Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature [1799]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 08 | |
A reaction: At that date this seems a reasonable claim, but subsequent biochemistry has undermined it. |