40 ideas
| 22864 | Philosophy is the study and criticsm of cultural beliefs, to achieve new possibilities [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is criticism of the influential beliefs that underlie culture, tracking them to their generating conditions and results, and considering their mutual compatibility. This terminates in a new perspective, which leads to new possibilities. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 6:19), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey Intro | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This would make quite a good manifesto for French thinkers of the 1960s. Foucault could hardly disagree. An excellent idea. |
| 22873 | Liberalism should improve the system, and not just ameliorate it [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: Liberalism must become radical in the sense that, instead of using social power to ameliorate the evil consequences of the existing system, it shall use social power to change the system. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 11:287), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 4 'Dewey' | |
| A reaction: Conservative liberals ask what people want, and try to give it to them. Radical liberals ask what people actually need, and try to make it possible. The latter is bound to be a bit paternalistic, but will probably create a better world. |
| 21554 | Sets always exceed terms, so all the sets must exceed all the sets [Lackey] |
| Full Idea: Cantor proved that the number of sets in a collection of terms is larger than the number of terms. Hence Cantor's Paradox says the number of sets in the collection of all sets must be larger than the number of sets in the collection of all sets. | |
| From: Douglas Lackey (Intros to Russell's 'Essays in Analysis' [1973], p.127) | |
| A reaction: The sets must count as terms in the next iteration, but that is a normal application of the Power Set axiom. |
| 21553 | It seems that the ordinal number of all the ordinals must be bigger than itself [Lackey] |
| Full Idea: The ordinal series is well-ordered and thus has an ordinal number, and a series of ordinals to a given ordinal exceeds that ordinal by 1. So the series of all ordinals has an ordinal number that exceeds its own ordinal number by 1. | |
| From: Douglas Lackey (Intros to Russell's 'Essays in Analysis' [1973], p.127) | |
| A reaction: Formulated by Burali-Forti in 1897. |
| 14703 | Superficial necessity is true in all worlds; deep necessity is thus true, no matter which world is actual [Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: If we have a 'fixedly' operator F, then a sentence is fixedly actually true if it is true no matter which world is designated as actual (which 'he actually won in 2008' fails to be). Maybe '□' is superficial necessity, and FA is 'deep' necessity. | |
| From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 1.2.2) | |
| A reaction: Gareth Evans distinguishes 'deep' from 'superficial' necessity. Humberstone and others introduced 'F'. Presumably FA is deeper because it has to pass a tougher test. |
| 14714 | Contradictory claims about a necessary god both seem apriori coherent [Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: It seems apriori coherent that there could be a necessarily existing god, and that there could be no such god - but they can't both be true. Other examples include unprovable mathematical necessities | |
| From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 2.3.4) |
| 22869 | Knowledge is either the product of competent enquiry, or it is meaningless [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: Knowledge, as an abstract term, is a name for the product of competent enquiries. Apart from this relation, its meaning is so empty that any content or filling may be arbitrarily poured into it. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 12:16), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 2 'Knowledge' | |
| A reaction: What is the criterion of 'competent'? Danger of tautology, if competent enquiry is what produces knowledge. |
| 22868 | The value and truth of knowledge are measured by success in activity [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: What measures knowledge's value, its correctness and truth, is the degree of its availability for conducting to a successful issue the activities of living beings. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Middle Works (15 vols, ed Boydston) [1910], 4:180), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 2 'Critique' | |
| A reaction: Note that this is the measure of truth, not the nature of truth (which James seemed to believe). Dewey gives us a clear and perfect statement of the pragmatic view of knowledge. I don't agree with it. |
| 21516 | We want certainty in order to achieve secure results for action [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: The ultimate ground of the quest for cognitive certainty is the need for security in the results for action. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Quest for Certainty [1929], p.39), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 10.5 | |
| A reaction: Just what a pragmatist should say. This may be true within an evolutionary account of human nature, but seems unlikely when doing a sudoku. The 'ground' of the quest may not be the same as its 'source'. |
| 22867 | The quest for certainty aims for peace, and avoidance of the stress of action [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: The quest for certainty is a quest for a peace which is assured, an object which is unqualified by risk and the shadow of fear which action costs. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 4:7), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 2 'Intro' | |
| A reaction: This is a characteristic pragmatist account. I think Dewey and Peirce offer us the correct attitude to certainty. It is just not available to us, and can only be a delusion. That doesn't mean we don't know anything, however! |
| 22870 | No belief can be so settled that it is not subject to further inquiry [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: The attainment of settled beliefs is a progressive matter; there is no belief so settled as not to be exposed to further inquiry. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 12:16), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 2 'Knowledge' | |
| A reaction: A nice pragmatist mantra, but no scientists gets a research grant to prove facts which have been securely established for a very long time. It is neurotic to keep returning to check that you have locked your front door. Dewey introduced 'warranted'. |
| 14704 | 2D semantics gives us apriori knowledge of our own meanings [Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: Generalized 2D semantics is meant to vindicate the traditional idea that we have apriori access to our own meanings through armchair reflection. | |
| From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: The idea is to split meaning in two, so that we know one part of it a priori. It is an unfashionably internalist view of meaning (which doesn't make it wrong!). |
| 22866 | Mind is never isolated, but only exists in its interactions [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: Mind is primarily a verb. ...Mind never denotes anything self-contained, isolated from the world of persons and things, but is always used with respect to situations, events, objects, persons and groups. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 10:267), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 1 'emerge' | |
| A reaction: I strongly agree with the idea that mind is a process, not a thing. Certain types of solitary introspection don't seem to quite fit his account, but in general he is right. |
| 22865 | Habits constitute the self [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: All habits are demands for certain kinds of activity; and they constitute the self. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Middle Works (15 vols, ed Boydston) [1910], 14:22), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 1 'Acts' | |
| A reaction: Not an idea I have encountered elsewhere. He emphasises that habits are not repeated actions, but are dispositions. I'm not clear whether these habits must be conscious. |
| 14706 | Your view of water depends on whether you start from the actual Earth or its counterfactual Twin [Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: Your verdicts about whether the stuff on Twin Earth counts as water depends on whether you think of Twin Earth as a hypothesis about your actual environment or as a purely counterfactual possibility. | |
| From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 2.2.3) | |
| A reaction: This is the 'two-dimensional semantics' approach to the Twin Earth problem, which splits meaning into two components. Whether you start from the actual world or from Twin Earth, you will rigidly designate the local wet stuff as 'water'. |
| 14711 | Rationalists say knowing an expression is identifying its extension using an internal cognitive state [Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: In rationalist views of meaning, based on the 'golden triangle', to be competent with an expression is to be in an internal cognitive state that puts one in a position to identify its extension in any possible world based only on apriori reflection. | |
| From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 2.3.1) | |
| A reaction: This looks like a proper fight-back against modern rampant externalism about meaning. All my intuitions are with internalism, which I think points to a more coherent overall philosophy. Well done, David Chalmers! Even if he is wrong. |
| 14717 | Internalist meaning is about understanding; externalist meaning is about embedding in a situation [Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: Internalists take the notion of meaning to capture an aspect of an individual's current state of understanding, while externalists take the notion of meaning to reflect how an individual is embedded within her social and physical environment. | |
| From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 2.4.3) | |
| A reaction: This idea also occurs in discussions of concepts (filed here under 'Thought'). |
| 14720 | Semantic theory assigns meanings to expressions, and metasemantics explains how this works [Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: A semantic theory assigns semantic values (meanings) to particular expressions of the language. In contrast, a metasemantic theory explains why expressions have those semantic values, appealing to facts about speakers and communities. | |
| From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: Presumably some people only want the metasemantic version. I assume that the two are entangled, but I would vote for both. |
| 14695 | Semantic theories show how truth of sentences depends on rules for interpreting and joining their parts [Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: Semantic theories explain how the truth or falsity of whole sentences depends on the meanings of their parts by stating rules governing the interpretation of subsentential expressions and their modes of combination. | |
| From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 1.1.1) | |
| A reaction: Somehow it looks as if the mystery of the whole business will still be missing if this project is ever successfully completed. Also one suspects that such a theory would be a fiction, rather than a description of actuality, which is too complex. |
| 14696 | Simple semantics assigns extensions to names and to predicates [Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: The simplest semantic frameworks assign extensions as semantic values of particular expressions. The extension of a name is the thing, of 'cool' is the set of cool things, and sets of ordered pairs for 2-place predicates. The sentence has T or F. | |
| From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 1.1.1) | |
| A reaction: The immediate well-known problem is different predicates with the same extensions, such as 'renate' and 'cordate'. Possible worlds semantics is supposed to be an improvement to cover this, and to give a semantics for modal talk as well. Sounds good. |
| 14697 | 'Federer' and 'best tennis player' can't mean the same, despite having the same extension [Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: A simple extensional semantics will assign the same semantic value to 'Roger Federer' and 'world's best tennis player', but they clearly differ in meaning, and if events had unfolded differently they would pick out different people. | |
| From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 1.1.1) | |
| A reaction: You would think that this would be too obvious to need pointing out, but it is clearly a view that had a lot of popularity before the arrival of possible worlds. |
| 14698 | Possible worlds semantics uses 'intensions' - functions which assign extensions at each world [Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: In standard possible worlds semantics, the semantic value of an expression is an 'intension', a function that assigns an extension to the expression 'at' every possible world. ...It keeps track of the 'modal profiles' of objects, kinds and properties. | |
| From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 1.1.1) | |
| A reaction: Personally I just don't buy a semantics which is entirely based on extensions, even if this has sorted out some more obvious problems of extensionality. When I say someone is 'my hero', I don't just mean to pick out a particular person. |
| 14699 | Possible worlds make 'I' and that person's name synonymous, but they have different meanings [Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: In standard possible worlds semantics the semantic value of Hllary Clinton's utterance of 'I' will be the same as her utterance of 'Hillary Clinton'. But clearly the English word 'I' is not synonymous with the name 'Hillary Clinton'. | |
| From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 1.1.1) | |
| A reaction: This problem was spotted by Kaplan, and it has been a chief motivator for the creation of two-dimensional semantics, which some people have then extended into a complete semantic theory. No purely extensional semantics can be right. |
| 14709 | Possible worlds semantics implies a constitutive connection between meanings and modal claims [Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: In standard possible world semantics an expression's intension reflects the modal profile of an object, kind or property, which would establish an important constitutive connection between meanings and modal claims. | |
| From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 2.3.1) | |
| A reaction: The central question becomes 'do you need to know a thing's modal profile in order to have a decent understanding of it?', but if you express it that way (my way), then what counts as 'decent' will be relative to all sorts of things. |
| 14719 | In the possible worlds account all necessary truths are same (because they all map to the True) [Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: A problem for a standard possible worlds analysis is that all necessary truths have precisely the same content (the function mapping every world to the True). Hesperus=Phosphorus has the same content as Hesperus=Hesperus-and-2+2=4. | |
| From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: If this is supposed to be a theory of meaning then it has gone very badly wrong indeed. Has modern semantics taken a wrong turning somewhere? Two-dimensionalism is meant to address some of these problems. |
| 14701 | Array worlds along the horizontal, and contexts (world,person,time) along the vertical [Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: In a two-dimensional matrix we array possible circumstances of evaluation (worlds) along the horizontal axis, and possible contexts of utterance (world, person, time) along the vertical axis. | |
| From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 1.1.2) | |
| A reaction: This is due to Stalnaker 1978, and is clearest in operation when applied to an indexical such as 'I' in 'I am President'. 'I' is a rigid designator, but depends on context. The grid is filled in with T or F for each utterance in each world. |
| 14702 | If we introduce 'actually' into modal talk, we need possible worlds twice to express this [Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: At first glance necessity and possibility can be fully expressed by quantifying over all possible worlds, but this cannot capture 'Possibly everything actually red is also shiny'. This needs a double-indexed framework, with worlds playing two roles. | |
| From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 1.2.1) | |
| A reaction: She points out that this also applies to tense logic, for the notion of 'now'. The point is that we not only need a set of possible worlds, but we also need a procedure (the 'Actuality' operator A or @) for picking out one of the worlds as special. |
| 14705 | Do we know apriori how we refer to names and natural kinds, but their modal profiles only a posteriori? [Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps our best way of understanding names and natural kind terms is that we have apriori access to currently associated reference-fixing criterion, but only a posteriori access to the associated modal profile. | |
| From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: This is the 'generalized' view of 2D semantics (covering everything, not just modals and indexicals). I know apriori what something is, but only study will reveal its possibilities. The actual world is easy to talk about, but possible worlds are harder. |
| 14715 | 2D fans defend it for conceptual analysis, for meaning, and for internalist reference [Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: Supporters of generalized two-dimensional semantics agree to defend apriori conceptual analysis in metaphysics, and that 2D captures meaning and not just belief-patterns, and it gives a broadly internalist approach to reference determination. | |
| From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 2.3.4) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure I can evaluate this, but I sort of like conceptual analysis, and the concept of meaning, and fairly internalist views of reference, so I am ripe for the picking. |
| 14716 | 2D semantics can't respond to contingent apriori claims, since there is no single proposition involved [Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: It is objected to 2D semantics that it cannot explain Kripke's cases of contingent apriori truths, for there is no single proposition (construed as a set of possible worlds) that is both apriori and contingent. | |
| From: Laura Schroeter (Two-Dimensional Semantics [2010], 2.4.2) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a rather large objection to the whole 2D plan, if it implies that when we say something there is no single proposition that is being expressed. |
| 8478 | Dewey argued long before Wittgenstein that there could not seriously be a private language [Dewey, by Orenstein] |
| Full Idea: Dewey argued in the twenties that there could not be, in any serious sense, a private language. Wittgenstein also, years later, came to appreciate this point. | |
| From: report of John Dewey (works [1926]) by Alex Orenstein - W.V. Quine Ch.6 | |
| A reaction: A nice historical footnote to perhaps the most famous argument in twentieth century philosophy. Can anyone send me the Dewey reference? |
| 22871 | The good people are those who improve; the bad are those who deteriorate [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: The bad man is the man who no matter how good he has been is beginning to deteriorate, to grow less good. The good man is the man who no matter how morally unworthy he has been is moving to become better. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Middle Works (15 vols, ed Boydston) [1910], 12:181), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 3 'Reconstruct' | |
| A reaction: Although a slightly improving rat doesn't sound as good as a slightly deteriorating saint, I have some sympathy with this thought. The desire to improve seems to be right at the heart of what makes good character. |
| 22876 | Democracy is the development of human nature when it shares in the running of communal activities [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: Democracy is but a name for the fact that human nature is developed only when its elements take part in directing things which are common, things for the sake of which men and women form groups. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Middle Works (15 vols, ed Boydston) [1910], 12:199), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 4 'Democracy' | |
| A reaction: It is hard to prove that human nature develops when it particpates in groups. If people are excluded from power, their loyalty tends to switch to sub-groups, such as friends in a pub, or a football team. Powerless nationalists baffle me. |
| 22875 | Democracy is not just a form of government; it is a mode of shared living [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience | |
| From: John Dewey (The Middle Works (15 vols, ed Boydston) [1910], 9:93), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 4 'Democracy' | |
| A reaction: This precisely pinpoints the heart of the culture wars in 2021. A huge swathe of western populations believe in Dewey's idea, but a core of wealthy right-wingers and their servants only see democracy as the mechanism for obtaining power. |
| 22872 | Liberals aim to allow individuals to realise their capacities [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: Liberalism is committed to …the liberation of individuals so that realisation of their capacities may be the law of their life. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 11:41), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 4 'Dewey' | |
| A reaction: Capacity expression as the main aim of politics is precisely the idea developed more fully in modern times by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. It strikes me as an excellent proposal. Does it need liberalism, or socialism? |
| 22874 | Individuality is only developed within groups [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: Only in social groups does a person have a chance to develop individuality. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Middle Works (15 vols, ed Boydston) [1910], 15:176), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 4 'Individuals' | |
| A reaction: This is a criticism of both Rawls and Nozick. Rawls's initial choosers don't consult, or have much social background. Nozick's property owners ignore everything except contracts. |
| 22880 | The things in civilisation we prize are the products of other members of our community [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: The things in civilisation we most prize are not of ourselves. They exist by grace of the doings and sufferings of the continuous human community in which we are a link | |
| From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 9:57), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 7 'Reconstruct' | |
| A reaction: Dewey defends liberalism, but he has strong communitarian tendencies. What is the significance of an enduring community losing touch with its own achievements? |
| 22879 | 'God' is an imaginative unity of ideal values [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: 'God' represents a unification of ideal values that is essentially imaginative in origin. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 9:29), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 7 'Construct' | |
| A reaction: This seems to have happened when a flawed God like Zeus is elevated to be the only God, and is given supreme power and wisdom. |
| 22877 | We should try attaching the intensity of religious devotion to intelligent social action [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: One of the few experiments in the attachment of emotion to ends that mankind has not tried is that of devotion (so intense as to be religious) to intelligence as a force in social action. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 9:53), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 7 'Intro' | |
| A reaction: An interesting thought that religious emotions such as devotion are so distinctive that they can be treated as valuable, even in the absence of belief. He seems to be advocating Technocracy. |
| 22878 | Religions are so shockingly diverse that they have no common element [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: There is only a multitude of religions …and the differences between them are so great and so shocking that any common element that can be extracted is meaningless. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Later Works (17 vols, ed Boydston) [1930], 9:7), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 7 'Construct' | |
| A reaction: Religion is for Dewey what a game was for Wittgenstein, as an anti-essentialist example. I would have thought that they all involved some commitment to a realm of transcendent existence. |