Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Edmund Husserl, Robert Merrihew Adams and Philip Kitcher

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these philosophers


93 ideas

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 2. Phenomenology
If phenomenology is deprived of the synthetic a priori, it is reduced to literature [Benardete,JA on Husserl]
     Full Idea: Sternly envisaged by Husserl as a scientific discipline, phenomenology, on being stripped of the synthetic a priori by the logical positivists, ends up in Sartre as a largely literary undertaking.
     From: comment on Edmund Husserl (works [1898]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.18
Phenomenology is the science of essences - necessary universal structures for art, representation etc. [Husserl, by Polt]
     Full Idea: For Husserl, phenomenology must seek the essential aspects of phenomena - necessary, universal structures, such as the essence of art or the essence of representation. He sought a science of these essences.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900]) by Richard Polt - Heidegger: an introduction 2 'Dilthey'
Bracketing subtracts entailments about external reality from beliefs [Husserl, by Putnam]
     Full Idea: In effect, the device of bracketing subtracts entailments from the ordinary belief locution (the entailments that refer to what is external to the thinker's mind).
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900]) by Hilary Putnam - Reason, Truth and History Ch.2
     A reaction: This seems to leave phenomenology as pure introspection, or as a phenomenalist description of sense-data. It is also a refusal to explain anything. That sounds quite appealing, like Keats's 'negative capability'.
Phenomenology aims to describe experience directly, rather than by its origins or causes [Husserl, by Mautner]
     Full Idea: Phenomenology, in Husserl, is an attempt to describe our experience directly, as it is, separately from its origins and development, independently of the causal explanations that historians, sociologists or psychologists might give.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900]) by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.421
     A reaction: In this simple definition the concept sounds very like the modern popular use of the word 'deconstruction', though that is applied more commonly to cultural artifacts than to actual sense experience.
Phenomenology studies different types of correlation between consciousness and its objects [Husserl, by Bernet]
     Full Idea: Husserl's phenomenology is the science of the intentional correlation of acts of consciousness with their objects and it studies the ways in which different kinds of objects involve different kinds of correlation with different kinds of acts.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.198
     A reaction: I notice he uncritically accepts Husserl's description of it as a 'science'. My naive question is how you would distinguish one kind of 'correlation' from another.
Phenomenology needs absolute reflection, without presuppositions [Husserl]
     Full Idea: Phenomenology demands the most perfect freedom from presuppositions and, concerning itself, an absolute reflective insight.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], III.1.063), quoted by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 3.1
     A reaction: As an outsider, I would have thought that the whole weight of modern continental philosophy is entirely opposed to the aspiration to think without presuppositions.
There can only be a science of fluctuating consciousness if it focuses on stable essences [Husserl, by Bernet]
     Full Idea: How can there be a science of a Heraclitean flux of acts of consciousness? Husserl answers that this is possible only if these acts are described in respect of their invariant or essential structure. This is an 'eidetic' scence of 'pure' psychology.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.199
     A reaction: This is his phenomenology in 1913, which Bernet describes as 'static'. Husserl later introduced time with his 'genetic' version of phenomenology, looking at the sources of experience (and then at history). Essentialism seems to be intuitive.
Phenomenology aims to validate objects, on the basis of intentional intuitive experience [Husserl, by Bernet]
     Full Idea: Husserl's goal is to account for the validity, the 'being-true', of objects on the basis of the way in which they are given or constituted. ...Experiences more suitable for guaranteeing objects are those which both intend and intuitively apprehend them.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.199
     A reaction: [compressed] In the light of previous scepticism and idealism, the project sounds a bit optimistic. If there is a gulf between mind and world it can only be bridged by 'reaching out' from both sides. This is a mind-sided attempt.
Husserl saw transcendental phenomenology as idealist, in its construction of objects [Husserl, by Bernet]
     Full Idea: Phenomeonology is 'transcendental' in describing the correlation between phenomena and intentional objects, to show how their meaning and validity are constructed. Husserl gave this process an idealist interpretation (which Heidegger criticised).
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.200
     A reaction: [compressed] If the actions which produce our concepts of objects all take place 'behind' phenomenal consciousness, then it is hard to avoid sliding into some sort of idealism. It encourages direct realism about perception.
Start philosophising with no preconceptions, from the intuitively non-theoretical self-given [Husserl]
     Full Idea: Where other philosophers ...start from unclarified, ungrounded preconceptions, we start out from that which antedates all standpoints: from the totality of the intuitively self-given which is prior to any theorising reflexion.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.2.020)
     A reaction: This is the great aim of Phenomenology, which is obviously inspired by Hegel's similar desire to start from nothing. Hegel starts from a concept ('nothing'), but Husserl starts from raw experience. I suspect both approaches are idle dreams.
Epoché or 'bracketing' is refraining from judgement, even when some truths are certain [Husserl]
     Full Idea: In relation to every thesis we can use this peculiar epoché (the phenomenon of 'bracketing' or 'disconnecting'), a certain refraining from judgment which is compatible with the unshaken and unshakable because self-evidencing conviction of Truth.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.1.031)
     A reaction: This is the crucial first step of Phenomenology. It seems to me that it is best described as 'methodological scepticism'. People actually practise it all the time, while they focus on some experience, while trying to forget preconceptions.
'Bracketing' means no judgements at all about spatio-temporal existence [Husserl]
     Full Idea: I use the 'phenomenological' epoché, which completely bars me from using any judgment that concerns spatio-temporal existence.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.1.032)
     A reaction: This makes bracketing (or epoché) into a sort of voluntary idealism. Put like that, it is hard to see what benefits it could bring. I am, you will notice, a pretty thorough sceptic about the project of phenomenology. What has it taught us?
After everything is bracketed, consciousness still has a unique being of its own [Husserl]
     Full Idea: We fix our eyes steadily upon the sphere of Consciousness and study what it is that we find immanent in it. ...Consciousness in itself has a being of its own which in its absolute uniqueness of nature remains unaffected by disconnection.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.2.033)
     A reaction: 'Disconnection' is his 'bracketing'. He makes it sound obvious, but Schopenhauer entirely disagrees with him, and I have no idea how to arbitrate. I struggle to grasp consciousness once nature has been bracketed, but have little luck. Is it Da-sein?
Phenomenology describes consciousness, in the light of pure experiences [Husserl]
     Full Idea: Phenomenology is a pure descriptive discipline which studies the whole field of pure transcendental consciousness in the light of pure intuition.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.4.059)
     A reaction: When he uses the word 'pure' three times in a sentence, each applied to a different thing, you begin to wonder precisely what it means. Strictly speaking, I would probably only apply 'pure' to abstracta, and never to experiences or reality.115
2. Reason / D. Definition / 13. Against Definition
The use of mathematical-style definitions in philosophy is fruitless and harmful [Husserl]
     Full Idea: Definition cannot take the same form in philosophy as it does in mathematics; the imitation of mathematical procedure is invariably in this respect not only unfruitful, but perverse and most harmful in its consequences.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], Intro)
     A reaction: A hundred years of analytic philosophy has entirely ignored this warning. My heart has always sunk when I read '=def...' in a philosophy article (which is usually American). The illusion of rigour.
4. Formal Logic / E. Nonclassical Logics / 2. Intuitionist Logic
Intuitionists rely on assertability instead of truth, but assertability relies on truth [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: Though it may appear that the intuitionist is providing an account of the connectives couched in terms of assertability conditions, the notion of assertability is a derivative one, ultimately cashed out by appealing to the concept of truth.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 06.5)
     A reaction: I have quite a strong conviction that Kitcher is right. All attempts to eliminate truth, as some sort of ideal at the heart of ordinary talk and of reasoning, seems to me to be doomed.
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 6. Classical Logic
Classical logic is our preconditions for assessing empirical evidence [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: In my terminology, classical logic (or at least, its most central tenets) consists of propositional preconditions for our assessing empirical evidence in the way we do.
     From: Philip Kitcher (A Priori Knowledge Revisited [2000], §VII)
     A reaction: I like an even stronger version of this - that classical logic arises out of our experiences of things, and so we are just assessing empirical evidence in terms of other (generalised) empirical evidence. Logic results from induction. Very unfashionable.
I believe classical logic because I was taught it and use it, but it could be undermined [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: I believe the laws of classical logic, in part because I was taught them, and in part because I think I see how those laws are used in assessing evidence. But my belief could easily be undermined by experience.
     From: Philip Kitcher (A Priori Knowledge Revisited [2000], §VII)
     A reaction: Quine has one genuine follower! The trouble is his first sentence would fit witch-doctoring just as well. Kitcher went to Cambridge; I hope he doesn't just believe things because he was taught them, or because he 'sees how they are used'!
5. Theory of Logic / C. Ontology of Logic / 1. Ontology of Logic
Logicians presuppose a world, and ignore logic/world connections, so their logic is impure [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol]
     Full Idea: Husserl maintained that because most logicians have not studied the connection between logic and the world, logic did not achieve its status of purity. Even more, their logic implicitly presupposed a world.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Formal and Transcendental Logic [1929]) by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 4.5.1
     A reaction: The point here is that the bracketing of phenomenology, to reach an understanding with no presuppositions, is impossible if you don't realise what your are presupposing. I think the logic/world relationship is badly neglected, thanks to Frege.
Phenomenology grounds logic in subjective experience [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol]
     Full Idea: The phenomenological logic grounds logical notions in subjective acts of experience.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Formal and Transcendental Logic [1929], p.183) by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 4.5.1
     A reaction: I'll approach this with great caution, but this is a line of thought that appeals to me. The core assumptions of logic do not arise ex nihilo.
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 1. Mathematics
Kitcher says maths is an idealisation of the world, and our operations in dealing with it [Kitcher, by Resnik]
     Full Idea: Kitcher says maths is an 'idealising theory', like some in physics; maths idealises features of the world, and practical operations, such as segregating and matching (numbering), measuring, cutting, moving, assembling (geometry), and collecting (sets).
     From: report of Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984]) by Michael D. Resnik - Maths as a Science of Patterns One.4.2.2
     A reaction: This seems to be an interesting line, which is trying to be fairly empirical, and avoid basing mathematics on purely a priori understanding. Nevertheless, we do not learn idealisation from experience. Resnik labels Kitcher an anti-realist.
Mathematical a priorism is conceptualist, constructivist or realist [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: Proposals for a priori mathematical knowledge have three main types: conceptualist (true in virtue of concepts), constructivist (a construct of the human mind) and realist (in virtue of mathematical facts).
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 02.3)
     A reaction: Realism is pure platonism. I think I currently vote for conceptualism, with the concepts deriving from the concrete world, and then being extended by fictional additions, and shifts in the notion of what 'number' means.
The interest or beauty of mathematics is when it uses current knowledge to advance undestanding [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: What makes a question interesting or gives it aesthetic appeal is its focussing of the project of advancing mathematical understanding, in light of the concepts and systems of beliefs already achieved.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 09.3)
     A reaction: Kitcher defends explanation (the source of understanding, presumably) in terms of unification with previous theories (the 'concepts and systems'). I always have the impression that mathematicians speak of 'beauty' when they see economy of means.
The 'beauty' or 'interest' of mathematics is just explanatory power [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: Insofar as we can honor claims about the aesthetic qualities or the interest of mathematical inquiries, we should do so by pointing to their explanatory power.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 09.4)
     A reaction: I think this is a good enough account for me (but probably not for my friend Carl!). Beautiful cars are particularly streamlined. Beautiful people look particularly healthy. A beautiful idea is usually wide-ranging.
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / g. Real numbers
Real numbers stand to measurement as natural numbers stand to counting [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: The real numbers stand to measurement as the natural numbers stand to counting.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 06.4)
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / j. Complex numbers
Complex numbers were only accepted when a geometrical model for them was found [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: An important episode in the acceptance of complex numbers was the development by Wessel, Argand, and Gauss, of a geometrical model of the numbers.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 07.5)
     A reaction: The model was in terms of vectors and rotation. New types of number are spurned until they can be shown to integrate into a range of mathematical practice, at which point mathematicians change the meaning of 'number' (without consulting us).
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / l. Zero
0 is not a number, as it answers 'how many?' negatively [Husserl, by Dummett]
     Full Idea: Husserl contends that 0 is not a number, on the grounds that 'nought' is a negative answer to the question 'how many?'.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Philosophy of Arithmetic [1894], p.144) by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics Ch.8
     A reaction: I seem to be in a tiny minority in thinking that Husserl may have a good point. One apple is different from one orange, but no apples are the same as no oranges. That makes 0 a very peculiar number. See Idea 9838.
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 4. Using Numbers / a. Units
A one-operation is the segregation of a single object [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: We perform a one-operation when we perform a segregative operation in which a single object is segregated.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 06.3)
     A reaction: This is part of Kitcher's empirical but constructive account of arithmetic, which I find very congenial. He avoids the word 'unit', and goes straight to the concept of 'one' (which he treats as more primitive than zero).
Multiplicity in general is just one and one and one, etc. [Husserl]
     Full Idea: Multiplicity in general is no more than something and something and something, etc.; ..or more briefly, one and one and one, etc.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Philosophy of Arithmetic [1894], p.85), quoted by Gottlob Frege - Review of Husserl's 'Phil of Arithmetic'
     A reaction: Frege goes on to attack this idea fairly convincingly. It seems obvious that it is hard to say that you have seventeen items, if the only numberical concept in your possession is 'one'. How would you distinguish 17 from 16? What makes the ones 'multiple'?
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 4. Using Numbers / e. Counting by correlation
Husserl said counting is more basic than Frege's one-one correspondence [Husserl, by Heck]
     Full Idea: Husserl famously argued that one should not explain number in terms of equinumerosity (or one-one correspondence), but should explain equinumerosity in terms of sameness of number, which should be characterised in terms of counting.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Philosophy of Arithmetic [1894]) by Richard G. Heck - Cardinality, Counting and Equinumerosity 3
     A reaction: [Heck admits he hasn't read the Husserl] I'm very sympathetic to Husserl, though nearly all modern thinking favours Frege. Counting connects numbers to their roots in the world. Mathematicians seem oblivious of such things.
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 4. Using Numbers / g. Applying mathematics
The old view is that mathematics is useful in the world because it describes the world [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: There is an old explanation of the utility of mathematics. Mathematics describes the structural features of our world, features which are manifested in the behaviour of all the world's inhabitants.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 06.1)
     A reaction: He only cites Russell in modern times as sympathising with this view, but Kitcher gives it some backing. I think the view is totally correct. The digression produced by Cantorian infinities has misled us.
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 5. The Infinite / k. Infinitesimals
With infinitesimals, you divide by the time, then set the time to zero [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: The method of infinitesimals is that you divide by the time, and then set the time to zero.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 10.2)
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 1. Foundations for Mathematics
Pure mathematics is the relations between all possible objects, and is thus formal ontology [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol]
     Full Idea: Pure mathematics is the science of the relations between any object whatever (relation of whole to part, relation of equality, property, unity etc.). In this sense, pure mathematics is seen by Husserl as formal ontology.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Formal and Transcendental Logic [1929]) by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 4.5.2
     A reaction: I would expect most modern analytic philosophers to agree with this. Modern mathematics (e.g. category theory) seems to have moved beyond this stage, but I still like this idea.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 2. Intuition of Mathematics
Intuition is no basis for securing a priori knowledge, because it is fallible [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: The process of pure intuition does not measure up to the standards required of a priori warrants not because it is sensuous but because it is fallible.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 03.2)
Mathematical intuition is not the type platonism needs [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: The intuitions of which mathematicians speak are not those which Platonism requires.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 03.3)
     A reaction: The point is that it is not taken to be a 'special' ability, but rather a general insight arising from knowledge of mathematics. I take that to be a good account of intuition, which I define as 'inarticulate rationality'.
If mathematics comes through intuition, that is either inexplicable, or too subjective [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: If mathematical statements are don't merely report features of transient and private mental entities, it is unclear how pure intuition generates mathematical knowledge. But if they are, they express different propositions for different people and times.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 03.1)
     A reaction: This seems to be the key dilemma which makes Kitcher reject intuition as an a priori route to mathematics. We do, though, just seem to 'see' truths sometimes, and are unable to explain how we do it.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 4. Mathematical Empiricism / a. Mathematical empiricism
Mathematical knowledge arises from basic perception [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: Mathematical knowledge arises from rudimentary knowledge acquired by perception.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], Intro)
     A reaction: This is an empiricist manifesto, which asserts his allegiance to Mill, and he gives a sophisticated account of how higher mathematics can be accounted for in this way. Well, he tries to.
My constructivism is mathematics as an idealization of collecting and ordering objects [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: The constructivist position I defend claims that mathematics is an idealized science of operations which can be performed on objects in our environment. It offers an idealized description of operations of collecting and ordering.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], Intro)
     A reaction: I think this is right. What is missing from Kitcher's account (and every other account I've met) is what is meant by 'idealization'. How do you go about idealising something? Hence my interest in the psychology of abstraction.
We derive limited mathematics from ordinary things, and erect powerful theories on their basis [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: I propose that a very limited amount of our mathematical knowledge can be obtained by observations and manipulations of ordinary things. Upon this small base we erect the powerful general theories of modern mathematics.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 05.2)
     A reaction: I agree. The three related processes that take us from the experiential base of mathematics to its lofty heights are generalisation, idealisation and abstraction.
The defenders of complex numbers had to show that they could be expressed in physical terms [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: Proponents of complex numbers had ultimately to argue that the new operations shared with the original paradigms a susceptibility to construal in physical terms. The geometrical models of complex numbers answered to this need.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 07.5)
     A reaction: [A nice example of the verbose ideas which this website aims to express in plain English!] The interest is not that they had to be described physically (which may pander to an uninformed audience), but that they could be so described.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 6. Logicism / d. Logicism critique
Analyticity avoids abstract entities, but can there be truth without reference? [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: Philosophers who hope to avoid commitment to abstract entities by claiming that mathematical statements are analytic must show how analyticity is, or provides a species of, truth not requiring reference.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 04.I)
     A reaction: [the last part is a quotation from W.D. Hart] Kitcher notes that Frege has a better account, because he provides objects to which reference can be made. I like this idea, which seems to raise a very large question, connected to truthmakers.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 10. Constructivism / a. Constructivism
Arithmetic is an idealizing theory [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: I construe arithmetic as an idealizing theory.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 06.2)
     A reaction: I find 'generalising' the most helpful word, because everyone seems to understand and accept the idea. 'Idealisation' invokes 'ideals', which lots of people dislike, and lots of philosophers seem to have trouble with 'abstraction'.
Arithmetic is made true by the world, but is also made true by our constructions [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: I want to suggest both that arithmetic owes its truth to the structure of the world and that arithmetic is true in virtue of our constructive activity.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 06.2)
     A reaction: Well said, but the problem seems no more mysterious to me than the fact that trees grow in the woods and we build houses out of them. I think I will declare myself to be an 'empirical constructivist' about mathematics.
We develop a language for correlations, and use it to perform higher level operations [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: The development of a language for describing our correlational activity itself enables us to perform higher level operations.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 06.2)
     A reaction: This is because all language itself (apart from proper names) is inherently general, idealised and abstracted. He sees the correlations as the nested collections expressed by set theory.
Constructivism is ontological (that it is the work of an agent) and epistemological (knowable a priori) [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: The constructivist ontological thesis is that mathematics owes its truth to the activity of an actual or ideal subject. The epistemological thesis is that we can have a priori knowledge of this activity, and so recognise its limits.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 06.5)
     A reaction: The mention of an 'ideal' is Kitcher's personal view. Kitcher embraces the first view, and rejects the second.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 10. Constructivism / c. Conceptualism
Conceptualists say we know mathematics a priori by possessing mathematical concepts [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: Conceptualists claim that we have basic a priori knowledge of mathematical axioms in virtue of our possession of mathematical concepts.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 04.1)
     A reaction: I sympathise with this view. If concepts are reasonably clear, they will relate to one another in certain ways. How could they not? And how else would you work out those relations other than by thinking about them?
If meaning makes mathematics true, you still need to say what the meanings refer to [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: Someone who believes that basic truths of mathematics are true in virtue of meaning is not absolved from the task of saying what the referents of mathematical terms are, or ...what mathematical reality is like.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 04.6)
     A reaction: Nice question! He's a fan of getting at the explanatory in mathematics.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / a. Nature of Being
Our goal is to reveal a new hidden region of Being [Husserl]
     Full Idea: We could refer to our goal as the winning of a new region of Being, the distinctive character of which has not yet been defined.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.2.033)
     A reaction: The obvious fruit of this idea, I would think, is Heidegger's concept of Da-sein, which claims to be a distinctively human region of Being. I'm not sure I can cope with the claim that Being itself (a very broad-brush term) has hidden regions.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / h. Dasein (being human)
As a thing and its perception are separated, two modes of Being emerge [Husserl]
     Full Idea: We are left with the transcendence of the thing over against the perception of it, ...and thus a basic and essential difference arises between Being as Experience and Being as Thing.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.2.042)
     A reaction: I'm thinking that this is not just the germ of Heidegger's concept of Da-sein, but it actually IS his concept, without the label. Husserl had said that he hoped to reveal a new region of Being.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 6. Fundamentals / c. Monads
Husserl sees the ego as a monad, unifying presence, sense and intentional acts [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol]
     Full Idea: Husserl's notion of monad expresses a complete inegration of every intentional presence into its sense, and every sense into the intentional acts, ....and finally every intentional act is integrated into the ego.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Cartesian Meditations [1931]) by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 4.6.2
     A reaction: No, I don't understand that either, but it makes good sense to employ the concept of a 'monad' into the concept of the ego, if you think it embodies perfect unity. That was a main motivation for Leibniz to employ the word.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 3. Reality
The World is all experiencable objects [Husserl]
     Full Idea: The World is the totality of objects that can be known through experience.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.1.001)
     A reaction: I think this is the 'Nature' which has to be 'bracketed', when pursuing Phenomenology. It sounds like anti-realist empiricism, which has no place for unobservables.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
Absolute reality is an absurdity [Husserl]
     Full Idea: An absolute reality is just as valid as a round square.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.3.055)
     A reaction: Husserl distances himself from 'Berkeleyian' idealism, but his discussion keeps flirting with, perhaps in some sort of have-your-cake-and-eat-it Hegelian way. Perhaps it is close to Dummett's Anti-Realism.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 2. Abstract Objects / b. Need for abstracta
Abstract objects were a bad way of explaining the structure in mathematics [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: The original introduction of abstract objects was a bad way of doing justice to the insight that mathematics is concerned with structure.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 06.1)
     A reaction: I'm a fan of explanations in metaphysics, and hence find the concept of 'bad' explanations in metaphysics particularly intriguing.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / d. Individuation by haecceity
A 'thisness' is a thing's property of being identical with itself (not the possession of self-identity) [Adams,RM]
     Full Idea: A thisness is the property of being identical with a certain particular individual - not the property that we all share, of being identical with some individual, but my property of being identical with me, your property of being identical with you etc.
     From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 1)
     A reaction: These philosophers tell you that a thisness 'is' so-and-so, and don't admit that he (and Plantinga) are putting forward a new theory about haecceities, and one I find implausible. I just don't believe in the property of 'being-identical-to-me'.
There are cases where mere qualities would not ensure an intrinsic identity [Adams,RM]
     Full Idea: I have argued that there are possible cases in which no purely qualitative conditions would be both necessary and sufficient for possessing a given thisness.
     From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 6)
     A reaction: Are we perhaps confusing our epistemology with our ontology here? We can ensure that something has identity, or ensure that its identity is knowable. If it is 'something', then it has identity. Er, that's it?
Adams says actual things have haecceities, but not things that only might exist [Adams,RM, by Stalnaker]
     Full Idea: Adams favours haecceitism about actual things but no haecceities for things that might exist but don't.
     From: report of Robert Merrihew Adams (Actualism and Thisness [1981]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 4.2
     A reaction: This contrasts with Plantinga, who proposes necessary essences for everything, even for what might exist. Plantinga sounds crazy to me, Adams merely interesting but not too plausible.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 5. Essence as Kind
The sense of anything contingent has a purely apprehensible essence or Eidos [Husserl]
     Full Idea: It belongs to the sense of anything contingent to have an essence and therefore an Eidos which can be apprehended purely.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.1.002), quoted by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 3.2.2
     A reaction: This is the quirky idea that we can know necessary categorial essences a priori, even if the category is currently empty. Crops us in Lowe. Husserl says grasping the corresponding individuals must be possible. Third Man question.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 9. Essence and Properties
Imagine an object's properties varying; the ones that won't vary are the essential ones [Husserl, by Vaidya]
     Full Idea: Husserl's 'eidetic variation' implies that we can judge the essential properties of an object by varying the properties of the object in imagination, and seeing which vary and which do not.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Anand Vaidya - Understanding and Essence 'Knowledge'
     A reaction: The problem with this is that there are trivial or highly general necessary properties which are obviously not essential to the thing. Vaidya says [822] you can't perform the experiment without prior knowledge of the essence.
Essences are taken to be qualitative properties [Adams,RM]
     Full Idea: Essences have normally been understood to be constituted by qualitative properties.
     From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 1)
     A reaction: I add this simple point, because it might be challenged by the view that an essence is a substance, rather than the properties of anything. I prefer that, and would add that substances are individuated by distinctive causal powers.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 7. Indiscernible Objects
If the universe was cyclical, totally indiscernible events might occur from time to time [Adams,RM]
     Full Idea: There is a temporal argument for the possibility of non-identical indiscernibles, if there could be a cyclical universe, in which each event was preceded and followed by infinitely many other events qualitatively indiscernible from itself.
     From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3)
     A reaction: The argument is a parallel to Max Black's indiscernible spheres in space. Adams offers the reply that time might be tightly 'curved', so that the repetition was indeed the same event again.
Two events might be indiscernible yet distinct, if there was a universe cyclical in time [Adams,RM]
     Full Idea: Similar to the argument from spatial dispersal, we can argue against the Identity of Indiscernibles from temporal dispersal. It seems there could be a cyclic universe, ..and thus there could be distinct but indiscernible events, separated temporally.
     From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3)
     A reaction: See Idea 14509 for spatial dispersal. If cosmologists decided that a cyclical universe was incoherent, would that ruin the argument? Presumably there might even be indistinguishable events in the one universe (in principle!).
Black's two globes might be one globe in highly curved space [Adams,RM]
     Full Idea: If God creates a globe reached by travelling two diameters in a straight line from another globe, this can be described as two globes in Euclidean space, or a single globe in a tightly curved non-Euclidean space.
     From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3)
     A reaction: [my compression of Adams's version of Hacking's response to Black, as spotted by Stalnaker] Hence we save the identity of indiscernibles, by saying we can't be sure that two indiscernibles are not one thing, unusually described.
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 1. A Priori Necessary
Many necessities are inexpressible, and unknowable a priori [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: There are plenty of necessary truths that we are unable to express, let alone know a priori.
     From: Philip Kitcher (A Priori Knowledge Revisited [2000], §II)
     A reaction: This certainly seems to put paid to any simplistic idea that the a priori and the necessary are totally coextensive. We might, I suppose, claim that all necessities are a priori for the Archangel Gabriel (or even a very bright cherub). Cf. Idea 12429.
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 2. A Priori Contingent
Knowing our own existence is a priori, but not necessary [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: What is known a priori may not be necessary, if we know a priori that we ourselves exist and are actual.
     From: Philip Kitcher (A Priori Knowledge Revisited [2000], §II)
     A reaction: Compare Idea 12428, which challenges the inverse of this relationship. This one looks equally convincing, and Kripke adds other examples of contingent a priori truths, such as those referring to the metre rule in Paris.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 2. Nature of Possible Worlds / a. Nature of possible worlds
Are possible worlds just qualities, or do they include primitive identities as well? [Adams,RM]
     Full Idea: Is the world - and are all possible worlds - constituted by purely qualitative facts, or does thisness hold a place beside suchness as a fundamental feature of reality?
     From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], Intro)
     A reaction: 'Thisness' and 'suchness' aim to capture Aristotelian notions of the entity and its attributes. Aristotle talks of 'a this'. Adams is after adding 'haecceities' to the world. My intuitive answer is no, there are no 'pure' identities. We add those.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 2. Nature of Possible Worlds / b. Worlds as fictions
Possible worlds are world-stories, maximal descriptions of whole non-existent worlds [Adams,RM, by Molnar]
     Full Idea: According to a theory proposed by Adams, possible worlds are world-stories, that is maximally complete consistent sets of propositions which between them describe non-existent whole worlds.
     From: report of Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979]) by George Molnar - Powers 12.2.2
     A reaction: Presumably this places an additional constraint on the view that a world is just a maximal set of propositions. It seems to require coherence as well as consistency. Suppose an object destroys all others objects. Is that a world?
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / d. Haecceitism
Adams says anti-haecceitism reduces all thisness to suchness [Adams,RM, by Stalnaker]
     Full Idea: The anti-haecceitist thesis (according to Adams's version) is that all thisnesses are reducible to, or supervenient upon, suchnesses.
     From: report of Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 3.5
Haecceitism may or may not involve some logical connection to essence [Adams,RM, by Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: Moderate Haecceitism says that thisnesses and transworld identities are primitive, but logically connected with suchnesses. ..Extreme Haecceitism involves the rejection of all logical connections between suchness and thisness, for persons.
     From: report of Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been
     A reaction: I am coming to the conclusion that they are not linked. That thisness is a feature of our conceptual thinking, and is utterly atomistic and content-free, while suchness is rich and a feature of reality.
Moderate Haecceitism says transworld identities are primitive, but connected to qualities [Adams,RM]
     Full Idea: My position, according to which thisnesses and transworld identities are primitive but logically connected to suchnesses, we may call 'Moderate Haecceitism'.
     From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 6)
     A reaction: The rather tentative connection to qualities is to block the possibility of Aristotle being a poached egg, which he (quite reasonably!) holds to be counterintuitive. It all feels like a mess to me.
11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 4. The Cogito
The physical given, unlike the mental given, could be non-existing [Husserl]
     Full Idea: Anything physical which is given in person can be non-existing, no mental process which is given in person can be non-existing.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.2.046), quoted by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 3.3.5
     A reaction: This endorsement of Descartes shows how strong the influence of the Cogito remained in later continental philosophy. Phenomenology is a footnote to Descartes.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 1. Nature of the A Priori
A priori knowledge comes from available a priori warrants that produce truth [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: X knows a priori that p iff the belief was produced with an a priori warrant, which is a process which is available to X, and this process is a warrant, and it makes p true.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 01.4)
     A reaction: [compression of a formal spelling-out] This is a modified version of Goldman's reliabilism, for a priori knowledge. It sounds a bit circular and uninformative, but it's a start.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 2. Self-Evidence
Husserl says we have intellectual intuitions (of categories), as well as of the senses [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol]
     Full Idea: The novelty of Husserl is to describe that we have intellectual intuitions, intuitions of categories as we have intuitions of sense objects.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900], II.VI.24) by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 2.4.4
     A reaction: This is 'intuitions' in Kant's sense, of something like direct apprehensions. This idea is an axiom of phenomenology, because all mental life must be bracketed, and not just the sense experience part.
Feelings of self-evidence (and necessity) are just the inventions of theory [Husserl]
     Full Idea: So-called feelings of self-evidence, of intellectual necessity, and however they may otherwise be called, are just theoretically invented feelings.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.2.021)
     A reaction: This seems to be a dismissal of the a priori necessary on the grounds that it is 'theory-laden' - which is why it has to be bracketed in order to do phenomenology.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 6. A Priori from Reason
In long mathematical proofs we can't remember the original a priori basis [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: When we follow long mathematical proofs we lose our a priori warrants for their beginnings.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 02.2)
     A reaction: Kitcher says Descartes complains about this problem several times in his 'Regulae'. The problem runs even deeper into all reasoning, if you become sceptical about memory. You have to remember step 1 when you do step 2.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 9. A Priori from Concepts
Knowledge is a priori if the experience giving you the concepts thus gives you the knowledge [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: Knowledge is independent of experience if any experience which would enable us to acquire the concepts involved would enable us to have the knowledge.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 01.3)
     A reaction: This is the 'conceptualist' view of a priori knowledge, which Kitcher goes on to attack, preferring a 'constructivist' view. The formula here shows that we can't divorce experience entirely from a priori thought. I find conceptualism a congenial view.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 10. A Priori as Subjective
We have some self-knowledge a priori, such as knowledge of our own existence [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: One can make a powerful case for supposing that some self-knowledge is a priori. At most, if not all, of our waking moments, each of us knows of herself that she exists.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 01.6)
     A reaction: This is a begrudging concession from a strong opponent to the whole notion of a priori knowledge. I suppose if you ask 'what can be known by thought alone?' then truths about thought ought to be fairly good initial candidates.
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 2. Intuition
Direct 'seeing' by consciousness is the ultimate rational legitimation [Husserl]
     Full Idea: Immediate 'seeing', not merely sensuous, experiential seeing, but seeing in the universal sense as an originally presenting consciousness of any kind whatsoever, is the ultimate legitimising source of all rational assertions.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.2.019), quoted by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 3.3.5
     A reaction: Husserl is (I gather from this) a classic rationalist. Just like Descartes' judgement of the molten wax.
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 4. Memory
The phenomena of memory are given in the present, but as being past [Husserl, by Bernet]
     Full Idea: In Husserl's phenomenology, the intentional object of a memory is the object of a past experience, which is intuitively given to me in the present, not, however, as being present but as being past.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.203
     A reaction: I certainly don't have to assess my mental events, and judge which are past, which are now, and which are future imaginings. I suppose Fodor would say they are memories because we find them in the memory-box. How else could it work?
13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 1. Justification / a. Justification issues
A 'warrant' is a process which ensures that a true belief is knowledge [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: A 'warrant' refers to those processes which produce belief 'in the right way': X knows that p iff p, and X believes that p, and X's belief that p was produced by a process which is a warrant for it.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 01.2)
     A reaction: That is, a 'warrant' is a justification which makes a belief acceptable as knowledge. Traditionally, warrants give you certainty (and are, consequently, rather hard to find). I would say, in the modern way, that warrants are agreed by social convention.
13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 1. Justification / c. Defeasibility
If experiential can defeat a belief, then its justification depends on the defeater's absence [Kitcher, by Casullo]
     Full Idea: According to Kitcher, if experiential evidence can defeat someone's justification for a belief, then their justification depends on the absence of that experiential evidence.
     From: report of Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], p.89) by Albert Casullo - A Priori Knowledge 2.3
     A reaction: Sounds implausible. There are trillions of possible defeaters for most beliefs, but to say they literally depend on trillions of absences seems a very odd way of seeing the situation
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 6. Scepticism Critique
Natural science has become great by just ignoring ancient scepticism [Husserl]
     Full Idea: Natural science has grown to greatness by pushing ruthlessly aside the rank growth of ancient skepticism and renouncing the attempt to conquer it.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.2.026)
     A reaction: This may be because scepticism is boring, or it may be because science 'brackets' scepticism, leaving philosophers to worry about it.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / c. Knowing other minds
We know another's mind via bodily expression, while also knowing it is inaccessible [Husserl, by Bernet]
     Full Idea: Another person's consciousness is given to me through the expressive stratum of her body, which gives me access to her experience while making me realise that it is inaccessible to me. Empathy is a presentation of what is absent.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.203
     A reaction: This is the phenomenological approach to the problem of other minds, by examining the raw experience of encountering another person. It is true that we seem to both know and not know another person's mind when we encounter them.
Husserl's monads (egos) communicate, through acts of empathy. [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol]
     Full Idea: For Husserl monads have windows because they communicate with each other. The windows of the monads are the acts of empathy.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Cartesian Meditations [1931]) by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 4.7.5
     A reaction: Leibniz said his monads (which include minds) have 'no windows'. The mere existence of empathy (or mirror neurons, as we would say) is hardly sufficient to defeat solipsism.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / b. Essence of consciousness
Pure consciousness is a sealed off system of actual Being [Husserl]
     Full Idea: Consciousness, considered in its 'purity', must be reckoned as a self-contained system of Being, a system of actual Being, into which nothing can penetrate, and from which nothing can escape.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.3.049)
     A reaction: Recorded without comment, to show that among phenomenologists there is a way of thinking about consciousness which is a long way from analytic discussions of the topic.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 3. Abstraction by mind
Husserl identifies a positive mental act of unification, and a negative mental act for differences [Husserl, by Frege]
     Full Idea: Husserl identifies a 'unitary mental act' where several contents are connected or related to one another, and also a difference-relation where two contents are related to one another by a negative judgement.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Philosophy of Arithmetic [1894], p.73-74) by Gottlob Frege - Review of Husserl's 'Phil of Arithmetic' p.322
     A reaction: Frege is setting this up ready for a fairly vicious attack. Where Hume has a faculty for spotting resemblances, it is not implausible that we should also be hard-wired to spot differences. 'You look different; have you changed your hair style?'
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 6. Idealisation
Idealisation trades off accuracy for simplicity, in varying degrees [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: To idealize is to trade accuracy in describing the actual for simplicity of description, and the compromise can sometimes be struck in different ways.
     From: Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 06.5)
     A reaction: There is clearly rather more to idealisation than mere simplicity. A matchstick man is not an ideal man.
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 4. Presupposition of Self
The psychological ego is worldly, and the pure ego follows transcendental reduction [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol]
     Full Idea: Husserl distinguishes two sorts of egos or subjects of experience, the psychological ego and the pure ego. The psychological ego is a reality of the world, and the pure ego is a result of transcendental reduction.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Cartesian Meditations [1931]) by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 4.6.1
     A reaction: The sounds like embracing both the Cartesian and the Kantian egos. This is obviously the source of Sartre's interesting early book on the self. 'Transcendental reduction' is his bracketing or epoché.
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 2. Knowing the Self
We never meet the Ego, as part of experience, or as left over from experience [Husserl]
     Full Idea: We never stumble across the pure Ego as an experience within the flux of manifold experiences which survives as transcendental residuum; nor do we meet it as a constitutive bit of experience appearing with the experience of which it is an integral part.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.4.057)
     A reaction: It seems that he agrees with David Hume. Sartre's 'Transcendence of the Ego' follows up this idea. However, Husserl goes on to assert the 'necessity' of the permanent Ego, which sounds like Kant's view.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 4. Structure of Concepts / b. Analysis of concepts
We clarify concepts (e.g. numbers) by determining their psychological origin [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol]
     Full Idea: Husserl said that the clarification of any concept is made by determining its psychological origin. He is concerned with the psychological origins of the operation of calculating cardinal numbers.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Philosophy of Arithmetic [1894]) by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 2.2
     A reaction: This may not be the same as the 'psychologism' that Frege so despised, because Husserl is offering a clarification, rather than the intrinsic nature of number concepts. It is not a theory of the origin of numbers.
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 8. Abstractionism Critique
Psychologism blunders in focusing on concept-formation instead of delineating the concepts [Dummett on Husserl]
     Full Idea: Husserl substitutes his account of the process of concept-formation for a delineation of the concept. It is above all in making this substitution that psychologism is objectionable (and Frege opposed it so vehemently).
     From: comment on Edmund Husserl (Philosophy of Arithmetic [1894]) by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics Ch.2
     A reaction: While this is a powerful point which is a modern orthodoxy, it hardly excludes a study of concept-formation from being of great interest for other reasons. It may not appeal to logicians, but it is crucial part of the metaphysics of nature.
Husserl wanted to keep a shadowy remnant of abstracted objects, to correlate them [Dummett on Husserl]
     Full Idea: Husserl saw that abstracted units, though featureless, must in some way retain their distinctness, some shadowy remnant of their objects. So he wanted to correlate like-numbered sets, not just register their identity, but then abstractionism fails.
     From: comment on Edmund Husserl (Philosophy of Arithmetic [1894]) by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics Ch.12
     A reaction: Abstractionism is held to be between the devil and the deep blue sea, of depending on units which are identifiable, when they are defined as devoid of all individuality. We seem forced to say that the only distinction between them is countability.
19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / a. Direct reference
Direct reference is by proper names, or indexicals, or referential uses of descriptions [Adams,RM]
     Full Idea: Direct reference is commonly effected by the use of proper names and indexical expressions, and sometimes by what has been called (by Donnellan) the 'referential' use of descriptions.
     From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 2)
     A reaction: One might enquire whether the third usage should be described as 'direct', but then I am not sure that there is much of a distinction between references which are or are not 'direct'. Either you (or a sentence) refer or you (or it) don't.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / b. Fact and value
Only facts follow from facts [Husserl]
     Full Idea: From facts follow always nothing but facts.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.1.008)
     A reaction: I presume objective possibilities follow from facts, so this doesn't sound strictly correct. I sounds like a nice slogan for those desiring to keep facts separate from values. [on p.53 he comments on fact/value]