Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim, Bryan van Norden and Antoine Arnauld

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5 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 2. Ancient Thought

23392	The Dao (Way) first means the road, and comes to mean the right way to live [Norden]
	Full Idea: The 'Dao' (tr 'Way) has five meanings: 1) path or road, 2) mode of doing something, 3) account of how to do something, 4) the right way to live, and 5) the ultimate metaphysical entity responsible for nature, and how it should be.
	From: Bryan van Norden (Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy [2011], 1.III)
	A reaction: [compressed] So it is essentially metaphorical, just like the English 'way to do a thing'. Number 5 seems a rather large leap from the others, and most discussion seems to centre on number 4. The Chinese hoped for consensus on the Dao.

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 3. Hermeneutics

23408	The hermeneutic circle is either within the text, or between text and biased reader [Norden]
	Full Idea: The first type of hermeneutic circle operates inside the text, studying relationships between sentences. …The second type is between the text and the reader, …who brings assumptions about what it means.
	From: Bryan van Norden (Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy [2011], App A.I)
	A reaction: The first kind is an essential aspect of reading well. Readers are biased, but I get very tired of those who do nothing but search for bias, and ignore the truth a text has to offer. If everything is bias, intellectual life is dead.

23407	Heremeneutics is either 'faith' (examining truth) or 'suspicion' (looking for hidden motives) [Norden]
	Full Idea: A 'hermeneutics of faith' treat a text as a candidate for truth. ….A 'hermeneutics of suspicion' looks not for truth but for explanations of why someone makes certain claims, …particularly to serve their ulterior interests.
	From: Bryan van Norden (Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy [2011], App I.1)
	A reaction: As far as I can see, the suspicious approach was a legitimate development in sociology, which studies the sources of ideas, but is absurdly offered by some philosophers as a total replacement of the faith approach.

4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 7. Barcan Formula

16519	No one can conceive of a possible substance, apart from those which God has created [Arnauld]
	Full Idea: I am much mistaken if there is anyone who dares to say that he can conceive of a purely possible substance, …for although one talks so much of them, one never conceives them except according to the notion of those which God has created.
	From: Antoine Arnauld (Letters to Leibniz [1686], 1686.05.13), quoted by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance 4.2
	A reaction: This idea cashes out in the 'necessitism' of Tim Williamson, and views on the Barcan formulae in modal logic.

14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction

20653	Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson]
	Full Idea: There are six 'reductive levels' in science: social groups, (multicellular) living things, cells, molecules, atoms, and elementary particles.
	From: report of H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim (Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis [1958]) by Peter Watson - Convergence 10 'Intro'
	A reaction: I have the impression that fields are seen as more fundamental that elementary particles. What is the status of the 'laws' that are supposed to govern these things? What is the status of space and time within this picture?