27 ideas
23531 | Philosophers should interpret the world, by expressing its possibilities [Berardi] |
Full Idea: The philosopher's task is to interpret the world, that is, to capture its tendency and above all to enunciate the possibilities inscribed therein. …The politician's eye does not see the possible, being attracted instead by the probable. | |
From: Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (The Second Coming [2019], How to) | |
A reaction: An inspiring idea! He is rejecting Marx's aim of changing the world, which had 'catastrophic' results. But I love his view of interpretation as spotting tendencies and possibilities. This fits my preferred ontology of dispositions and powers. |
3123 | Science is in the business of carving nature at the joints [Segal] |
Full Idea: Science is in the business of carving nature at the joints. | |
From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 5) |
3125 | Psychology studies the way rationality links desires and beliefs to causality [Segal] |
Full Idea: A person's desires and beliefs tend to cause what they tend to rationalise. This coordination of causality and rationalisation lies at the heart of psychology. | |
From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 5.3) |
23538 | Nothingness only exists in consciousness [Berardi] |
Full Idea: Consciousness is the only place where nothingness exists. | |
From: Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (The Second Coming [2019], II 'Expanding') | |
A reaction: Not sure about this, but an interesting remark from someone with a Hegelian background. We certainly have a concept of nothingness (a mental file of it, even). |
3105 | Is 'Hesperus = Phosphorus' metaphysically necessary, but not logically or epistemologically necessary? [Segal] |
Full Idea: It is metaphysically necessary that Hesperus is Phosphorus, but not logically necessary, since logical deduction could not reveal its truth, and it is not epistemologically necessary, as the ancient Greeks didn't know the identity. (Natural necessity?) | |
From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 1.6) |
3106 | If claims of metaphysical necessity are based on conceivability, we should be cautious [Segal] |
Full Idea: Since conceivability is the chief method of assessing the claims of metaphysical necessity, I think such claims are incautious. | |
From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 1.6) |
3113 | The success and virtue of an explanation do not guarantee its truth [Segal] |
Full Idea: The success and virtue of an explanation do not guarantee its truth. | |
From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.2) |
23532 | The delusion of free will brings a sense of guilt [Berardi] |
Full Idea: A sense of guilt is linked to the delusion of free will. | |
From: Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (The Second Coming [2019], How to) | |
A reaction: I agree that free will is a delusion, but I'm not sure about this. Clearly if you think you are 'ultimately' responsible for all of your actions this will increase guilt, but belief in free will is compatible with various excuses for actions. |
3112 | Folk psychology is ridiculously dualist in its assumptions [Segal] |
Full Idea: Commonsense psychology is a powerful explanatory theory, and largely correct, but it seems to be profoundly dualist, and treats minds as immaterial spirits which can transmigrate and exist disembodied. | |
From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.2) | |
A reaction: Fans of folk psychology tend to focus on central normal experience, but folk psychology also seems to range from quirky to barking mad. A 'premonition' is a widely accepted mental event. |
3108 | If 'water' has narrow content, it refers to both H2O and XYZ [Segal] |
Full Idea: My view is that the concepts of both the Earth person and the Twin Earth person refer to BOTH forms of diamonds or water (H2O and XYZ). | |
From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 1.7) | |
A reaction: Fair enough, though that seems to imply that my current concepts may actually refer to all sorts of items of which I am currently unaware. But that may be so. |
3110 | Humans are made of H2O, so 'twins' aren't actually feasible [Segal] |
Full Idea: Humans are largely made of H2O, so there could be no twin on Twin Earth, and (as Kuhn noted) nothing with a significantly different structure from H2O could be macroscopically very like water (but topaz and citrine will do). | |
From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.1) | |
A reaction: A small point, but one that appeals to essentialists like me (see under Natural Theory/Laws of Nature). We can't learn much metaphysics from impossible examples. |
3124 | Externalists can't assume old words refer to modern natural kinds [Segal] |
Full Idea: The question of what a pre-scientific term extends over is extremely difficult for a Putnam-style externalist to answer. …There seems no good reason to assume that they extend over natural kinds ('whale', 'cat', 'water'). | |
From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 5.1) | |
A reaction: The assumption seems to be that they used to extend over descriptions, and now they extend over essences, or expert references. This can't be right. They have never changed, but now contain fewer errors. |
3117 | Concepts can survive a big change in extension [Segal] |
Full Idea: We need to think of concepts as organic entities that can persist through changes of extension. | |
From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 3.3) | |
A reaction: This would be 'organic' in the sense of modifying and growing. This is exactly right, and the interesting problem becomes the extreme cases, where an individual stretches a concept a long way. |
3104 | Must we relate to some diamonds to understand them? [Segal] |
Full Idea: Is a relationship with diamonds necessary for having a concept of diamonds? | |
From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 1.4) | |
A reaction: Probably not, given that I have a concept of kryptonite, and that I can invent my own concepts. Suppose I was brought up to believe that diamonds are a myth? |
3103 | Maybe content involves relations to a language community [Segal] |
Full Idea: It has been argued (e.g. by Tyler Burge) that certain relations to other language users are determinants of content. | |
From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 1.4) | |
A reaction: Burge's idea (with Wittgenstein behind him) strikes me as plausible (more plausible than water and elms determining the content). Our concepts actually shift during conversations. |
3111 | Externalism can't explain concepts that have no reference [Segal] |
Full Idea: Empty terms and concepts provide the largest problem for the externalist thesis of the world dependence of concepts. | |
From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.2) | |
A reaction: A speculative concept could then become a reality (e.g. an invention). The solution seems to be to say that there is an internal and an external component to most concepts. |
3109 | If content is external, so are beliefs and desires [Segal] |
Full Idea: If we accept Putnam's externalist conclusion about the meaning of a word, it is a short step to a similar conclusion about the contents of the twins' beliefs, desires and so on. | |
From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.1) | |
A reaction: This is the key step which has launched a whole new externalist view of the nature of the mind. It is one thing to say that I don't quite know what my words mean, another that I don't know my own beliefs. |
3116 | Maybe experts fix content, not ordinary users [Segal] |
Full Idea: Putnam and Burge claim that there could be two words that a misinformed subject uses to express different concepts, but that express just one concept of the experts. | |
From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 3.2) | |
A reaction: This pushes the concept outside the mind of the user, which leaves an ontological problem of what concepts are made of, how you individuate them, and where they are located. |
3121 | If content is narrow, my perfect twin shares my concepts [Segal] |
Full Idea: To say that contents of my belief are narrow is to say that they are intrinsic to me, hence that any perfect twin of mine would have beliefs with the same contents. | |
From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 5) | |
A reaction: I personally find this more congenial than externalism. If my twin and I studied chemistry, we would reach identical conclusions about water, as long as we remained perfect twins. |
3118 | If thoughts ARE causal, we can't explain how they cause things [Segal] |
Full Idea: If we identify a psychological property with its causal role then we lose the obvious explanation of why the event has the causal role that it has. | |
From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 4.1) | |
A reaction: This pinpoints very nicely one of the biggest errors in modern philosophy. There are good naturalistic reasons to reduce everything to causal role, but there is a deeper layer. Essences! |
3119 | Even 'mass' cannot be defined in causal terms [Segal] |
Full Idea: We can't define mass in terms of its causal powers because massive objects do different things in different physical systems. …What an object (or concept) with a given property does depends on what it interacts with. | |
From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 4.1) | |
A reaction: This leaves an epistemological problem, that we believe in mass, but can only get at it within a particular gravitational or inertial system. Don't give up on ontology at this point. |
23537 | American white men trusted the philosophy of winning, and then discovered losing [Berardi] |
Full Idea: American white men trusted the promises of neoliberal selfishness, they trusted the philosophy of winning, then discovered losing. | |
From: Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (The Second Coming [2019], I 'Fascism') | |
A reaction: The most pernicious terminology in the English-speaking world is the labelling of people as 'winners' and 'losers'. We celebrate the one winner, and ignore everyone else. Celebrity, excessive wealth, honourable titles. |
23536 | Community is now a nostalgic memory, which no longer exists [Berardi] |
Full Idea: Community is only a nostalgic memory of a past condition of belonging that exists no longer. Regret, not a living experience. | |
From: Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (The Second Coming [2019], I 'Fascism') | |
A reaction: It is hard to disagree with this. Local heroes in my town make lovely efforts to improve the place (with flowers, sculptures) but most of us don't know who they are. Capitalist competition erodes community. |
23534 | Communism failed to unite western workers with the oppressed of the south [Berardi] |
Full Idea: Communist internationalism was the only attempt to reconcile the workers of the West and the oppressed population of the Global South, and this attempt failed. | |
From: Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (The Second Coming [2019], I 'Hundred') | |
A reaction: It was unfortunate that communism was launched in Russia, which we now see (in 2023) as poisoned by imperialist ambitions, and quite unsuited to international idealism. The Chinese are notably active in Africa. |
23533 | The economy has replaced medieval theocracy at the centre of our society [Berardi] |
Full Idea: The economy has progressively acquired the central place in the system of knowledge and research. Re-enacting the privilege of theocracy in the Middle Ages. | |
From: Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (The Second Coming [2019], I 'Knowledge') | |
A reaction: Illuminating. This is indeed how the economy is treated, centring on Gross National Product (no matter how distributed), and economic league tables. Is it even a quasi-religion? |
23535 | Western workers turn to nationalism, to avert the effects of globalisation [Berardi] |
Full Idea: Western workers are following nationalist agendas in order to avert the effects of globalization, and resorting to nationalist and racist forms of identification. | |
From: Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (The Second Coming [2019], I 'Hundred') | |
A reaction: By 'globalisation' must be meant the impersonal work and exploitation that results from huge ruthless anonymous companies. People barely know who they are working for, so it can't give them an identity. |
6005 | Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice [Hermarchus, by Sedley] |
Full Idea: Hermarchus said that animal killing is justified by considerations of human safety and nourishment and by animals' inability to form contractual relations of justice with us. | |
From: report of Hermarchus (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by David A. Sedley - Hermarchus | |
A reaction: Could the last argument be used to justify torturing animals? Or could we eat a human who was too brain-damaged to form contracts? |