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20947
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Thoughts are learnt through words, so language shows the limits and shape of our knowledge [Herder]
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Full Idea:
If it is true that we cannot think without thoughts, and that we learn to think through words: then language gives the whole of human knowledge its limits and outline.
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From:
Johann Gottfried Herder (On Recent German Literature. Fragments [1767], p.373), quoted by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy
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A reaction:
Deomonstrating that Frege's famous 1884 'linguistic turn', immortalised by Dummett, was actually the continuation of a long focus on language in German philosophy. Non-verbal animals very obviously think.
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18436
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Entities are truthmakers for their resemblances, so no extra entities or 'resemblances' are needed [Rodriquez-Pereyra]
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Full Idea:
A and B are the sole truthmakers for 'A and B resemble each other'. There is no need to postulate extra entities - the resembling entities suffice to account for them. There is no regress of resemblances, ...since there are no resemblances at all.
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From:
Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (Resemblance Nominalism: a solution to universals [2002], p.115), quoted by Douglas Edwards - Properties 5.5.2
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A reaction:
This seems to flatly reject the ordinary conversational move of asking in what 'respect' the two things resemble, which may be a genuine puzzle which gets an illuminating answer. We can't fully explain resemblance, but we can do better than this!
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7669
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We cannot attain all the ideals of every culture, so there cannot be a perfect life [Herder, by Berlin]
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Full Idea:
For Herder, we cannot attain to the highest ideals of all the centuries and all the places at once, and since we cannot do that, the whole notion of the perfect life collapses.
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From:
report of Johann Gottfried Herder (works [1784]) by Isaiah Berlin - The Roots of Romanticism Ch.3
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A reaction:
Herder seems to be the father of modern cultural relativism. The idea is hard to challenge, but the ideals of some cultures should be ignored, if they diminish rather than enhance the good life for all.
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7668
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Herder invented the idea of being rooted in (or cut off from) a home or a group [Herder, by Berlin]
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Full Idea:
The whole notion of being at home, or being cut off from one's natural roots, the whole idea of roots, the whole idea of belonging to a group, a sect, a movement, was largely invented by Herder.
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From:
report of Johann Gottfried Herder (works [1784], Ch.3) by Isaiah Berlin - The Roots of Romanticism
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A reaction:
Hm. Broad generalisations are an awful temptation in the history of ideas. As a corrective to this, trying reading the two Anglo-Saxon poems 'The Wanderer' and 'The Seafarer'. Very Germanic, I suppose. Interesting, though. Leads to Hegel's politics.
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