34 ideas
| 13479 | Given that thinking aims at truth, logic gives universal rules for how to do it [Burge] |
| Full Idea: The laws of logic - which are constituted by atemporal thoughts and atemporal subject matter - provide universal prescriptions of how one ought to think, given that one's thinking has the function of attaining truth. | |
| From: Tyler Burge (Frege on Knowing the Third Realm [1992], p.316) | |
| A reaction: Burge is giving, and endorsing, Frege's view. Burge is fighting a rearguard action, when logical systems keep proliferating. See Idea 10282. I sympathise with the dream of Burge and Frege. |
| 8132 | We now have a much more sophisticated understanding of logical form in language [Burge] |
| Full Idea: The second half of the twentieth century has seen the development of a vastly more sophisticated sense of logical form, as applied to natural languages. | |
| From: Tyler Burge (Philosophy of Mind: 1950-2000 [2005], p.462) | |
| A reaction: Burge cites this as one of the three big modern developments (along with the critique of logical positivism, and direct reference/anti-individualism). Vagueness may be the last frontier for this development. |
| 17622 | We come to believe mathematical propositions via their grounding in the structure [Burge] |
| Full Idea: A deeper justification for believing in [mathematical] propositions [apart from pragmatism] lies in finding their place in a logicist proof structure, by understanding the grounds within this structure that support them. | |
| From: Tyler Burge (Frege on Knowing the Foundations [1998], 3) | |
| A reaction: This generalises to doubting something until you see what grounds it. |
| 6368 | If my ticket won't win the lottery (and it won't), no other tickets will either [Kyburg, by Pollock/Cruz] |
| Full Idea: The Lottery Paradox says you should rationally conclude that your ticket will not win the lottery, and then apply the same reasoning to all the other tickets, and conclude that no ticket will win the lottery. | |
| From: report of Henry E. Kyburg Jr (Probability and Logic of Rational Belief [1961]) by J Pollock / J Cruz - Contemporary theories of Knowledge (2nd) §7.2.8 | |
| A reaction: (Very compressed by me). I doubt whether this is a very deep paradox; the conclusion that I will not win is a rational assessment of likelihood, but it is not the result of strict logic. |
| 16901 | The equivalent algebra model of geometry loses some essential spatial meaning [Burge] |
| Full Idea: Geometrical concepts appear to depend in some way on a spatial ability. Although one can translate geometrical propositions into algebraic ones and produce equivalent models, the meaning of the propositions seems to me to be thereby lost. | |
| From: Tyler Burge (Frege on Apriority (with ps) [2000], 4) | |
| A reaction: I think this is a widely held view nowadays. Giaquinto has a book on it. A successful model of something can't replace it. Set theory can't replace arithmetic. |
| 9159 | You can't simply convert geometry into algebra, as some spatial content is lost [Burge] |
| Full Idea: Although one can translate geometrical propositions into algebraic ones and produce equivalent models, the meaning of geometrical propositions seems to me to be thereby lost. Pure geometry involves spatial content, even if abstracted from physical space. | |
| From: Tyler Burge (Frege on Apriority [2000], IV) | |
| A reaction: This supports Frege's view (against Quine) that geometry won't easily fit into the programme of logicism. I agree with Burge. You would be focusing on the syntax of geometry, and leaving out the semantics. |
| 16902 | Peano arithmetic requires grasping 0 as a primitive number [Burge] |
| Full Idea: In the Peano axiomatisation, arithmetic seems primitively to involve the thought that 0 is a number. | |
| From: Tyler Burge (Frege on Apriority (with ps) [2000], 5) | |
| A reaction: Burge is pointing this out as a problem for Frege, for whom only the logic is primitive. |
| 16892 | Is apriority predicated mainly of truths and proofs, or of human cognition? [Burge] |
| Full Idea: Whereas Leibniz and Frege predicate apriority primarily of truths (or more fundamentally, proofs of truths), Kant predicates apriority primarily of cognition and the employment of representations. | |
| From: Tyler Burge (Frege on Apriority (with ps) [2000], 1) |
| 9382 | Subjects may be unaware of their epistemic 'entitlements', unlike their 'justifications' [Burge] |
| Full Idea: I call 'entitlement' (as opposed to justification) the epistemic rights or warrants that need not be understood by or even be accessible to the subject. | |
| From: Tyler Burge (Content Preservation [1993]), quoted by Paul Boghossian - Analyticity Reconsidered §III | |
| A reaction: I espouse a coherentism that has both internal and external components, and is mediated socially. In Burge's sense, animals will sometimes have 'entitlement'. I prefer, though, not to call this 'knowledge'. 'Entitled true belief' is good. |
| 8126 | Anti-individualism says the environment is involved in the individuation of some mental states [Burge] |
| Full Idea: Anti-individualism is the view that not all of an individual's mental states and events can be type-individuated independently of the nature of the entities in the individual's physical or social environment environment. | |
| From: Tyler Burge (Philosophy of Mind: 1950-2000 [2005], p.453) | |
| A reaction: While the Twin Earth experiment emphasises the physical environment, Burge has been responsible for emphasising the social environment. The suspicion is that the whole concept of 'individual' minds will collapse on this view. |
| 8127 | Broad concepts suggest an extension of the mind into the environment (less computer-like) [Burge] |
| Full Idea: Certain thought experiments made trouble for standard functionalism, which limits input/output to the surface of an individual; proposals to extend this into the environment reduces the reliance on a computer paradigm, but increases complexity. | |
| From: Tyler Burge (Philosophy of Mind: 1950-2000 [2005], p.454) | |
| A reaction: [He has the Twin Earth experiment in mind] The jury is out on this, but it looks a bit of a slippery slope. Accounts of action and responsibility need a fairly sharp concept of an individual. Externalism begins to look like just a new scepticism. |
| 8129 | Anti-individualism may be incompatible with some sorts of self-knowledge [Burge] |
| Full Idea: The idea of anti-individualism raised problems about self-knowledge. The question is whether anti-individualism is compatible with some sort of authoritative or privileged warrant for certain types of self-knowledge. | |
| From: Tyler Burge (Philosophy of Mind: 1950-2000 [2005], p.457) | |
| A reaction: [See under 'Nature of Minds' for 'Anti-individualism'] The thought is that if your mind is not entirely in your head, you can no longer be an expert on it. It might go the other way: obviously we can be self-experts, so anti-individualism is wrong. |
| 8131 | Some qualities of experience, like blurred vision, have no function at all [Burge] |
| Full Idea: There appear to be qualitative aspects of experience that have no function in the life of the organism. They constitute dysfunction or noise. Blurriness in a visual experience is an example. | |
| From: Tyler Burge (Philosophy of Mind: 1950-2000 [2005], p.460) | |
| A reaction: The best account of blurred vision would seem to be adverbial - I see 'in a blurred way' (nay, blurredly). Hence maybe blurred vision is functional, but it just isn't functioning very well. |
| 3115 | Are meaning and expressed concept the same thing? [Burge, by Segal] |
| Full Idea: It is Burge's view that what a word means should be distinguished from the concept it expresses. | |
| From: report of Tyler Burge (Frege on Extensions from Concepts [1984]) by Gabriel M.A. Segal - A Slim Book about Narrow Content 3.2 | |
| A reaction: Presumably the immediate meaning (e.g. of 'arthritis') is socially determined, while the concept is fixed by history? Or what? |
| 23110 | Human injustice is not a permanent feature of communities [Rawls] |
| Full Idea: Men's propensity to injustice is not a permanent aspect of community life. | |
| From: John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972], p.245), quoted by John Kekes - Against Liberalism | |
| A reaction: This attitude is dismissed by Kekes, with some justification, as naïve optimism. What could be Rawls's grounds for making such a claim? It couldn't be the facts of human history. |
| 15676 | Rawls defends the priority of right over good [Rawls, by Finlayson] |
| Full Idea: Rawls defends the thesis of the priority of the right over the good. | |
| From: report of John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.7:100 | |
| A reaction: It depends whether you are talking about actions, or about states of affairs. I don't see how any state of affairs can be preferred to the good one. It may be that the highest duty of action is to do what is right, rather than to achieve what is good. |
| 4123 | A fair arrangement is one that parties can agree to without knowing how it will benefit them personally [Rawls, by Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Rawls's theory is an elaboration of a simple idea: a fair system of arrangements is one that the parties can agree to without knowing how it will benefit them personally. | |
| From: report of John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972]) by Bernard Williams - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: The essence of modern Kantian contractualism. It is an appealing principle for building a rational world, but I hear Nietzsche turning in his grave. |
| 21051 | Check your rationality by thinking of your opinion pronounced by the supreme court [Rawls] |
| Full Idea: To check whether we are following public reason we might ask: how would our argument strike us presented in the form of a supreme court opinion? | |
| From: John Rawls (Political Liberalism [1993], p.254), quoted by Michael J. Sandel - Justice: What's the right thing to do? 10 | |
| A reaction: A very nice practical implementation of Kantian universalisability. How would your opinion sound if it were written into a constitution? |
| 3279 | Utilitarianism inappropriately scales up the individual willingness to make sacrifices [Rawls, by Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Rawls claims that utilitarianism applies to the problem of many interests a method appropriate for one individual. A single person may accept disadvantages in exchange for benefits, but in society other people get the benefits. | |
| From: report of John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972], p.74,104) by Thomas Nagel - Equality §7 |
| 22406 | The maximisation of happiness must be done fairly [Rawls, by Smart] |
| Full Idea: Rawls has suggested that we should maximise the general happiness only if we do so in a fair way. | |
| From: report of John Rawls (Justice as fairness: Political not Metaphysical [1958]) by J.J.C. Smart - Outline of a System of Utilitarianism 6 | |
| A reaction: Rawls is usually seen as an opponent of utilitarianism, but if we allow a few supplementary rules we can improve the theory. After all, it has a meta-rule that 'everybody counts as one'. What other supplementary values can there be? Honesty? |
| 21137 | Rawls rejected cosmopolitanism because it doesn't respect the autonomy of 'peoples' [Rawls, by Shorten] |
| Full Idea: Rawls rejected the cosmopolitan extension of his theory because he thought it failed to respect the political autonomy of 'peoples', which was his term of art for societies or political communities. | |
| From: report of John Rawls (The Law of Peoples [1999], p.115-8) by Andrew Shorten - Contemporary Political Theory 09 | |
| A reaction: Interesting that you might well start with the concept of 'a people', prior to some sort of social contract, but end up with rather alarming conflicts or indifference between rival peoples. Why should my people help in the famine next door? |
| 3280 | Why does the rational agreement of the 'Original Position' in Rawls make it right? [Nagel on Rawls] |
| Full Idea: Why does what it is rational to agree to in Rawls' 'Original Position' determine what is right? | |
| From: comment on John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972]) by Thomas Nagel - Equality §7 |
| 20552 | The original position models the idea that citizens start as free and equal [Rawls, by Swift] |
| Full Idea: The original position is presented by Rawls as modelling the sense in which citizens are to be understood as free and equal. | |
| From: report of John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972]) by Adam Swift - Political Philosophy (3rd ed) 3 'Strikes' | |
| A reaction: In other words, Rawls's philosophy is not a demonstration of why we should be liberals, but a guidebook for how liberals should go about organising society. |
| 18636 | Choose justice principles in ignorance of your own social situation [Rawls] |
| Full Idea: The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance. ...Since all are similarly situated and no one is able to design principles to favor his particular condition, the principles of justice are the rest of a fair agreement or bargain. | |
| From: John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972], §03) | |
| A reaction: A famous idea. It tries to impose a Kantian impartiality onto the assessment of political principles. It is a beautifully simple idea, and saying that such impartiality never occurs is no objection to it. Think of a planet far far away. |
| 18631 | All desirable social features should be equal, unless inequality favours the disadvantaged [Rawls] |
| Full Idea: All social primary goods - liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect - are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any or all of these goods is to the advantage of the least favoured. | |
| From: John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972], §46) | |
| A reaction: In the wholehearted capitalism of the 21st century this sounds like cloud-cuckoo land. As an 'initial position' (just as in the 'Republic') the clean slate brings out some interesting principles. Actual politics takes vested interests as axiomatic. |
| 21119 | Power is only legitimate if it is reasonable for free equal citizens to endorse the constitution [Rawls] |
| Full Idea: Exercise of political power is fully proper only when it is exercised in accordance with a constitution the essentials of which all citizens as free and equal may reasonably be expected to endorse in light of principles and ideals acceptable to reason. | |
| From: John Rawls (Political Liberalism [1993], p.217), quoted by Andrew Shorten - Contemporary Political Theory 02 | |
| A reaction: This is not the actual endorsement of Rousseau, or the tacit endorsement of Locke (by living there), but adds a Kantian appeal to a rational consensus, on which rational people should converge. Very Enlightenment. 'Hypothetical consent'. |
| 20538 | Utilitarians lump persons together; Rawls somewhat separates them; Nozick wholly separates them [Swift on Rawls] |
| Full Idea: Rawls objects to utilitarianism because it fails to take seriously the separateness of persons (because there is no overall person to enjoy the overall happiness). But Nozick thinks Rawls does not take the separateness of persons seriously enough. | |
| From: comment on John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972]) by Adam Swift - Political Philosophy (3rd ed) 1 'Nozick' | |
| A reaction: In this sense, Nozick seems to fit our picture of a liberal more closely than Rawls does. I think they both exaggerate the separateness of persons, based on a false concept of human nature. |
| 9277 | Rawls's account of justice relies on conventional fairness, avoiding all moral controversy [Gray on Rawls] |
| Full Idea: Rawls's account of justice works only with widely accepted intuitions of fairness and relies at no point on controversial positions in ethics. The fruit of this modesty is a pious commentary on conventional moral beliefs. | |
| From: comment on John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972]) by John Gray - Straw Dogs 3.6 | |
| A reaction: Presumably this is the thought which provoked Nozick to lob his grenade on the subject. It resembles the charges of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche against Kant, that he was just dressing up conventional morality. Are 'controversial' ethics good? |
| 23420 | In a pluralist society we can't expect a community united around one conception of the good [Rawls] |
| Full Idea: The fact of pluralism means that the hope of political community must be abandoned, if by such a community we mean a political society united in affirming a general and comprehensive conception of the good. | |
| From: John Rawls (The Idea of Overlapping Consensus [1987]), quoted by Will Kymlicka - Community 'legitimacy' | |
| A reaction: A moderate pluralism might be manageable, but strong, diverse and dogmatic beliefs among sub-groups probably make it impossible. |
| 20527 | Liberty Principle: everyone has an equal right to liberties, if compatible with others' liberties [Rawls] |
| Full Idea: First Principle [Liberty]: Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all. | |
| From: John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972], 46) | |
| A reaction: This is the result of consensus after the initial ignorant position of assessment. It is characteristic of liberalism. I'm struggling to think of a disagreement. |
| 21018 | The social contract has problems with future generations, national boundaries, disabilities and animals [Rawls, by Nussbaum] |
| Full Idea: Rawls saw four difficulties for justice in the social contract approach: future generations; justice across national boundaries; fair treatment of people with disabilities; and moral issues involving non-human animals. | |
| From: report of John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972]) by Martha Nussbaum - Creating Capabilities 4 | |
| A reaction: These are all classic examples of groups who do not have sufficient power to negotiate contracts. |
| 21041 | Justice concerns not natural distributions, or our born location, but what we do about them [Rawls] |
| Full Idea: The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts. | |
| From: John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972], 17) | |
| A reaction: Lovely quotation. There is no point in railing against the given, and that includes what is given by history, as well as what is given by nature. It comes down to intervening, in history and in nature. How much intervention will individuals tolerate? |
| 23583 | If an aggression is unjust, the constraints on how it is fought are much stricter [Rawls] |
| Full Idea: When a country's right to war is questionable and uncertain, the constraints on the means it can use are all the more severe. | |
| From: John Rawls (A Theory of Justice [1972], p.379), quoted by Michael Walzer - Just and Unjust Wars 14 | |
| A reaction: This is Rawls opposing the idea that combatants are moral equals. The restraints are, of course, moral. In practice aggressors are usually the worst behaved. |
| 14349 | If there are no finks or antidotes at the fundamental level, the laws can't be ceteris paribus [Burge, by Corry] |
| Full Idea: Bird argues that there are no finks at the fundamental level, and unlikely to be any antidotes. It then follows that laws at the fundamental level will all be strict - not ceteris paribus - laws. | |
| From: report of Tyler Burge (Intellectual Norms and Foundations of Mind [1986]) by Richard Corry - Dispositional Essentialism Grounds Laws of Nature? 3 | |
| A reaction: [Bird's main target is Nancy Cartwright 1999] This is a nice line of argument. Isn't part of the ceteris paribus problem that two fundamental laws might interfere with one another? |