16061
|
If some facts 'logically supervene' on some others, they just redescribe them, adding nothing [Lynch/Glasgow]
|
|
Full Idea:
Logical supervenience, restricted to individuals, seems to imply strong reduction. It is said that where the B-facts logically supervene on the A-facts, the B-facts simply re-describe what the A-facts describe, and the B-facts come along 'for free'.
|
|
From:
Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], C)
|
|
A reaction:
This seems to be taking 'logically' to mean 'analytically'. Presumably an entailment is logically supervenient on its premisses, and may therefore be very revealing, even if some people think such things are analytic.
|
21497
|
If undetailed, 'coherence' is just a vague words that covers all possible arguments [Ewing]
|
|
Full Idea:
Without a detailed account, coherence is reduced to the mere muttering of the word 'coherence', which can be interpreted so as to cover all arguments, but only by making its meaning so wide as to rob it of almost all significance.
|
|
From:
A.C. Ewing (Idealism: a critical survey [1934], p.246), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 2.2
|
|
A reaction:
I'm a fan of coherence, but it is a placeholder, involving no intrinsic or detailed theory. I just think it points to the reality of how we make judgements, especially practical ones. We can categorise the inputs, and explain the required virtues.
|
23689
|
Moral words have an inherited power from expressing attitudes in emotional situations [Stevenson,CL]
|
|
Full Idea:
A term is moral because of the power that the word acquires, on account of its history in emotional situations, to evoke or directly express attitudes, as distinct from describing or designating them.
|
|
From:
Charles Leslie Stevenson (Ethics and Language [1944], p.33), quoted by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought 1 'Ayer'
|
|
A reaction:
Invites the question of what the words meant before they acquired this patina of historical usage. If 'good' orginally meant 'hurray!', its repeated usage doesn't seem to change that. If it was descriptive, why would that change with time?
|
18671
|
The ground for an attitude is not a thing's 'goodness', but its concrete characteristics [Ewing]
|
|
Full Idea:
The ground for an attitude lies not in some other ethical concept, goodness, but in the concrete, factual characteristics of what we pronounce good. ...We shall not be better off if we interpolate an indefinable characteristic of goodness besides.
|
|
From:
A.C. Ewing (The Definition of Good [1948], p.172), quoted by Francesco Orsi - Value Theory 1.4
|
|
A reaction:
This is a forerunner of Scanlon's Buck-Passing theory of the source of value (in other properties). I approve of this approach. If I say 'actually this very strong cheese is really good', I'm not adding goodness to the cheese.
|