14 ideas
1564 | True and false statements can use exactly the same words [Anon (Diss)] |
Full Idea: There is no difference between a true statement and a false statement, because they can use exactly the same words. | |
From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §4) |
16062 | A necessary relation between fact-levels seems to be a further irreducible fact [Lynch/Glasgow] |
Full Idea: It seems unavoidable that the facts about logically necessary relations between levels of facts are themselves logically distinct further facts, irreducible to the microphysical facts. | |
From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], C) | |
A reaction: I'm beginning to think that rejecting every theory of reality that is proposed by carefully exposing some infinite regress hidden in it is a rather lazy way to do philosophy. Almost as bad as rejecting anything if it can't be defined. |
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. |
16060 | Nonreductive materialism says upper 'levels' depend on lower, but don't 'reduce' [Lynch/Glasgow] |
Full Idea: The root intuition behind nonreductive materialism is that reality is composed of ontologically distinct layers or levels. …The upper levels depend on the physical without reducing to it. | |
From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], B) | |
A reaction: A nice clear statement of a view which I take to be false. This relationship is the sort of thing that drives people fishing for an account of it to use the word 'supervenience', which just says two things seem to hang out together. Fluffy materialism. |
16064 | The hallmark of physicalism is that each causal power has a base causal power under it [Lynch/Glasgow] |
Full Idea: Jessica Wilson (1999) says what makes physicalist accounts different from emergentism etc. is that each individual causal power associated with a supervenient property is numerically identical with a causal power associated with its base property. | |
From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], n 11) | |
A reaction: Hence the key thought in so-called (serious, rather than self-evident) 'emergentism' is so-called 'downward causation', which I take to be an idle daydream. |
1560 | Lydians prostitute their daughters to raise a dowery, but no Greek would marry such a girl [Anon (Diss)] |
Full Idea: The Lydians find it acceptable for their daughters to work as prostitutes to raise money for getting married, but no one in Greece would be prepared to marry such a girl. | |
From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §2) |
1559 | Thracians think tattooing adds to a girl's beauty, but elsewhere it is a punishment [Anon (Diss)] |
Full Idea: Thracians think that tattooing enhances a girl's beauty, whereas for everyone else tattooing is a punishment for a crime. | |
From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §2) |
1561 | Anything can be acceptable in some circumstances and unacceptable in others [Anon (Diss)] |
Full Idea: Anything can be acceptable under the right circumstances, and unacceptable under the wrong circumstances. | |
From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §2) |
1567 | How could someone who knows everything fail to act correctly? [Anon (Diss)] |
Full Idea: If someone knows the nature of everything, how could he fail to be able also to act correctly in every case? | |
From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §8) |
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? |
1563 | Every apparent crime can be right in certain circumstances [Anon (Diss), by PG] |
Full Idea: It can be right, in certain circumstances, to steal, to break a solemn promise, to rob temples, and even (as Orestes did) to murder one's nearest and dearest. | |
From: report of Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §3) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
A reaction: Not sure about the last one! I suppose you can justify any hideousness if the fate of the universe depends on it. It must be better to die than the perform certain extreme deeds. |
1562 | It is right to lie to someone, to get them to take medicine they are reluctant to take [Anon (Diss)] |
Full Idea: It is right to lie to your parents, in order to get them to take a good medicine they are reluctant to take. | |
From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §3) | |
A reaction: I dread to think what the medicines were which convinced the writer of this. A rule such as this strikes me as dangerous. Justifiable in extreme cases. House on fire etc. |
1566 | The first priority in elections is to vote for people who support democracy [Anon (Diss)] |
Full Idea: A lottery is not democratic, because every state contains people who are not democratic, and if the lottery chooses them they will destroy the democracy. People should elect those who are observed to favour democracy. | |
From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §7) |
1565 | We learn language, and we don't know who teaches us it [Anon (Diss)] |
Full Idea: We learn language, and we don't know who teaches us it. | |
From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §6) |