23 ideas
20962 | Habermas seems to make philosophy more democratic [Habermas, by Bowie] |
Full Idea: Habermas is concerned to avoid the traumas of modern German history by making democracy an integral part of philosophy. | |
From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy Conc 'Habermas' | |
A reaction: Hence Habermas's emphasis on communication as central to language, which is central to philosophy. Modern philosophy departments are amazingly hierarchical. |
15670 | The aim of 'post-metaphysical' philosophy is to interpret the sciences [Habermas, by Finlayson] |
Full Idea: For Habermas, the task of what he calls 'post-metaphysical' philosophy is to be a stand-in and interpreter for the specialized sciences. | |
From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.5:65 |
15665 | We can do social philosophy by studying coordinated action through language use [Habermas, by Finlayson] |
Full Idea: Habermas claims to have embarked upon a new way of doing social philosophy, one that begins from an analysis of language use and that locates the rational basis of the coordination of action in speech. | |
From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.3:28 |
20573 | Rather than instrumental reason, Habermas emphasises its communicative role [Habermas, by Oksala] |
Full Idea: Instead of Enlightenment instrumental rationality (criticised by Adorno and Horkheimer), Habermas emphasizes 'communicative rationality', which makes critical discussion and mutual understanding possible. | |
From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by Johanna Oksala - Political Philosophy: all that matters Ch.6 | |
A reaction: There was a good reason not to smoke cigarettes, before we found out what it is. In one sense, reasons are in the world. This is interesting, but I feel analytic vertigo, as the lovely concept of 'rationality' becomes blurred and diffused. |
10245 | One geometry cannot be more true than another [Poincaré] |
Full Idea: One geometry cannot be more true than another; it can only be more convenient. | |
From: Henri Poincaré (Science and Method [1908], p.65), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics | |
A reaction: This is the culminating view after new geometries were developed by tinkering with Euclid's parallels postulate. |
15923 | Poincaré rejected the actual infinite, claiming definitions gave apparent infinity to finite objects [Poincaré, by Lavine] |
Full Idea: Poincaré rejected the actual infinite. He viewed mathematics that is apparently concerned with the actual infinite as actually concerning the finite linguistic definitions the putatively describe actually infinite objects. | |
From: report of Henri Poincaré (On the Nature of Mathematical Reasoning [1894]) by Shaughan Lavine - Understanding the Infinite |
10180 | Mathematicians do not study objects, but relations between objects [Poincaré] |
Full Idea: Mathematicians do not study objects, but relations between objects; it is a matter of indifference if the objects are replaced by others, provided the relations do not change. They are interested in form alone, not matter. | |
From: Henri Poincaré (Science and Hypothesis [1902], p.20), quoted by E Reck / M Price - Structures and Structuralism in Phil of Maths §6 | |
A reaction: This connects modern structuralism with Aritotle's interest in the 'form' of things. Contrary to the views of the likes of Frege, it is hard to see that the number '7' has any properties at all, apart from its relations. A daffodil would do just as well. |
9916 | Convention, yes! Arbitrary, no! [Poincaré, by Putnam] |
Full Idea: Poincaré once exclaimed, 'Convention, yes! Arbitrary, no!'. | |
From: report of Henri Poincaré (talk [1901]) by Hilary Putnam - Models and Reality | |
A reaction: An interesting view. It mustn't be assumed that conventions are not rooted in something. Maybe a sort of pragmatism is implied. |
18203 | Avoid non-predicative classifications and definitions [Poincaré] |
Full Idea: Never consider any objects but those capable of being defined in a finite number of word ...Avoid non-predicative classifications and definitions. | |
From: Henri Poincaré (The Logic of Infinity [1909], p.63), quoted by Penelope Maddy - Naturalism in Mathematics II.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. |
20961 | What is considered a priori changes as language changes [Habermas, by Bowie] |
Full Idea: Habermas claims that what is regarded as a priori changes with history. This is because the linguistic structures on which judgements depend are themselves part of history, not prior to it. | |
From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy Conc 'Habermas' | |
A reaction: This is an interesting style of argument generally only found in continental philosophers, because they see the problem as historical rather than timeless. Compare Idea 20595, which sees analyticity historically. |
15667 | To understand a statement is to know what would make it acceptable [Habermas] |
Full Idea: We understand the meaning of a speech act when we know what would make it acceptable. | |
From: Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981], I:297), quoted by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.3:37 | |
A reaction: Finlayson glosses this as requiring the reasons which would justify the speech act. |
15668 | Meaning is not fixed by a relation to the external world, but a relation to other speakers [Habermas, by Finlayson] |
Full Idea: On Habermas's view, meanings are not determined by the speaker's relation to the external world, but by his relation to his interlocutors; meaning is essentially intersubjective. | |
From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.3:38 | |
A reaction: This view is not the same as Grice's, but it is clearly much closer to Grice than to (say) the Frege/Davidson emphasis on truth-conditions. I'm not sure if I would know how to begin arbitrating between the two views! |
15666 | To understand language is to know how to use it to reach shared understandings [Habermas] |
Full Idea: One simply would not know what it is to understand the meaning of a linguistic expression if one did not know how one could make use of it in order to reach understanding with someone about something. | |
From: Jürgen Habermas (On the Pragmatics of Communications [1998], p.228), quoted by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.3:34 | |
A reaction: Not offered as a 'theory of meaning', and certainly plausible. Compare a hammer, though: a proper understanding is that it is used to exert a sharp force, but you can take in its structure and nature before you spot its usage. |
15677 | Moral right is linked to validity and truth, so morality is a matter of knowledge, not an expression of values [Habermas, by Finlayson] |
Full Idea: According to discourse ethics moral rightness is internally linked to validity and is analogous to truth: ..thus Habermas takes himself to have shown that morality is a matter of knowledge, rather than the expression of contingently held values. | |
From: report of Jürgen Habermas (Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action [1990]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.7:102 | |
A reaction: I can immediately hear Nietzsche asking why you place such a high value on knowledge. Personally I don't assume that values must be 'contingent'. The Aristotelian tradition sees necessary values in facts about human nature. |
15672 | Actions norms are only valid if everyone possibly affected is involved in the discourse [Habermas] |
Full Idea: Only those action norms are valid to which all possibly affected persons could agree as participants in rational discourse. | |
From: Jürgen Habermas (Between Facts and Norms [1996], p.107), quoted by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.6:79 | |
A reaction: This remark stands somewhere between Kant and Rawls. The Holocaust stands behind Habermas's philosophy. The thought, I suppose, is that it would never have happened if everybody had been fully involved in the original discourse about it. |
15671 | Move from individual willing of a general law, to willing norms agreed with other people [Habermas] |
Full Idea: The emphasis shifts from what each can will without contradiction to be a general law, to what all can will in agreement to be a universal norm. | |
From: Jürgen Habermas (Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action [1990], p.67), quoted by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.5:69 | |
A reaction: This strikes me as being very close to Scanlon's contractualism. As expressed here, it sounds more vulnerable than Kant's full universality to the problem of Nazis agreeing odious universal norms. Habermas calls it 'discourse ethics'. |
15669 | People endorse equality, universality and inclusiveness, just by their communicative practices [Habermas, by Finlayson] |
Full Idea: The ideal of equality, universality, and inclusiveness are inscribed in the communicative practices of the lifeworld, and agents, merely by virtue of communicating, conform to them. | |
From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.4:60 | |
A reaction: This summary of Habermas's social views strikes me as thoroughly Kantian. It is something like the ideals of the Kingdom of Ends, necessarily implemented in a liberal society. Habermas emphasises the social, where Kant starts from the liberal. |
23416 | Political involvement is needed, to challenge existing practices [Habermas, by Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: Habermas thinks political deliberation is required precisely because in its absence people will tend to accept existing practices as given, and thereby perpetuate false needs. | |
From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by Will Kymlicka - Community 'need' | |
A reaction: If the dream is healthy and intelligent progress, it is not clear where that should come from. The problem with state involvement in the authority and power of the state. Locals are often prejudiced, so the intermediate level may be best. |
15877 | The aim of science is just to create a comprehensive, elegant language to describe brute facts [Poincaré, by Harré] |
Full Idea: In Poincaré's view, we try to construct a language within which the brute facts of experience are expressed as comprehensively and as elegantly as possible. The job of science is the forging of a language precisely suited to that purpose. | |
From: report of Henri Poincaré (The Value of Science [1906], Pt III) by Rom Harré - Laws of Nature 2 | |
A reaction: I'm often struck by how obscure and difficult our accounts of self-evident facts can be. Chairs are easy, and the metaphysics of chairs is hideous. Why is that? I'm a robust realist, but I like Poincaré's idea. He permits facts. |