20 ideas
| 4748 | Anselm of Canterbury identified truth with God [Anselm, by Engel] |
| Full Idea: Anselm of Canterbury identified truth with God. | |
| From: report of Anselm (De Veritate (On Truth) [1095]) by Pascal Engel - Truth §1.6 | |
| A reaction: An interesting claim, perhaps, depending on what it means. God decrees truth, God knows all truth, God makes truth possible, God connects us to the world, God is the world…? |
| 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. |
| 5673 | If we have a pain, we are strongly aware of the bodily self [Cassam] |
| Full Idea: Since sensations such as pain generally present themselves as in some part of one's body, the bodily self seems to be anything but elusive in sensory awareness. | |
| From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §I) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a really good observation. Whenever we do Hume's experiment in introspection, we tend to examine either pure sense experiences or abstract ideas. If we introspect a pain, we actually find the body at the centre of activity. |
| 5670 | Knowledge of thoughts covers both their existence and their contents [Cassam] |
| Full Idea: Our knowledge of our thoughts includes both our knowledge that we think and our knowledge of the contents of our thought. | |
| From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §I) | |
| A reaction: This seems like a simple, self-evident and true distinction. We might question the first part, though. Knowledge involves the contents, but the fact that we think may be an inference from the contents, or even a fictional abstraction. Contents alone? |
| 5671 | Outer senses are as important as introspection in the acquisition of self-knowledge [Cassam] |
| Full Idea: It would be quite legitimate to claim that the outer senses are at least as important as introspection in the acquisition of self-knowledge. | |
| From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §I) | |
| A reaction: It is interesting to speculate about the extent to which a 'mind in a void' could have a personal identity. Experiences tend to be 'mine' because of my body, which has a history and a space-time location. But this doesn't make identity entirely cultural. |
| 5672 | Is there a mode of self-awareness that isn't perception, and could it give self-knowledge? [Cassam] |
| Full Idea: The key questions are: can one be introspectively aware of oneself other than through an inner sense, and, if there is a non-perceptual mode of introspective self-awareness, can it be the ground or basis of one's self-knowledge? | |
| From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §I) | |
| A reaction: Perception would involve a controlled attempt to experience a separate object. The other mode would presumably be more direct. The question boils down to 'is there an object which introspection can attempt to perceive?' Good question. |
| 5675 | Neither self-consciousness nor self-reference require self-knowledge [Cassam] |
| Full Idea: According to Kant, self-consciousness does not require self-knowledge, and it also appears that self-reference does not require self-knowledge. | |
| From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §II) | |
| A reaction: Kant's point is that knowledge requires a stage of conceptualisation, which simple self-consciousness might not involve. The second point is that self-reference require no knowledge because error is impossible. Two nice points, and useful distinctions. |
| 5674 | We can't introspect ourselves as objects, because that would involve possible error [Cassam] |
| Full Idea: One can identify an object in a mirror as oneself, but that brings with it the possibility of misidentification, so since introspective awareness statements are immune to error, one is not introspectively aware of oneself as an object. | |
| From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §I) | |
| A reaction: As a pure argument this looks weak. There could be two sorts of knowledge of objects, one admitting possible error, the other not. Introspecting pain appears to be awareness of oneself as an object. Planning my future needs my body. |
| 21243 | An existing thing is even greater if its non-existence is inconceivable [Anselm] |
| Full Idea: Something can be thought of as existing, which cannot be thought of as not existing, and this is greater than that which cannot be thought of as not existing. | |
| From: Anselm (Proslogion [1090], Ch 3) | |
| A reaction: This is a necessary addition, to single out the concept of God as special. But you really must give reasons for saying God's non-existence is inconceivable. Atheists seem to manage. |
| 21244 | Conceiving a greater being than God leads to absurdity [Anselm] |
| Full Idea: If some mind could think of something better than thou, the creature would rise above the Creator and judge its Creator; but this is altogether absurd. | |
| From: Anselm (Proslogion [1090], Ch 3) | |
| A reaction: An error, revealing a certain desperation. If a greafer being could be conceived than the being so far imagined as God (a necessarily existing being), that being would BE God, by his own argument (and not some arrogant 'creature'). |
| 21241 | Even the fool can hold 'a being than which none greater exists' in his understanding [Anselm] |
| Full Idea: Even the fool must be convinced that a being than which none greater can be thought exists at least in his understanding, since when he hears this he understands it, and whatever is understood is in the understanding. | |
| From: Anselm (Proslogion [1090], Ch 2) | |
| A reaction: Psalm 14.1: 'The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God'. But how does the fool interpret the words, if he has limited imagination? He might get no further than an attractive film star. He would need prompting to think of a spiritual being. |
| 21242 | If that than which a greater cannot be thought actually exists, that is greater than the mere idea [Anselm] |
| Full Idea: Clearly that than which a greater cannot be thought cannot exist in the understanding alone. For it it is actually in the understanding alone, it can be thought of as existing also in reality, and this is greater. | |
| From: Anselm (Proslogion [1090], Ch 2) | |
| A reaction: The suppressed premise is 'something actually existing is greater than the mere conception of it'. As it stands this is wrong. I can imagine a supreme evil. But see Idea 21243. |
| 1421 | A perfection must be independent and unlimited, and the necessary existence of Anselm's second proof gives this [Malcolm on Anselm] |
| Full Idea: Anselm's second proof works, because he sees that necessary existence (or the impossibility of non-existence) really is a perfection. This is because a perfection requires no dependence or limit or impediment. | |
| From: comment on Anselm (Proslogion [1090], Ch 3) by Norman Malcolm - Anselm's Argument Sect II | |
| A reaction: I have the usual problem, that it doesn't seem to follow that the perfect existence of something bestows a perfection. It may be necessary that 'for every large animal there exists a disease'. Satan may exist necessarily. |
| 21245 | The word 'God' can be denied, but understanding shows God must exist [Anselm] |
| Full Idea: We think of a thing when we say the world, and in another way when we think of the very thing itself. In the second sense God cannot be thought of as nonexistent. No one who understands can think God does not exist. | |
| From: Anselm (Proslogion [1090], Ch 4) | |
| A reaction: It seems open to the atheist to claim the exact opposite - that you can commit to God's existence if it is just a word, but understanding shows that God is impossible (perhaps because of contradictions). How to arbitrate? |
| 21246 | Guanilo says a supremely fertile island must exist, just because we can conceive it [Anselm] |
| Full Idea: Guanilo supposes that we imagine an island surpassing all lands in its fertility. We might then say that we cannot doubt that it truly exists is reality, because anyone can conceive it from a verbal description. | |
| From: Anselm (Proslogion [1090], Reply 3) | |
| A reaction: Guanilo was a very naughty monk, who must have had sleepless nights over this. One could further ask whether an island might have necessary existence. Anselm needs 'a being' to be a special category of thing. |
| 21247 | Nonexistence is impossible for the greatest thinkable thing, which has no beginning or end [Anselm] |
| Full Idea: If anyone does think of something a greater than which cannot be thought, then he thinks of something which cannot be thought of as nonexistent, ...for then it could be thought of as having a beginning and an end. And this is impossible. | |
| From: Anselm (Proslogion [1090], Reply 3) | |
| A reaction: A nice idea, but it has a flip side. If the atheist denies God's existence, then it follows that (because no beginning is possible for such a being) the existence of God is impossible. Anselm adds that contingent existents have parts (unlike God). |
| 1420 | Anselm's first proof fails because existence isn't a real predicate, so it can't be a perfection [Malcolm on Anselm] |
| Full Idea: Anselm's first proof fails, because he treats existence as being a perfection, which it isn't, because that would make it a real predicate. | |
| From: comment on Anselm (Proslogion [1090], Ch 2) by Norman Malcolm - Anselm's Argument Sect I | |
| A reaction: Not everyone accepts Kant's claim that existence cannot be a predicate. They all seem to know what a perfection is. Can the Mona Lisa (an object) not be a perfection? Must it be broken down into perfect predicates? |