7 ideas
| 5437 | The claim of hermeneutics to give knowledge through understanding is challenged by positivism [Mautner on Dilthey] |
| Full Idea: The claim of hermeneutics to give understanding instead of explanation can be seen as part of the theory of knowledge, but it seems to be incompatible with the most accepted aspects of positivism. | |
| From: comment on Wilhelm Dilthey (works [1883]) by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.248 | |
| A reaction: So much the worse for positivism. The same conflict occurs in modern philosophy of mind. God can be a positivist if he likes, but we must settle for hermeneutics for a lot of our knowledge. We are discussing method, not ontology. |
| 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. |
| 5436 | Natural science seeks explanation; human sciences seek understanding [Dilthey, by Mautner] |
| Full Idea: In the natural sciences we seek for causes and ask for explanation (erklären), but in the human or cultural sciences we seek understanding (verstehen) by means of interpretation. | |
| From: report of Wilhelm Dilthey (works [1883]) by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.144 | |
| A reaction: This seems a nice distinction. The prospects of finding the causes or explanations of Shakespeare's plays don't look good, and when you have explained the causes of a chemical reaction you probably have all you need. |
| 7902 | The Buddha made flowers float in the air, to impress people, and make them listen [Mahavastu] |
| Full Idea: When the young Brahmin threw her two lotuses, they stood suspended in the air. This was one of the miracles by which the Buddhas impress people, to make them listen to the truth. | |
| From: Mahavastu (The Great Event [c.200], I.231-9) | |
| A reaction: Presumably this is the reason that Jesus did miracles. It is hard to spot the truth among the myriad of lies, if there is no supporting miracle to give authority to the speaker. |