72 ideas
| 23027 | Ideals and metaphysics are practical, not imaginative or speculative [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: To T.H. Green an ideal was no creation of an idle imagination, metaphysics no mere play of the speculative reason. Ideals were the most solid, and metaphysics the most practical thing about a man. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State I | |
| A reaction: This is despite the fact that Green was an idealist in the Hegelian tradition. I like this. I see it not just as ideals having practical guiding influence, but also that ideals themselves arising out of experience. |
| 9161 | Maybe reasonableness requires circular justifications - that is one coherentist view [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: It is not out of the question to hold that without circular justifications there is no reasonableness at all. That is the view of a certain kind of coherence theorist. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Apriority as an Evaluative Notion [2000], 2) | |
| A reaction: This nicely captures a gut feeling I have had for a long time. Being now thoroughly converted to coherentism, I am drawn to the idea - like a moth to a flame. But how do we distinguish cuddly circularity from its cruel and vicious cousin? |
| 10825 | The notion of truth is to help us make use of the utterances of others [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: I suspect that the original purpose of the notion of truth was to aid us in utilizing the utterances of others in drawing conclusions about the world,...so we must attend to its social role, and that being in a position to assert something is what counts. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Tarski's Theory of Truth [1972], §5) | |
| A reaction: [Last bit compressed] This sounds excellent. Deflationary and redundancy views are based on a highly individualistic view of utterances and truth, but we need to be much more contextual and pragmatic if we are to get the right story. |
| 10820 | In the early 1930s many philosophers thought truth was not scientific [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: In the early 1930s many philosophers believed that the notion of truth could not be incorporated into a scientific conception of the world. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Tarski's Theory of Truth [1972], §3) | |
| A reaction: This leads on to an account of why Tarski's formal version was so important, and Field emphasises Tarski's physicalist metaphysic. |
| 23030 | Truth is a relation to a whole of organised knowledge in the collection of rational minds [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: When we speak of anything as true or false, we do so on the ground of its relation to a whole of organised knowledge existing actually in no human mind, but prefigured in every mind which is possessed of reason. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State I n1 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the super-idealist view of the coherence account of truth. I have no idea what 'prefigured' means here. |
| 13499 | Tarski reduced truth to reference or denotation [Field,H, by Hart,WD] |
| Full Idea: Tarski can be viewed as having reduced truth to reference or denotation. | |
| From: report of Hartry Field (Tarski's Theory of Truth [1972]) by William D. Hart - The Evolution of Logic 4 |
| 10818 | Tarski really explained truth in terms of denoting, predicating and satisfied functions [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: A proper account of Tarski's truth definition explains truth in terms of three other semantic notions: what it is for a name to denote something, and for a predicate to apply to something, and for a function symbol to be fulfilled by a pair of things. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Tarski's Theory of Truth [1972]) | |
| A reaction: This is Field's 'T1' version, which is meant to spell out what was really going on in Tarski's account. |
| 10817 | Tarski just reduced truth to some other undefined semantic notions [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: It is normally claimed that Tarski defined truth using no undefined semantic terms, but I argue that he reduced the notion of truth to certain other semantic notions, but did not in any way explicate these other notions. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Tarski's Theory of Truth [1972], §0) |
| 9570 | In Field's Platonist view, set theory is false because it asserts existence for non-existent things [Field,H, by Chihara] |
| Full Idea: Field commits himself to a Platonic view of mathematics. The theorems of set theory are held to imply or presuppose the existence of things that don't in fact exist. That is why he believes that these theorems are false. | |
| From: report of Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980]) by Charles Chihara - A Structural Account of Mathematics 11.1 | |
| A reaction: I am sympathetic to Field, but this sounds wrong. A response that looks appealing is that maths is hypothetical ('if-thenism') - the truth is in the logical consequences, not in the ontological presuppositions. |
| 10260 | Logical consequence is defined by the impossibility of P and ¬q [Field,H, by Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Field defines logical consequence by taking the notion of 'logical possibility' as primitive. Hence q is a consequence of P if the conjunction of the items in P with the negation of q is not possible. | |
| From: report of Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980]) by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics 7.2 | |
| A reaction: The question would then be whether it is plausible to take logical possibility as primitive. Presumably only intuition could support it. But then intuition will equally support natural and metaphysical possibilities. |
| 10819 | Tarski gives us the account of truth needed to build a group of true sentences in a model [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: Model theory must choose the denotations of the primitives so that all of a group of sentences come out true, so we need a theory of how the truth value of a sentence depends on the denotation of its primitive nonlogical parts, which Tarski gives us. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Tarski's Theory of Truth [1972], §1) |
| 10827 | Model theory is unusual in restricting the range of the quantifiers [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: In model theory we are interested in allowing a slightly unusual semantics for quantifiers: we are willing to allow that the quantifier not range over everything. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Tarski's Theory of Truth [1972], n 5) |
| 9226 | If mathematical theories conflict, it may just be that they have different subject matter [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: Unlike logic, in the case of mathematics there may be no genuine conflict between alternative theories: it is natural to think that different theories, if both consistent, are simply about different subjects. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Recent Debates on the A Priori [2005], 7) | |
| A reaction: For this reason Field places logic at the heart of questions about a priori knowledge, rather than mathematics. My intuitions make me doubt his proposal. Given the very simple basis of, say, arithmetic, I would expect all departments to connect. |
| 8958 | In Field's version of science, space-time points replace real numbers [Field,H, by Szabó] |
| Full Idea: Field's nominalist version of science develops a version of Newtonian gravitational theory, where no quantifiers range over mathematical entities, and space-time points and regions play the role of surrogates for real numbers. | |
| From: report of Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980]) by Zoltán Gendler Szabó - Nominalism 5.1 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a very artificial contrivance, but Field has launched a programme for rewriting science so that numbers can be omitted. All of this is Field's rebellion against the Indispensability Argument for mathematics. I sympathise. |
| 18221 | 'Metric' axioms uses functions, points and numbers; 'synthetic' axioms give facts about space [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: There are two approaches to axiomatising geometry. The 'metric' approach uses a function which maps a pair of points into the real numbers. The 'synthetic' approach is that of Euclid and Hilbert, which does without real numbers and functions. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980], 5) |
| 8757 | The Indispensability Argument is the only serious ground for the existence of mathematical entities [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: There is one and only one serious argument for the existence of mathematical entities, and that is the Indispensability Argument of Putnam and Quine. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980], p.5), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Thinking About Mathematics 9.1 | |
| A reaction: Personally I don't believe (and nor does Field) that this gives a good enough reason to believe in such things. Quine (who likes 'desert landscapes' in ontology) ends up believing that sets are real because of his argument. Not for me. |
| 18212 | Nominalists try to only refer to physical objects, or language, or mental constructions [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: The most popular approach of nominalistically inclined philosophers is to try to reinterpret mathematics, so that its terms and quantifiers only make reference to, say, physical objects, or linguistic expressions, or mental constructions. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980], Prelim) | |
| A reaction: I am keen on naturalism and empiricism, but only referring to physical objects is a non-starter. I think I favour constructions, derived from the experience of patterns, and abstracted, idealised and generalised. Field says application is the problem. |
| 10261 | The application of mathematics only needs its possibility, not its truth [Field,H, by Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Field argues that to account for the applicability of mathematics, we need to assume little more than the possibility of the mathematics, not its truth. | |
| From: report of Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980]) by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics 7.2 | |
| A reaction: Very persuasive. We can apply chess to real military situations, provided that chess isn't self-contradictory (or even naturally impossible?). |
| 18218 | Hilbert explains geometry, by non-numerical facts about space [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: Facts about geometric laws receive satisfying explanations, by the intrinsic facts about physical space, i.e. those laid down without reference to numbers in Hilbert's axioms. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980], 3) | |
| A reaction: Hilbert's axioms mention points, betweenness, segment-congruence and angle-congruence (Field 25-26). Field cites arithmetic and geometry (as well as Newtonian mechanics) as not being dependent on number. |
| 9623 | Field needs a semantical notion of second-order consequence, and that needs sets [Brown,JR on Field,H] |
| Full Idea: Field needs the notion of logical consequence in second-order logic, but (since this is not recursively axiomatizable) this is a semantical notion, which involves the idea of 'true in all models', a set-theoretic idea if there ever was one. | |
| From: comment on Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980], Ch.4) by James Robert Brown - Philosophy of Mathematics | |
| A reaction: Brown here summarises a group of critics. Field was arguing for modern nominalism, that actual numbers could (in principle) be written out of the story, as useful fictions. Popper's attempt to dump induction seemed to need induction. |
| 18215 | It seems impossible to explain the idea that the conclusion is contained in the premises [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: No clear explanation of the idea that the conclusion was 'implicitly contained in' the premises was ever given, and I do not believe that any clear explanation is possible. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980], 1) |
| 18216 | Abstractions can form useful counterparts to concrete statements [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: Abstract entities are useful because we can use them to formulate abstract counterparts of concrete statements. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980], 3) | |
| A reaction: He defends the abstract statements as short cuts. If the concrete statements were 'true', then it seems likely that the abstract counterparts will also be true, which is not what fictionalism claims. |
| 18214 | Mathematics is only empirical as regards which theory is useful [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: Mathematics is in a sense empirical, but only in the rather Pickwickian sense that is an empirical question as to which mathematical theory is useful. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980], 1) | |
| A reaction: Field wants mathematics to be fictions, and not to be truths. But can he give an account of 'useful' that does not imply truth? Only in a rather dubiously pragmatist way. A novel is not useful. |
| 8714 | Fictionalists say 2+2=4 is true in the way that 'Oliver Twist lived in London' is true [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: The fictionalist can say that the sense in which '2+2=4' is true is pretty much the same as the sense in which 'Oliver Twist lived in London' is true. They are true 'according to a well-known story', or 'according to standard mathematics'. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Realism, Mathematics and Modality [1989], 1.1.1), quoted by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 6.3 | |
| A reaction: The roots of this idea are in Carnap. Fictionalism strikes me as brilliant, but poisonous in large doses. Novels can aspire to artistic truth, or to documentary truth. We invent a fiction, and nudge it slowly towards reality. |
| 18210 | Why regard standard mathematics as truths, rather than as interesting fictions? [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: Why regard the axioms of standard mathematics as truths, rather than as fictions that for a variety of reasons mathematicians have become interested in? | |
| From: Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980], p.viii) |
| 18211 | You can reduce ontological commitment by expanding the logic [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: One can often reduce one's ontological commitments by expanding one's logic. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980], p.ix) | |
| A reaction: I don't actually understand this idea, but that's never stopped me before. Clearly, this sounds like an extremely interesting thought, and hence I should aspire to understand it. So I do aspire to understand it. First, how do you 'expand' a logic? |
| 8959 | Field presumes properties can be eliminated from science [Field,H, by Szabó] |
| Full Idea: Field regards the eliminability of apparent reference to properties from the language of science as a foregone result. | |
| From: report of Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980]) by Zoltán Gendler Szabó - Nominalism 5.1 n50 | |
| A reaction: Field is a nominalist who also denies the existence of mathematics as part of science. He has a taste for ontological 'desert landscapes'. I have no idea what a property really is, so I think he is on to something. |
| 18213 | Abstract objects are only applicable to the world if they are impure, and connect to the physical [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: To be able to apply any postulated abstract entities to the physical world, we need impure abstact entities, e.g. functions that map physical objects into pure abstract objects. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980], 1) | |
| A reaction: I am a fan of 'impure metaphysics', and this pinpoints my reason very nicely. |
| 23044 | All knowledge rests on a fundamental unity between the knower and what is known [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: All knowledge is seen on ultimate analysis to rest upon the idea of a fundamental unity between subject and object, between the knower and that which there is to be known. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
| A reaction: I don't really understand this thought, but I think it embodies the essence of Hegelian idealism. If I know a tree in the wood, any 'unity' between us strikes as merely imaginary. If the tree isn't separate, what does 'knowing' it mean? |
| 9160 | Lots of propositions are default reasonable, but the a priori ones are empirically indefeasible [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: Propositions such as 'People usually tell the truth' seem to count as default reasonable, but it is odd to count them as a priori. Empirical indefeasibility seems the obvious way to distinguish those default reasonable propositions that are a priori. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Apriority as an Evaluative Notion [2000], 1) | |
| A reaction: Sounds reasonable, but it would mean that all the uniformities of nature would then count as a priori. 'Every physical object exerts gravity' probably has no counterexamples, but doesn't seem a priori (even if it is necessary). See Idea 9164. |
| 9164 | We treat basic rules as if they were indefeasible and a priori, with no interest in counter-evidence [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: I argue not that our most basic rules are a priori or empirically indefeasible, but that we treat them as empirically defeasible and indeed a priori; we don't regard anything as evidence against them. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Apriority as an Evaluative Notion [2000], 4) | |
| A reaction: This is the fictionalist view of a priori knowledge (and of most other things, such as mathematics). I can't agree. Most people treat heaps of a posteriori truths (like the sun rising) as a priori. 'Mass involves energy' is indefeasible a posteriori. |
| 23034 | The ultimate test for truth is the systematic interdependence in nature [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: Systematic interdependence in the world of nature is the ultimate test of truth. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: Green (or Muirhead) drifts between coherence as the nature of truth and coherence as the nature of justification. He it is the 'test' for truth, which was Russell's view. |
| 23029 | Knowledge is secured by the relations between its parts, through differences and identities [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: What gives reality and stability to our knowledge is the reality and stability of the relations established between its parts..…by the differences and identities with other things which have similarly achieved comparative fixity and substantiality. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State I | |
| A reaction: Although I don't sympathise with Green's idealist metaphysics, and nevertheless think that this internalist account of knowledge is correct. |
| 9165 | Reliability only makes a rule reasonable if we place a value on the truth produced by reliable processes [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: Reliability is not a 'factual property'; in calling a rule reasonable we are evaluating it, and all that makes sense to ask about is what we value. We place a high value on the reliability of our inductive and perceptual rules that lead to truth. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Apriority as an Evaluative Notion [2000], 5) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't seem to be a contradiction of reliabilism, since truth is a pretty widespread epistemological value. If you do value truth, then eyes are pretty reliable organs for attaining it. Reliabilism is still wrong, but not for this reason. |
| 9162 | Believing nothing, or only logical truths, is very reliable, but we want a lot more than that [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: Reliability is not all we want in an inductive rule. Completely reliable methods are available, such as believing nothing, or only believing logical truths. But we don't value them, but value less reliable methods with other characteristics. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Apriority as an Evaluative Notion [2000], 3) | |
| A reaction: I would take this excellent point to be an advertisement for inference to the best explanation, which requires not only reliable inputs of information, but also a presiding rational judge to assess the mass of evidence. |
| 9166 | People vary in their epistemological standards, and none of them is 'correct' [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: We should concede that different people have slightly different basic epistemological standards. ..I doubt that any clear sense could be given to the notion of 'correctness' here. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Apriority as an Evaluative Notion [2000], 5) | |
| A reaction: I think this is dead right. There is a real relativism about knowledge, which exists at the level of justification, rather than of truth. The scientific revolution just consisted of making the standards tougher, and that seems to have been a good idea. |
| 9163 | If we only use induction to assess induction, it is empirically indefeasible, and hence a priori [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: If some inductive rule is basic for us, in the sense that we never assess it using any rules other than itself, then it must be one that we treat as empirically indefeasible (hence as fully a priori, given that it will surely have default status). | |
| From: Hartry Field (Apriority as an Evaluative Notion [2000], 4) | |
| A reaction: This follows on from Field's account of a priori knowledge. See Ideas 9160 and 9164. I think of induction as simply learning from experience, but if experience goes mad I will cease to trust it. (A rationalist view). |
| 18222 | Beneath every extrinsic explanation there is an intrinsic explanation [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: A plausible methodological principle is that underlying every good extrinsic explanation there is an intrinsic explanation. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980], 5) | |
| A reaction: I'm thinking that Hartry Field is an Aristotelian essentialist, though I bet he would never admit it. |
| 10826 | 'Valence' and 'gene' had to be reduced to show their compatibility with physicalism [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: 'Valence' and 'gene' were perfectly clear long before anyone succeeded in reducing them, but it was their reducibility and not their clarity before reduction that showed them to be compatible with physicalism. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Tarski's Theory of Truth [1972], §5) |
| 9917 | 'Abstract' is unclear, but numbers, functions and sets are clearly abstract [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: The term 'abstract entities' may not be entirely clear, but one thing that does seem clear is that such alleged entities as numbers, functions and sets are abstract. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980], p.1), quoted by JP Burgess / G Rosen - A Subject with No Object I.A.1.a | |
| A reaction: Field firmly denies the existence of such things. Sets don't seem a great problem, if the set is a herd of elephants, but the null and singleton sets show up the difficulties. |
| 22244 | 'Partial reference' is when the subject thinks two objects are one object [Field,H, by Recanati] |
| Full Idea: A subject's thought is about A, but, unbeknownst to the subject, B is substituted for A. Then there is Field's 'partial reference', because the subject's thought is still partially about A, even though they are following B. | |
| From: report of Hartry Field (Theory Change and the Indeterminacy of Reference [1973]) by François Recanati - Mental Files in Flux 2 | |
| A reaction: Used to interpret a well-known case: Wally says of Udo 'he needs a haircut'; Zach looks at someone else and says 'he sure does'. Recanati explains it by mental files. |
| 7615 | Field says reference is a causal physical relation between mental states and objects [Field,H, by Putnam] |
| Full Idea: In Field's view reference is a 'physicalistic relation', i.e. a complex causal relation between words or mental representations and objects or sets of objects; it is up to physical science to discover what that physicalistic relation is. | |
| From: report of Hartry Field (Tarski's Theory of Truth [1972]) by Hilary Putnam - Reason, Truth and History Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: I wouldn't hold your breath while the scientists do their job. If physicalism is right then Field is right, but physics seems no more appropriate for giving a theory of reference than it does for giving a theory of music. |
| 23035 | The good life aims at perfections, or absolute laws, or what is absolutely desirable [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: The differentia of the good life …is controlled by the consciousness of there being some perfection which has to be fulfilled, some law which has to be obeyed, something absolutely desirable whatever the individual may for the time desire. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Prolegomena to Ethics [1882], p.134), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: The 'perfection' suggests Plato, and the 'law' suggests Kant. The idea that something is 'absolutely desirable' is, I suspect, aimed at the utilitarians, who don't care what is desired. I'm no idealist, but have some sympathy with this idea. |
| 23032 | What is distinctive of human life is the desire for self-improvement [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: All that is distinctively human in the life of man springs not from the desire to possess this or that object, and so far to realise a better, but to be something more and better than he is. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: An example of Victorian optimism, I think. I'm guessing that people who are not motivated by this impulse are not behaving in a way that is 'distinctively human'. That said, this is an interesting aspect of human nature. |
| 23033 | Hedonism offers no satisfaction, because what we desire is self-betterment [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: Hedonism failed because it offered as an end of human aspiration an object in which the human spirit, pledged by its own nature to self-betterment, …could never find satisfaction. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: It is always both sad and amusing to see that 150 years ago someone wrote of a doctrine that is still with us that it has 'failed'. Nowadays they try to say the same of physicalism. His objection rests on optimism about humanity. |
| 23046 | States only have full authority if they heed the claims of human fellowship [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: The claim of the state is only absolutely paramount on the supposition that in its commands and prohibitions it takes account of all the claims that arise out of human fellowship. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882], §146), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
| A reaction: He rejects the idea of the general will in ordinary political activity, so it is not clear how this condition could ever be met in practice. Hideous governments just pay lip service to 'human fellowship'. How could you tell whether they believe it? |
| 23045 | Politics is compromises, which seem supported by a social contract, but express the will of no one [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: Where laws and institutions are apparently the work of deliberate volition, they are in reality the result of a compromise, which while by a kind of social contract it has the acquiescence of all, expresses the will of none. | |
| From: T.H. Green (works [1875]), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
| A reaction: Politicians who claim to be enacting the 'will of the people' (e.g. when they won a referendum 52-48) are simply lying. Committees usually end up enacting one person's will, but often without realising what has happened. |
| 23050 | The ideal is a society in which all citizens are ladies and gentlemen [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: With all seriousness and reverence we may hope and pray for a condition of English society in which all honest citizens will recognise themselves and be recognised by each other as gentlemen. | |
| From: T.H. Green (works [1875]), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State IV | |
| A reaction: Call me old fashioned but, as long as we expand this to include ladies, I like this thought. Chaucer's knight (in his Prologue) should be our national role model. The true gentleman is an Aristotelian ideal. |
| 23052 | Enfranchisement is an end in itself; it makes a person moral, and gives a basis for respect [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: Enfranchisement of the people is an end in itself. …Only citizenship makes the moral man; only citizenship gives that respect which is the true basis of the respect for others. | |
| From: T.H. Green (works [1875], iii:436), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State IV | |
| A reaction: Should people respect their betters? If so, that is a sort of deferential respect which is different from the mutual respect between equals. That said, I wholly approve of this idea. |
| 23036 | The good is identified by the capacities of its participants [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: The modern idea of the good has developed in respect of the range of persons who have the capacity and therefore the right to participate in this good. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: Green is a notable Victorian liberal, starting from an idealist metaphysics. This is an intriguing view of liberal values. The concept of the good should be what suits persons with full capacity. Having the capacity bestows the right of access to it. Hm. |
| 23039 | A true state is only unified and stabilised by acknowledging individuality [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: In so far as society commits itself to the principle of individuality of its citizens does it realise the unity and stability that constitute it a true 'State'. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: This asserts the liberal vision of a state, rather than asserting a fact. A state consistently mostly of slaves still seems to be a state, and may achieve a lot. |
| 23037 | People are improved by egalitarian institutions and habits [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: Man has bettered himself through institutions and habits which tend to make the welfare of all the welfare of each. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Prolegomena to Ethics [1882], p.180), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: I like this a lot. We underestimate how the best social values are promoted by the existence of enlightened institutions, rather than by preaching and teaching. Schools, law courts and churche embody their values. |
| 23051 | Equality also implies liberty, because equality must be of opportunity as well as possessions [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: Liberty was essential, not only as a means to equality, but as part of it. …because the opportunity which was to be equalised was not merely to have and to be happy, but to do and to realise. It was 'the right of man to make the best of himself'. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State IV | |
| A reaction: This nicely identifies the core idea of civilised liberalism (as opposed to the crazy self-seeking kind). I think 'give people the right to make the best of themselves' makes a good slogan, because it implies ensuring that they have the means. |
| 23043 | All talk of the progress of a nation must reduce to the progress of its individual members [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: Our ultimate standard of worth is an ideal of personal worth. All other values are relative to personal values. To speak of any progress of a nation or society or mankind except as relative to some greater worth of persons is to use words without meaning. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Prolegomena to Ethics [1882], p.193), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: Note that, pre-verificationism, a Victorian talks of plausible words actually being meaningless. This is a good statement of the core doctrine of liberalism. |
| 23038 | People only develop their personality through co-operation with the social whole [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: In so far as the individual commits himself to the principle of co-operation in a social whole does he realise his end as individual personality. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: This makes for a very communitarian type of liberalism. The question is whether we create insitutions which suck our free citizens into a communal way of life, or whether that is a matter of their own initiative. |
| 23028 | The highest political efforts express our deeper social spirit [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: Political effort in all its highest forms is the expression of a belief in the reality of the social spirit as the deeper element in the individual. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State I | |
| A reaction: Although Green is rather literally spiritual, if we express it as a central aspect of human nature, this idea strikes me as correct. Writing in 2021, I am totally bewildered by the entire absence of any 'higher' forms of political expression. |
| 23054 | Communism is wrong because it restricts the freedom of individuals to contribute to the community [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: Green condemned pure communism, not in the name of any abstract rights of the individual, but of the right of the community itself to the best that individuals can contribute through the free and spontaneous exercise of their powers of self-expression. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State IV | |
| A reaction: Interesting. In a very authoritarian communist state it does seem that citizens are less able to contribute to the general good. But extreme liberty seems also to undermine the general good. Hm. |
| 23047 | Original common ownership is securing private property, not denying it [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: Common ownership in early societies is not the denial of a man's private property in the products of his own labour, but the only way under the circumstances of securing it. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882], §218) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
| A reaction: This is announced with some confidence, but it is very speculative. I think there is some truth in Locke's thought that putting work into a creation creates natural ownership. But who owns the raw materials? Why is work valued highly? |
| 21006 | If women share rights with men, they will exhibit similar virtues [Wollstonecraft] |
| Full Idea: Let woman share the rights and she will emulate the virtues of man; for she must grow more perfect when emancipated, or justify that authority that chains such a weak being to her duty. | |
| From: Mary Wollstonecraft (Vindication of the Rights of Women [1792], p.294), quoted by Amartya Sen - The Idea of Justice 18 'Wrath' | |
| A reaction: Presumably this implies that if emancipation led to women exceeding men in such virtues, there would be some justification for imposing the chains on the men rather than the women. Consider wars. Probably best to just abandon chains. |
| 23042 | National spirit only exists in the individuals who embody it [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: A national spirit cannot exist apart from the individuals who embody it. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: We see this in football supporters. They are thrilled by the glory of a great victory, but the reality is just the thrill of the players, and the exuberance in each supporter's mind. There is no further entity called the 'glory'. Green was a liberal. |
| 23048 | The ground of property ownership is not force but the power to use it for social ends [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: It is not the power of forcible tenure but the power of utilisation for social ends that is the ground of the permanent recognition that constitutes a right to property. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
| A reaction: Tell that to the aristocratic owners of British grouse moors! This just seems to be wishful thinking. Does that mean that I have no right to property if my ends are not 'social'? |
| 23049 | Property is needed by all citizens, to empower them to achieve social goods [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: The rationale of property is that every one should be secured by society in the power of getting and keeping the means of realising a will which in possibility is a will directed to social good. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882], §220), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
| A reaction: An interesting argument. If you want free citizens in a liberal society to be capable of achieving social good, you must allow them the right to acquire the means of doing so. |
| 23040 | If something develops, its true nature is embodied in its end [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: To anyone who understands a process of development, the result being developed is the reality; and it is its ability to become this that the subject undergoing development has its true nature. | |
| From: T.H. Green (works [1875], iii: 224), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: Although this contains the dubious Hegelian idea that development tends towards some 'end', presented as fixed and final, it still seems important that anything accepted as a 'development' is the expression of some natural potential. |
| 8404 | Explain single events by general rules, or vice versa, or probability explains both, or they are unconnected [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: Some think singular causal claims should be explained in terms of general causal claims; some think the order should be reversed; some think a third thing (e.g. objective probability) will explain both; and some think they are only loosely connected. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Causation in a Physical World [2003], 2) | |
| A reaction: I think Ducasse gives the best account, which is the second option, of giving singular causal claims priority. Probability (Mellor) strikes me as a non-starter, and the idea that they are fairly independent seems rather implausible. |
| 8401 | Physical laws are largely time-symmetric, so they make a poor basis for directional causation [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: It is sometimes pointed out that (perhaps with a few minor exceptions) the fundamental physical laws are completely time-symmetric. If so, then if one is inclined to found causation on fundamental physical law, it isn't evident how directionality gets in. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Causation in a Physical World [2003], 1) | |
| A reaction: All my instincts tell me that causation is more fundamental than laws, and that directionality is there at the start. That, though, raises the nice question of how, if causation explains laws, the direction eventually gets left OUT! |
| 8400 | Identifying cause and effect is not just conventional; we explain later events by earlier ones [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: It is not just that the earlier member of a cause-effect pair is conventionally called the cause; it is also connected with other temporal asymmetries that play an important role in our practices. We tend to explain later events in terms of earlier ones. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Causation in a Physical World [2003], 1) | |
| A reaction: We also interfere with the earlier one to affect the later one, and not vice versa (Idea 8363). I am inclined to think that attempting to explain the direction of causation is either pointless or hopeless. |
| 8402 | The only reason for adding the notion of 'cause' to fundamental physics is directionality [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: Although it is true that the notion of 'cause' is not needed in fundamental physics, even statistical physics, still directionality considerations don't preclude this notion from being consistently added to fundamental physics. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Causation in a Physical World [2003], 1) | |
| A reaction: This only makes sense if the notion of cause already has directionality built into it, which I think is correct. The physicist might reply that they don't care about directionality, but the whole idea of an experiment seems to depend on it (Idea 8363). |
| 18223 | In theories of fields, space-time points or regions are causal agents [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: According to theories that take the notion of a field seriously, space-time points or regions are fully-fledge causal agents. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980], n 23) |
| 18220 | Both philosophy and physics now make substantivalism more attractive [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: In general, it seems to me that recent developments in both philosophy and physics have made substantivalism a much more attractive position than it once was. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980], 4) | |
| A reaction: I'm intrigued as to what philosophical developments are involved in this. The arrival of fields is the development in physics. |
| 18219 | Relational space is problematic if you take the idea of a field seriously [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: The problem of the relational view of space is especially acute in the context of physical theories that take the notion of a field seriously, e.g. classical electromagnetic theory. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980], 4) | |
| A reaction: In the Leibniz-Clarke debate I sided with the Newtonian Clarke (defending absolute space), and it looks like modern science agrees with me. Nothing exists purely as relations. |
| 23031 | God is the ideal end of the mature mind's final development [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: God is a subject which is eternally all that the self-conscious subject as developed in time has the possibility of becoming. | |
| From: T.H. Green (works [1875]), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State I | |
| A reaction: [Ethics p.197] Reminiscent of Peirce's account of truth, as the ideal end of enquiry. If God is a human ideal, we either limit God, or exaggerate our powers of idealisation. |
| 23041 | God is the realisation of the possibilities of each man's self [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: God is identical with the self of every man in the sense of being the realisation of its determinate possibilities.…In being conscious of himself man is conscious of God and thus knows that God is, but only in so far as he knows what he himself really is. | |
| From: T.H. Green (works [1875], iii:226-7), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: Does this, by the transitivity of identity, imply the identity of all individual men? Do we all contain identical possibilities, which converge on a unified concept of God? I always take the monotheistic God to far exceed mere human possibilities. |