24 ideas
| 5182 | Claims about 'the Absolute' are not even verifiable in principle [Ayer on Bradley] |
| Full Idea: Such a metaphysical pseudo-proposition as 'the Absolute enters into, but is itself incapable of, evolution and progress' (F.H.Bradley) is not even in principle verifiable. | |
| From: comment on F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by A.J. Ayer - Language,Truth and Logic Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: One may jeer at the Verification Principle for either failing to be precise, or for failing to pass its own test, but Ayer still has a point here. When we drift off into sustained abstractions, we must keeping asking if we are still saying anything real. |
| 6864 | Metaphysics is finding bad reasons for instinctive beliefs [Bradley] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an instinct. | |
| From: F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]), quoted by Robin Le Poidevin - Interview with Baggini and Stangroom p.165 | |
| A reaction: A famous and very nice remark. The idea of believing things on instinct sounds more like David Hume than an idealist. Personally I am not so pessimistic about the enterprise. I think metaphysics is capable of changing what we believe. |
| 10999 | Names need a means of reidentifying their referents [Bradley, by Read] |
| Full Idea: Unless a name has associated with it a means of reidentifying its referent, we cannot use it. | |
| From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by Stephen Read - Thinking About Logic Ch.4 | |
| A reaction: Brilliant! This point is totally undeniable. It is not enough that someone be 'baptised'. We need to hang onto both the name and what it refers to, and how are we going to do that? |
| 6422 | Internal relations are said to be intrinsic properties of two terms, and of the whole they compose [Bradley, by Russell] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine of internal relations held that every relation between two terms expresses, primarily, intrinsic properties of the two terms and, in ultimate analysis, a property of the whole which the two compose. | |
| From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by Bertrand Russell - My Philosophical Development Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: Russell's first big campaign was to reject this view, and his ontology from then on included relations among the catalogue of universals. The coherence theory of truth also gets thrown out at the same time. Russell seems right. |
| 7966 | Relations must be linked to their qualities, but that implies an infinite regress of relations [Bradley] |
| Full Idea: If a relation between qualities is to be something, then clearly we will now require a new connecting relation. The links are united by a link, and this link has two ends, which require a fresh link to connect them to the old. | |
| From: F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893], p.28), quoted by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things Ch.6 | |
| A reaction: That is: external relations generates an infinite regress, so relations must be internal. Russell launched his own philosophy with an attack on Bradley's idea. Personally I take how two things 'relate' to one another as one of the deepest of mysteries. |
| 16669 | Everything that exists is either a being, or some mode of a being [Malebranche] |
| Full Idea: It is absolutely necessary that everything in the world be either a being or a mode [manière] of a being. | |
| From: Nicolas Malebranche (The Search After Truth [1675], III.2.8.ii), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 13.4 |
| 6404 | British Idealists said reality is a single Mind which experiences itself [Bradley, by Grayling] |
| Full Idea: The idealism of Green and Bradley, both of whom were much influenced by the German Idealists, espoused the thesis that the universe ultimately consists of a single Mind which, so to speak, experiences itself. | |
| From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This looks now like the last (extreme) throw by the religious view of the world, which collapsed in the face of the empirical realism of Russell and Moore. It is all Kant's fault, for cutting us off from his 'noumenon'. |
| 22299 | Bradley's objective idealism accepts reality (the Absolute), but says we can't fully describe it [Bradley, by Potter] |
| Full Idea: Objective idealists such as Bradley (rather than Berkeley's subjective view) accepted the substantial existence of reality (which they called the 'Absolute') but held that thought cannot fully describe it. | |
| From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 23 'Abs' | |
| A reaction: That thought can't 'fully' describe it seems obvious, so I suspect Bradley's view are stronger than that. This sounds like modern strong and weak anti-realists; strong ones deny reality, but weak ones just deny we know where the joints are. |
| 21343 | Qualities and relations are mere appearance; the Absolute is a single undifferentiated substance [Bradley, by Heil] |
| Full Idea: In Bradley's view, qualities and relations belong to the realm of appearance. We are left with a single, undifferentiated substance: the Absolute. | |
| From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by John Heil - Relations 'Internal' | |
| A reaction: I've not read Bradley, but I can't distinguish this proposal from Parmenides's belief in The One. Or maybe Spinoza's monist view of God and Nature (but that is 'differentiated'). It doesn't sound like Hegel. |
| 7439 | The qualities involved in sensations are entirely intentional [Anscombe, by Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Anscombe argued that the qualities involved in sensations are one and all intentional only (and I think this holds even for the bodily sensations). | |
| From: report of G.E.M. Anscombe (The Intentionality of Sensation [1965]) by David M. Armstrong - Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' p.xxii | |
| A reaction: Compare Harry Gildersleve's exactly opposite proposal in Idea 7272. I think I am coming round to the Anscombe view, which builds the more mysterious up from the less mysterious. Gildersleve must explain how atomic qualia arise. |
| 8353 | Freedom involves acting according to an idea [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: Freedom at least involves the power of acting according to an idea. | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Causality and Determinism [1971], §2) | |
| A reaction: Since 'you' presumably have to sit above the idea and pass a judgement on it, then the same principle should apply to acting on a desire, which presumably 'you' could reject because it just wasn't attractive enough. |
| 8352 | To believe in determinism, one must believe in a system which determines events [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: 'The ball's path is determined' must mean 'there is only one possible path for the ball (assuming no air currents)', but what ground could one have for believing this, if one does not believe in some system for which it is a consequence? | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Causality and Determinism [1971], §2) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, but it doesn't follow that one has to know the full details of the system. The system might just be the best explanation, or even a matter of vague faith. It might, though, be just that you can't imagine any other outcome. |
| 20041 | Intentional actions are those which are explained by giving the reason for so acting [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: Intentional actions are those to which a certain sense of the question 'Why?' is given application; the sense is of course that in which the answer, if positive, gives a reason for acting. | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Intention [1957], p.9), quoted by Rowland Stout - Action 2 'Two kinds' | |
| A reaction: This works better for grand large-scale actions than for small ones, like taking the knife out of the drawer before the fork. Kahnemann nowadays tells us that the reasons we articulate might not be the ones that are operative. |
| 5655 | Happiness is not satisfaction of desires, but fulfilment of values [Bradley, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: For Bradley, the happiness of the individual is not to be understood in terms of his desires and needs, but rather in terms of his values - which is to say, in terms of those of his desires which he incorporates into his self. | |
| From: report of F.H. Bradley (Ethical Studies [1876]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.16 | |
| A reaction: Good. Bentham will reduce the values to a further set of desires, so that a value is a complex (second-level?) desire. I prefer to think of values as judgements, but I like Scruton's phrase of 'incorporating into his self'. Kant take note (Idea 1452). |
| 8070 | It would be better to point to failings of character, than to moral wrongness of actions [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: It would be a great improvement if, instead of 'morally wrong', one always named a genus such as 'untruthful', 'unchaste', or 'unjust'. | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Modern Moral Philosophy [1958], p.183) | |
| A reaction: People are indeed much more struck by the suggestion that they have a weakness of character, rather than that they have just done something wrong. This is Anscombe's first great appeal for a return to virtue as the basis of ethics. |
| 8065 | 'Ought' and 'right' are survivals from earlier ethics, and should be jettisoned [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: The moral sense of 'ought' and of what is right should be jettisoned, if possible, because they are survivals from an earlier conception of ethics, and are only harmful without it. | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Modern Moral Philosophy [1958], p.175) | |
| A reaction: This is part of a revolutionary proposal to return to virtue theory, and has had a great influence (e.g. on me). Richard Taylor gives a good account of how duty lost its social and religious underpinnings. Our duties now seem to be purely contractual. |
| 8069 | Between Aristotle and us, a Judaeo-Christian legal conception of ethics was developed [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: Between Aristotle and us came Christianity, with its law conception of ethics, and Christianity derived its ethical notions from the Torah. | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Modern Moral Philosophy [1958], p.179) | |
| A reaction: While I am a fan of the primacy of the virtues in ethical thinking, I am doubtful about the complete elimination of laws (e.g. by Particularists). The law teaches us the virtues, and reminds us of them (like speed-limit signs). |
| 6406 | Reality is one, because plurality implies relations, and they assert a superior unity [Bradley] |
| Full Idea: Reality is one. It must be simple because plurality, taken as real, contradicts itself. Plurality implies relations, and, through its relations it unwillingly asserts always a superior unity. | |
| From: F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893], p.519), quoted by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This argument depends on a belief in 'internal' relations, which Russell famously attacked. If an internal feature of every separate item was its relation to other things, then I suppose Bradley would be right. But it isn't, and he isn't. |
| 8351 | With diseases we easily trace a cause from an effect, but we cannot predict effects [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: It is much easier to trace effects back to causes with certainty than to predict effects from causes. If I have one contact with someone with a disease and I get it, we suppose I got it from him, but a doctor cannot predict a disease from one contact. | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Causality and Determinism [1971], §1) | |
| A reaction: An interesting, and obviously correct, observation. Her point is that we get more certainty of causes from observing a singular effect than we get certainty of effects from regularities or laws. |
| 4777 | The word 'cause' is an abstraction from a group of causal terms in a language (scrape, push..) [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: The word "cause" can be added to a language in which are already represented many causal concepts; a small selection: scrape, push, wet, carry, eat, burn, knock over, keep off, squash, make, hurt. | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Causality and Determinism [1971], p.93) | |
| A reaction: An interesting point, perhaps reinforcing the Humean idea of causation as a 'natural belief', or the Kantian view of it as a category of thought. Or maybe causation is built into language because it is a feature of reality… |
| 10363 | Causation is relative to how we describe the primary relata [Anscombe, by Schaffer,J] |
| Full Idea: Anscombe has inspired the view that causation is an intensional relation, and takes it to be relative to the descriptions of the primary relata. | |
| From: report of G.E.M. Anscombe (Causality and Determinism [1971], 1) by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 1 | |
| A reaction: It seems too linguistic to say that there is nothing more to it. It seems relevant in human examples, but if a landslide crushes a tree, what difference does the description make? 'It was just a few rocks and some miserable little tree'. No excuse! |
| 8350 | Since Mill causation has usually been explained by necessary and sufficient conditions [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: Since Mill it has been fairly common to explain causation one way or another in terms of 'necessary' and 'sufficient' conditions. | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Causality and Determinism [1971], §1) | |
| A reaction: Interesting to see what Hume implies about these criteria. Anscombe is going to propose that causal events are fairly self-evident and self-explanatory, and don't need analyses of conditions. Another approach is regularities and laws. |
| 12726 | In a true cause we see a necessary connection [Malebranche] |
| Full Idea: A true cause is one in which the mind perceives a necessary connection between the cause and its effect. | |
| From: Nicolas Malebranche (The Search After Truth [1675], 1.649 (450)), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 5 | |
| A reaction: Presumably Hume was ignorant of 'true' causes, since he says he never saw this connection. But then is the perception done by the mind, or by the senses? |
| 2594 | A true cause must involve a necessary connection between cause and effect [Malebranche] |
| Full Idea: A true cause as I understand it is one such that the mind perceives a necessary connection between it and its effects. | |
| From: Nicolas Malebranche (The Union of Body and Soul [1675], p.116) |