30 ideas
7306 | If the only property of a name was its reference, we couldn't explain bearerless names [Miller,A] |
Full Idea: If having a reference were the only semantic property in terms of which we could explain the functioning of names, we would be in trouble with respect to names that simply have no bearer. | |
From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 2.1.1) | |
A reaction: (Miller is discussing Frege) 'Odysseus' is given as an example. Instead of switching to a bundle of descriptions, we could say that we just imagine an object which is stamped with the name. Names always try to refer. |
21812 | Being is the product of pure intellect [Plotinus] |
Full Idea: Intellectual-Principle [Nous] by its intellective act establishes Being. | |
From: Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.04) | |
A reaction: This is a surprising view - that there is something which is prior to Being - but I take it to be Plotinus giving primacy to Plato's Form of the Good (a pure ideal), ahead of the One of Parmenides (which is Being). |
21817 | The One does not exist, but is the source of all existence [Plotinus] |
Full Idea: The First is no member of existence, but can be the source of all. | |
From: Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.07) | |
A reaction: The First is the One, and this explicitly denies that it has Being. This answers the self-predication problem of Forms. Plato thought the Form of the Beautiful was beautiful, but it can't be (because of the regress). The source of existence can't exist. |
21824 | The One is a principle which transcends Being [Plotinus] |
Full Idea: There exists a principle which transcends Being; this the One. | |
From: Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.10) | |
A reaction: The idea that the One transcends Being is the distinctive Plotinus doctrine. He defends the view that this was also the view of Anaxagoras, Empedocles and Plato. |
21813 | Number determines individual being [Plotinus] |
Full Idea: Number is the determinant of individual being. | |
From: Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.05) | |
A reaction: You might have thought that number was the consequence of the individualities (or units) within being, but not so. You can't get more platonic than saying that the idealised numbers are the source of the particular units. |
11993 | Jones may cease to exist without some simple property, but that doesn't make it essential [Kung] |
Full Idea: If Jones ceases to be a father, or ceases to be over eight years old, he will cease to exist, yet these properties surely do not belong essentially to him. | |
From: Joan Kung (Aristotle on Essence and Explanation [1977], II) | |
A reaction: This seems to correct, though I would doubt whether either of these count as true properties, in the causal sense I prefer. If being 'over 8' is a property, how many 'over n' or 'under m' properties does he have? One for each quantum moment? |
11997 | A property may belong essentially to one thing and contingently to another [Kung] |
Full Idea: It is possible that a property may belong essentially to one thing and contingently to another. | |
From: Joan Kung (Aristotle on Essence and Explanation [1977], III) | |
A reaction: Thus a love of blues music may be part of your essence, but only a minor part of me. Sounds right. Spin or charge are part of the essence of an electron, but only contingently part of a child's top. |
11992 | Aristotelian essences underlie a thing's existence, explain it, and must belong to it [Kung] |
Full Idea: Three essentialist claims are labelled 'Aristotelian': the thing would cease to exist without the property; an essential property is explanatory; and it is such that it must belong to everything to which it belongs. | |
From: Joan Kung (Aristotle on Essence and Explanation [1977], Intro) | |
A reaction: She says the second one is indispensable, and that it rules out the third one. My working assumption, like hers, is that the second one is the key part of the game, because Aristotle wanted to explain things. |
7322 | Constitutive scepticism is about facts, and epistemological scepticism about our ability to know them [Miller,A] |
Full Idea: We should distinguish 'constitutive scepticism' (about the existence of certain sorts of facts) from the traditional 'epistemological scepticism' (which concedes that the sort of fact in question exists, but questions our right to claim knowledge of it). | |
From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 4.7) | |
A reaction: I would be inclined to call the first type 'ontological scepticism'. Miller is discussing Quine's scepticism about meaning. Atheists fall into the first group, and agnostics into the second. An important, and nicely simple, distinction. |
11995 | Some peripheral properties are explained by essential ones, but don't themselves explain properties [Kung] |
Full Idea: There will be demonstrated properties at the edge of the system, so to speak. They will be explained in terms of the essential properties of the basic entities and principles of the science, but will themselves not be explanatory of further properties. | |
From: Joan Kung (Aristotle on Essence and Explanation [1977], II) | |
A reaction: This is an important line of thought which needs clarification. We can't glibly say that essences are what explain the other properties. Some properties do more than others to explain subsequent dependent properties. |
11996 | Some non-essential properties may explain more than essential-but-peripheral ones do [Kung] |
Full Idea: It seems highly likely that some non-essential properties may explain more about the individual or about things of his kind than the peripheral properties. | |
From: Joan Kung (Aristotle on Essence and Explanation [1977], II) | |
A reaction: Another important issue, if one is defending the explanatory role of essences. It is not only essences which explain. A key question is whether we endorse individual essences as well as generic ones. I think we should. They explain the details. |
5506 | If soul was like body, its parts would be separate, without communication [Plotinus] |
Full Idea: If the soul had the nature of the body, it would have isolated members each unaware of the condition of the other;..there would be a particular soul as a distinct entity to each local experience, so a multiplicity of souls would administer an individual. | |
From: Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 4.2.2), quoted by R Martin / J Barresi - Introduction to 'Personal Identity' p.15 | |
A reaction: Of course, the modern 'modularity of mind' theory does suggest that we are run by a team, but a central co-ordinator is required, with a full communication network across the modules. |
21827 | The movement of Soul is continuous, but we are only aware of the parts of it that are sensed [Plotinus] |
Full Idea: The Soul maintains its unfailing movement; for not all that passes in the soul is, by that fact, perceptible; we know just as much as impinges on the faculty of the sense. | |
From: Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.12) | |
A reaction: This is a straightforward argument in favour of an unconscious aspect to the mind - and a rather good argument too. No one thinks that our minds ever stop working, even in sleep. |
21828 | A person is the whole of their soul [Plotinus] |
Full Idea: Man is not merely a part (the higher part) of the Soul but the total. | |
From: Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.12) | |
A reaction: The soul is psuche, which includes the vegetative soul. The higher part is normally taken to be reason. This seems pretty close to John Locke's view of the matter. |
21809 | Our soul has the same ideal nature as the oldest god, and is honourable above the body [Plotinus] |
Full Idea: Our own soul is of that same ideal nature [as the oldest god of them all], so that to consider it, purified, freed from all accruement, is to recognise in ourselves which we have found soul to be, honourable above the body. For what is body but earth? | |
From: Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.02) | |
A reaction: The strongest versions of substance dualism are religious in character, because the separateness of the mind elevates us above the grubby physical character of the world. I'm with Nietzsche on this one - this view is actually harmful to us. |
21825 | The soul is outside of all of space, and has no connection to the bodily order [Plotinus] |
Full Idea: We may not seek any point in space in which to seat the soul; it must be set outside of all space; its distinct quality, its separateness, its immateriality, demand that it be a thing alone, untouched by all of the bodily order. | |
From: Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.10) | |
A reaction: You can't get more dualist than that. He doesn't seem bothered about the interaction problem. He likens such influence to the radiation of the sun, rather than to physical movement. |
7325 | Dispositions say what we will do, not what we ought to do, so can't explain normativity [Miller,A] |
Full Idea: Dispositional facts are facts about what we will do, not about what we ought to do, and as such cannot capture the normativity of meaning. | |
From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 6.2) | |
A reaction: Miller is discussing language, but this raises a nice question for all behaviourist accounts of mental events. Perhaps there is a disposition to behave in a guilty way if you do something you think you shouldn't do. (Er, isn't 'guilt' a mental event?) |
7324 | Explain meaning by propositional attitudes, or vice versa, or together? [Miller,A] |
Full Idea: Grice wants to explain linguistic meaning in terms of the content of propositional attitudes, Dummett has championed the view that propositional attitudes must be explained by linguistic meaning, while Davidson says they must be explained together. | |
From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 6.1) | |
A reaction: A useful map. My intuition says propositional attitudes come first, for evolutionary reasons. We are animals first, and speakers second. Thought precedes language. A highly social animal flourishes if it can communicate. |
7323 | If truth is deflationary, sentence truth-conditions just need good declarative syntax [Miller,A] |
Full Idea: On a deflationary concept of truth, for a sentence to possess truth-conditions it is sufficient that it be disciplined by norms of correct usage, and that it possess the syntax distinctive of declarative sentences. | |
From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 5.3) | |
A reaction: Idea 6337 gives the basic deflationary claim. He mentions Boghossian as source of this point. So much the worse for the deflationary concept of truth, say I. What are the truth-conditions of "Truth rotates"? |
7315 | 'Jones is a married bachelor' does not have the logical form of a contradiction [Miller,A] |
Full Idea: The syntactic notion of contradiction (p and not-p) is well understood, but is no help in explaining analyticity, since "Jones is a married bachelor" is not of that syntactic form. | |
From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 4.2) | |
A reaction: This point is based on Quine. This means we cannot define analytic sentences as those whose denial is a contradiction, even though that seems to be true of them. Both the Kantian and the modern logical versions of analyticity are in trouble. |
7328 | The principle of charity is holistic, saying we must hold most of someone's system of beliefs to be true [Miller,A] |
Full Idea: Properly construed, the principle of charity is a holistic constraint applying, not to individual beliefs, but rather to systems of belief: we must interpret a speaker so that most of the beliefs in his system are, by our lights, true. | |
From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 8.7) | |
A reaction: This is a lot more plausible than applying the principle to individual sentences, particularly if you are in the company of habitual ironists or constitutional liars. |
7329 | Maybe we should interpret speakers as intelligible, rather than speaking truth [Miller,A] |
Full Idea: A more sophisticated version of the principle of charity holds that we interpret speakers not as necessarily having beliefs that are true by our own lights, but as having beliefs that are intelligible by our own lights. | |
From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 8.7) | |
A reaction: Consider Idea 4161 in the light of this. Presumably this means that we treat them as having a coherent set of beliefs, even if they seem to us to fail to correspond to reality. I prefer the stronger version that there has to be some proper truth in there. |
21826 | The Soul reasons about the Right, so there must be some permanent Right about which it reasons [Plotinus] |
Full Idea: Since there is a Soul which reasons upon the right and good - for reasoning is an enquiry into the rightness and goodness of this rather than that - there must exist some pemanent Right, the source and foundation of this reasoning in our soul. | |
From: Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.11) | |
A reaction: This is pretty close the Kant's concept of 'the moral order within me', and Plotinus even sees it as rational. Presumably this right is 'permanent' because the revelatlons of reason about it are necessary truths. |
7333 | The Frege-Geach problem is that I can discuss the wrongness of murder without disapproval [Miller,A] |
Full Idea: The main problem faced by non-cognitivism is known as the Frege-Geach problem: if I say "If murder is wrong, then getting your brother to murder people is wrong", that is an unasserted context, and I don't necessarily express disapproval of murder. | |
From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 9.2) | |
A reaction: The emotivist or non-cognitivist might mount a defence by saying there is some second-order or deep-buried emotion involved. Could a robot without feelings even understand what humans meant when they said "It is morally wrong"? |
6922 | Ecstasy is for the neo-Platonist the highest psychological state of man [Plotinus, by Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: Ecstasy or rapture is for the neo-Platonist the highest psychological state of man. | |
From: report of Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245]) by Ludwig Feuerbach - Principles of Philosophy of the Future §29 | |
A reaction: See Bernini's statue of St Theresa. Personally I find this very unappealing because of its utter irrationality, but what is the 'highest' human psychological state? Doing mental arithmetic? Doing what is morally right? Dignity under pressure? |
21814 | How can multiple existence arise from the unified One? [Plotinus] |
Full Idea: The problem endlessly debated is how, from such a unity as we have declared the One to be, does anything at all come into substantial existence, any multiplicity, dyad or number? | |
From: Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.06) | |
A reaction: This was precisely Aristotle's objection to the One of Parmenides, and especially the problem of the source of movement (which Plotinus also notices). |
21815 | Because the One is immobile, it must create by radiation, light the sun producing light [Plotinus] |
Full Idea: Given this immobility of the Supreme ...what happened then? It must be a circumradiation, which may be compared to the brilliant light encircling the sun and ceaselessly generating from that unchanging substance, | |
From: Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.06) | |
A reaction: This is the answer given to the problem raised in Idea 21814. The sun produces energy, without apparent movement. Not an answer that will satisfy a physicist, but an interesting answer. |
21816 | Soul is the logos of Nous, just as Nous is the logos of the One [Plotinus] |
Full Idea: The soul is an utterance [logos] and act of the Intellectual-Principle [Nous], as that is an utterance and act of the One. | |
From: Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.06) | |
A reaction: Being only comes into the picture at the secondary Nous stage. Nous is the closest to the modern concept of God. |
21808 | Soul is author of all of life, and of the stars, and it gives them law and movement [Plotinus] |
Full Idea: Soul is the author of all living things, ...it has breathed life into them all, whatever is nourished by earth and sea, the divine stars in the sky; ...it is the principle distinct from all of these to which it gives law and movement and life. | |
From: Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.02) | |
A reaction: This seems to derive from Anaxagoras, who is mentioned by Plotinus. The soul he refers to his not the same as our concept of God. Note the word 'law', which I am guessing is nomos. Not, I think, modern laws of nature, but closer to guidelines. |
21811 | Even the soul is secondary to the Intellectual-Principle [Nous], of which soul is an utterance [Plotinus] |
Full Idea: Soul, for all the worth we have shown to belong to it, is yet a secondary, an image of the Intellectual-Principle [Nous]; reason uttered is an image of reason stored within the soul, and similarly soul is an utterance of the Intellectual-Principle. | |
From: Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.03) | |
A reaction: It then turns out that Nous is secondary to the One, so there is a hierarchy of Being (which only enters at the Nous stage). |