49 ideas
| 6814 | Instead of prayer and charity, sinners pursue vain disputes and want their own personal scripture [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: The sinners will say 'we never prayed or fed the hungry. We engaged in vain disputes and denied the Day of Reckoning'. Indeed, each one of them demands a scripture of his own to be unrolled before him. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.74) | |
| A reaction: The implication seems to be that most disputes are 'vain'. The charge that everyone wants a 'scripture of his own' is a nice challenge to the world of liberal education, where we are all enjoined to pursue our personalised routes to our own truth. |
| 9136 | The paradox of analysis says that any conceptual analysis must be either trivial or false [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: The paradox of analysis says if a conceptual analysis states exactly what the original statement says, then the analysis is trivial; if it says something different from the original, then the analysis is mistaken. All analyses are trivial or false. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 8.5) | |
| A reaction: [source is G.E. Moore] Good analyses typically give explanations, or necessary and sufficient conditions, or inferential relations. At their most trivial they at least produce a more profound dictionary than your usual lexicographer. Not guilty. |
| 9131 | Two long understandable sentences can have an unintelligible conjunction [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: If there is an upper bound on the length of understandable sentences, then two understandable sentences can have an unintelligible conjunction. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 6.4) | |
| A reaction: Not a huge paradox about the use of the word 'and', perhaps, but a nice little warning to be clear about what is being claimed before you cheerfully assert a screamingly obvious law of thought, such as conjunction. |
| 9139 | If nothing exists, no truthmakers could make 'Nothing exists' true [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: If nothing exists, then there are no truthmakers that could make 'Nothing exists' true. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 11.2) | |
| A reaction: [He cites David Lewis] We may be confusing truth with facts. I take facts to be independent of minds, but truth only makes sense as a concept in the presence of minds which are endeavouring to think well. |
| 9140 | Which toothbrush is the truthmaker for 'buy one, get one free'? [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: If I buy two toothbrushes on a 'buy one, get one free' offer, which one did I buy and which one did I get free? Those who believe that each contingent truth has a truthmaker are forced to believe that 'buy one, get one free' is false. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 11.6) | |
| A reaction: Nice. There really is no fact of which toothbrush is the free one. The underlying proposition must presumably be 'two for the price of one'. But you could hardly fault the first slogan under the Trades Descriptions Act. |
| 13451 | The two best understood conceptions of set are the Iterative and the Limitation of Size [Rayo/Uzquiano] |
| Full Idea: The two best understood conceptions of set are the Iterative Conception and the Limitation of Size Conception. | |
| From: Rayo,A/Uzquiasno,G (Introduction to 'Absolute Generality' [2006], 1.2.2) |
| 13452 | Some set theories give up Separation in exchange for a universal set [Rayo/Uzquiano] |
| Full Idea: There are set theories that countenance exceptions to the Principle of Separation in exchange for a universal set. | |
| From: Rayo,A/Uzquiasno,G (Introduction to 'Absolute Generality' [2006], 1.2.2) |
| 9119 | No attempt to deny bivalence has ever been accepted [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: The history of deviant logics is without a single success. Bivalence has been denied at least since Aristotle, yet no anti-bivalent theory has ever left the philosophical nursery. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This is part of a claim that nothing in reality is vague - it is just our ignorance of the truth or falsity of some propositions. Personally I don't see why 'Grandad is bald' has to have a determinate truth value. |
| 9135 | We now see that generalizations use variables rather than abstract entities [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: As philosophers gradually freed themselves from the assumption that all words are names, ..they realised that generalizations really use variables rather than names of abstract entities. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 8.4) | |
| A reaction: This looks like a key thought in trying to understand abstraction - though I don't think you can shake it off that easily. (For all x)(x-is-a-bird then x-has-wings) seems to require a generalised concept of a bird to give a value to the variable. |
| 13449 | We could have unrestricted quantification without having an all-inclusive domain [Rayo/Uzquiano] |
| Full Idea: The possibility of unrestricted quantification does not immediately presuppose the existence of an all-inclusive domain. One could deny an all-inclusive domain but grant that some quantifications are sometimes unrestricted. | |
| From: Rayo,A/Uzquiasno,G (Introduction to 'Absolute Generality' [2006], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: Thus you can quantify over anything you like, but only from what is available. Eat what you like (in this restaurant). |
| 13450 | Absolute generality is impossible, if there are indefinitely extensible concepts like sets and ordinals [Rayo/Uzquiano] |
| Full Idea: There are doubts about whether absolute generality is possible, if there are certain concepts which are indefinitely extensible, lacking definite extensions, and yielding an ever more inclusive hierarchy. Sets and ordinals are paradigm cases. | |
| From: Rayo,A/Uzquiasno,G (Introduction to 'Absolute Generality' [2006], 1.2.1) |
| 13453 | Perhaps second-order quantifications cover concepts of objects, rather than plain objects [Rayo/Uzquiano] |
| Full Idea: If one thought of second-order quantification as quantification over first-level Fregean concepts [note: one under which only objects fall], talk of domains might be regimented as talk of first-level concepts, which are not objects. | |
| From: Rayo,A/Uzquiasno,G (Introduction to 'Absolute Generality' [2006], 1.2.2) | |
| A reaction: That is (I take it), don't quantify over objects, but quantify over concepts, but only those under which known objects fall. One might thus achieve naïve comprehension without paradoxes. Sound like fun. |
| 9125 | Denying problems, or being romantically defeated by them, won't make them go away [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: An unsolvable problem is still a problem, despite Wittgenstein's view that there are no genuine philosophical problems, and Kant's romantic defeatism in his treatment of the antinomies of pure reason. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: I like the spin put on Kant, that he is a romantic in his defeatism. He certainly seems reluctant to slash at the Gordian knot, e.g. by being a bit more drastically sceptical about free will. |
| 9137 | Banning self-reference would outlaw 'This very sentence is in English' [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: The old objection to the ban on self-reference is that it is too broad; it bans innocent sentences such as 'This very sentence is in English'. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 11.1) | |
| A reaction: Tricky. What is the sigificant difference between 'this sentence is in English' and 'this sentence is a lie'? The first concerns context and is partly metalinguistic. The second concerns semantics and truth. Concept and content.. |
| 9116 | Vague words have hidden boundaries [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: Vague words have hidden boundaries. The subtraction of a single grain of sand might turn a heap into a non-heap. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], Intro) | |
| A reaction: The first sentence could be the slogan for the epistemic view of vagueness. The opposite view is Sainsbury's - that vague words are those which do not have any boundaries. Sorensen admits his view is highly counterintuitive. I think I prefer Sainsbury. |
| 9132 | An offer of 'free coffee or juice' could slowly shift from exclusive 'or' to inclusive 'or' [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: Sometimes an exclusive 'or' gradually develops into an inclusive 'or'. A restaurant offers 'free coffee or juice'. The customers ask for both, and gradually they are given it, first as a courtesy, and eventually as an expectation. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 7.2) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] A very nice example - of the rot of vagueness even seeping into the basic logical connectives. We don't have to accept it, though. Each instance of usage of 'or', by manager or customer, might be clearly one or the other. |
| 9128 | It is propositional attitudes which can be a priori, not the propositions themselves [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: The primary bearer of apriority is the propositional attitude (believing, knowing, guessing and so on) rather than the proposition itself. A proposition could be a priori to homo sapiens but a posteriori to Neandethals. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 6.3) | |
| A reaction: A putative supreme being is quite useful here, who might even see the necessity of Arsenal beating Manchester United next Saturday. Unlike infants, adults know a priori that square pegs won't fit round holes. |
| 9130 | Attributing apriority to a proposition is attributing a cognitive ability to someone [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: Every attribution of apriority to a proposition is tacitly an attribution of a cognitive ability to some thinker. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 6.3) | |
| A reaction: The ability would include a range of background knowledge, as well as a sheer power of intellect. If you know all of Euclid's theorems, you will spot facts about geometrical figues quicker than me. His point is important. |
| 9118 | The colour bands of the spectrum arise from our biology; they do not exist in the physics [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: The bands of colour in a colour spectrum do not correspond to objective discontinuities in light wavelengths. These apparently external bands arise from our biology rather than simple physics. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], Intro) | |
| A reaction: If any more arguments are needed to endorse the fact that some qualities are clearly secondary (and, to my amazement, such arguments seem to be very much needed), I would take this to be one of the final conclusive pieces of evidence. |
| 9124 | We are unable to perceive a nose (on the back of a mask) as concave [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: The human perceptual system appears unable to represent a nose as concave rather than convex. If you look at the concave side of a mask, you see the features as convex. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: I don't think that is quite true. You wouldn't put a mask on if you thought it was convex. It is usually when seen at a distance with strong cross-lighting that the effect emerges. Nevertheless, it is an important point. |
| 9126 | Bayesians build near-certainty from lots of reasonably probable beliefs [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: Bayesians demonstrate that a self-correcting agent can build an imposing edifice of near-certain knowledge from numerous beliefs that are only slightly more probable than not. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as highly significant for the coherence account of justification, even if one is sceptical about the arithmetical approach to belief of Bayesianism. It seems obvious that lots of quite likely facts build towards certainty, Watson. |
| 9121 | Illusions are not a reason for skepticism, but a source of interesting scientific information [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers tend to associate illusions with skepticism. But since illusions are signs of modular construction, they are actually reason for scientific hope. Illusions have been very useful in helping us to understand vision. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice reversal of the usual view. If I see double, it reveals to me that my eyes are not aligned properly. Anyone led to scepticism by illusions should pay more attention to themselves, and less to the reality they hope to know directly. |
| 9134 | The negation of a meaningful sentence must itself be meaningful [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: The negation of any meaningful sentence must itself be meaningful. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 8.1) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Compare 'there is another prime number beyond the highest one we have found' with its negation. The first seems verifiable in principle, but the second one doesn't. So the verificationist must deny Sorensen's idea? |
| 9133 | Propositions are what settle problems of ambiguity in sentences [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: Propositions play the role of dis-ambiguators; they are the things between which utterances are ambiguous. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 7.7) | |
| A reaction: I have become a great fan of propositions, and I think this is one of the key reasons for believing in them. The proposition is what we attempt to pin down when asked 'what exactly did you mean by what you just said?' |
| 13448 | The domain of an assertion is restricted by context, either semantically or pragmatically [Rayo/Uzquiano] |
| Full Idea: We generally take an assertion's domain of discourse to be implicitly restricted by context. [Note: the standard approach is that this restriction is a semantic phenomenon, but Kent Bach (2000) argues that it is a pragmatic phenomenon] | |
| From: Rayo,A/Uzquiasno,G (Introduction to 'Absolute Generality' [2006], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: I think Kent Bach is very very right about this. Follow any conversation, and ask what the domain is at any moment. The reference of a word like 'they' can drift across things, with no semantics to guide us, but only clues from context and common sense. |
| 6823 | Repay evil with good and your enemies will become friends (though this is hard) [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: Requite evil with good, and he who is your enemy will become your dearest friend; but none will attain this save those who endure with fortitude and are greatly favoured by Allah. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.41) | |
| A reaction: This seems opposed to some of the more vengeful remarks in the Koran. It strikes me as good common sense, since vengeance only seems to breed counter-vengeance. It doesn't carry the full altruistic commitment, though, of unrewarded love. |
| 6828 | You may break off a treaty if you fear treachery from your ally [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: If you fear treachery from any of your allies, you may retaliate by breaking off your treaty with them; Allah does not love the treacherous. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.8) | |
| A reaction: I do not think this is good advice. Everybody fears treachery, but if we all acted on that fear human relationships and society would immediately collapse. If anyone thought this was good advice, I would not want to make a treaty with them. |
| 6826 | Allah rewards those who are devout, sincere, patient, humble, charitable, chaste, and who fast [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: Allah will bestow forgiveness and a rich reward on those, both men and women, who are devout, sincere, patient, humble, charitable and chaste; who fast and are ever mindful of Allah. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.33) | |
| A reaction: Most people would still agree that all of these are virtues, though other lists will show interesting virtues that are not mentioned here, and many on this list seem overrated in the modern pantheon of virtues. |
| 6822 | Those who avenge themselves when wronged incur no guilt [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: Those who avenge themselves when wronged incur no guilt. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.42) | |
| A reaction: Compare Ideas 1659 (Protagoras), 346 (Socrates), 6288 (Jesus), and 4286 (Scruton!). In the light of those ideas, this comment in the Koran strikes me as coming from an older and less civilized world. |
| 9129 | I can buy any litre of water, but not every litre of water [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: I am entitled to buy any litre of water, but I am not entitled to buy every litre of water. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 6.3) | |
| A reaction: A decent social system must somehow draw a line between buying up all the water and buying up all the paintings of Vermeer. Even the latter seems wicked, but it is hard to pin down the reason. |
| 6833 | Punish theft in men or women by cutting off their hands [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: As for the man or woman who is guilty of theft, cut off their hands to punish them for their crimes. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: I find this shocking because it is irrevocable and offers no hope of redemption. It is particularly shocking that the text does not enjoin any caution about inflicting the punishment on the young, most of whom reform from thieving in later life. |
| 6825 | Do not kill except for a just cause [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: Do not kill except for a just cause. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.25) | |
| A reaction: Slippery slope! I can see that pleasure would not be a just cause, and ensuring the entry of all humanity to paradise might be one, but I find the area in between a little unclear. The Koran seems to allow you to decide for yourself. |
| 6832 | Killing a human, except as just punishment, is like killing all mankind [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: We laid it down for the Israelites that whoever killed a human being, except as a punishment for murder or other wicked crimes, should be looked upon as though he had killed all mankind. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: It seems inconceivable that the Koran could be used to justify indiscriminate terrorism, in the light of remarks such as this. |
| 6811 | Allah is lord of creation, compassionate, merciful, king of judgement-day [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: Praise be to Allah, Lord of Creation, The Compassionate, the Merciful, King of Judgement-day! | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Exord) | |
| A reaction: The Muslim concept of God confronts directly a clear theological difficulty, a difficulty faced by any judge: the conflict between mercy and justice. Christianity seems to emphasise mercy, and Islam emphasises justice. |
| 9122 | God cannot experience unwanted pain, so God cannot understand human beings [Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: Theologians worry that God may be an alien being. God cannot feel pain since pain is endured against one's will. God is all powerful and suffers nothing against His Will. To understand pain, one must experience pain. So God's power walls him off from us. | |
| From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: I can't think of a good theological reply to this. God, and Jesus too (presumably), can only experience pain if they volunteer for it. It is inconceivable that they could be desperate for it to stop, but were unable to achieve that. |
| 6819 | True believers see that Allah made the night for rest and the day to give light [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: Do they not see how We have made the night for them to rest in and the day to give them light? Surely there are signs in this for true believers. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.27) | |
| A reaction: The main traditional argument for God implied in the Koran is the design argument. It is clear from this that Islam will not be comfortable with Darwinian evolution, which implies we are 'designed' for the Earth, not the Earth for us. |
| 6818 | Allah cannot have begotten a son, as He is self-sufficient [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: They say: 'Allah has begotten a son.' Allah forbid! Self-sufficient is He. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.10) | |
| A reaction: This is quite persuasive, except that the point of Jesus is that he suffers a cruel death, and we are required to identify with God's parental feelings here, His involvement, which would not occur with the death of one of His prophets. |
| 6829 | There shall be no compulsion in religion [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: There shall be no compulsion in religion. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This seems to contradict some of the more aggressive remarks in the Koran, such as Idea 6827. As I read it, the three non-compelling ideas that lead to true religion in the Koran are desire for paradise, fear of punishment, and worship of divine design. |
| 6834 | Unbelievers try to interpret the ambiguous parts of the Koran, simply to create dissension [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: Some of the verses of the Koran are precise in meaning - they are the foundations of the Book - and others are ambiguous. Disbelievers follow the ambiguous part, to create dissension by seeking to explain it. No one knows its meaning except Allah. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: It is tempting to ask why some of the verses are ambiguous. The implication here is that they are a deliberate test for believers, like the apple in the garden of Eden. |
| 6817 | The Koran is certainly composed by Allah; no one could compose a chapter like it [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: This Koran could not have been composed by any but Allah. It is beyond doubt from the Lord of the Creation. If they say: 'It is your own invention', say: 'Compose one chapter like it. Call on your false gods to help you!' | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.10) | |
| A reaction: I find this unpersuasive, firstly because I couldn't imitate the sonnets of Shakespeare either, and secondly because the authority of a text must be asserted outside the text, not within it. Scribble "this is a ten pound note" on a scrap of paper. |
| 6824 | Do not split into sects, exulting in separate beliefs [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: Do not split up your religion into sects, each exulting in its own beliefs. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.30) | |
| A reaction: This seems like good advice to a religion, but it is very difficult to retrace steps and reunite once it has happened. Which sect should make the greatest concessions? Must they both admit to being somewhat wrong? |
| 6821 | I created mankind that it might worship Me [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: I created mankind and the jinn in order that they might worship Me. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.51) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a view common to all the monotheistic religions, with monasticism as its clearest (and most logical) outcome. Nietzsche is the most obvious opponent of this idea that the abasement of mankind is its highest ideal. |
| 6815 | Be patient with unbelievers, and leave them to the judgement of Allah [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: Bear patiently with what the unbelievers say, and leave their company without recrimination; leave to Me those that deny the truth. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.73) | |
| A reaction: This explicitly says Muslims should not attack infidels simply for their unbelief in Allah. |
| 6827 | Make war on the unbelievers until Allah's religion reigns supreme [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: Make war on the unbelievers until idolatry is no more and Allah's religion reigns supreme. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.8) | |
| A reaction: This should presumably be seen in context, as a war speech written during a conflict, like Churchill 'fighting them on the beaches', which does not apply to modern German tourists. However, one worries about how fundamentalists might read it. |
| 6831 | He that kills a believer by design shall burn in Hell for ever [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: He that kills a believer by design shall burn in Hell for ever. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: This would appear to make modern indiscriminate urban terrorism a damning sin for a Muslim. |
| 6820 | The righteous shall dwell on couches in gardens, wedded to dark-eyed houris [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: In fair gardens the righteous shall dwell in bliss, rejoicing in what their Lord will give them. They shall recline on couches ranged in rows. To dark-eyed houris We shall wed them. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.52) | |
| A reaction: What I find distressing about this is that we have gradually worked out how young men can recline on couches in gardens with dark-eyed houris before death, and the Koran seems to depict it as the highest form of living. |
| 6812 | Heaven will be reclining on couches, eating fruit, attended by virgins [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: All who dwell in heaven shall recline on couches lined with thick brocade, and within their reach will hang the fruits of gardens; they shall dwell with bashful virgins whom neither men nor jinnee will have touched before. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.55) | |
| A reaction: In the seventh century this was more impressive than it seems now. I still find it sad (though understandable) that paradise must always be depicted in terms of physical pleasure. Aristotle wouldn't have yearned for such an immortality. |
| 6830 | Unbelievers will have their skin repeatedly burned off in hell [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: Those that deny Our revelations We will burn in Hell-fire. No sooner will their skins be consumed that We shall give them other skins, so that they may truly taste Our scourge. Allah is mighty and wise. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: Of all the accounts of hell in the Koran, this strikes me as the most alarming. I cannot think of a worse infliction, because here every nerve which can experience pain will suffer it (though the drinking of boiling water, Idea 6816, will make it worse). |
| 6816 | The unbelievers shall drink boiling water [Mohammed] |
| Full Idea: As for the unbelievers, they shall drink boiling water. | |
| From: Mohammed (The Koran [c.622], Ch.10) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be presented not only as a threat to unbelievers, but also as a satisfaction to believers. |