25 ideas
| 7278 | Words of wisdom are precise and clear [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Words of wisdom are precise and clear. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: I can only approve of this. The issue of clarity is much discussed amongs philosophers, especially in the analytic v continental debate. Note, therefore, the additional requirement to be 'precise'. Should we be less clear in order to be precise? |
| 7281 | Don't even start, let's just stay put [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Don't even start, let's just stay put. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: What a remarkable proposal! He seems frightened to make an omelette, because he will have to break an egg, or he might burn himself. I can't relate to this idea, but it's existence must be noted, like other scepticisms. |
| 7282 | Disagreement means you do not understand at all [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: The sage encompasses everything, while ordinary people just argue about things. Disagreement means you do not understand at all. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This is why democracy and western analytical philosophy come as a package. We can't assume that our government is always right, and we can't assume that a 'sage' has managed to encompass everything. Criticism is essential! |
| 7284 | If you beat me in argument, does that mean you are right? [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: If you get the better of me in a disagreement, rather than me getting the better of you, does this mean that you are automatically right and I am automatically wrong? | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Very nice. I don't, though, think that this invalidates the process of argument. What matters about such an exchange is the resulting reflection by the two parties. Only a fool thinks that he is right because he won, or wrong because he lost. |
| 18696 | The vagueness of truthmaker claims makes it easier to run anti-realist arguments [Button] |
| Full Idea: The sheer lack of structure demanded by truthmaker theorists means that it is easier to run model-theoretic arguments against them than against correspondence theorists. | |
| From: Tim Button (The Limits of Reason [2013], 02.3) | |
| A reaction: Truthmaking is a vague relation, where correspondence is fairly specific. Model arguments say you can keep the sentences steady, but shuffle around what they refer to. |
| 18701 | The coherence theory says truth is coherence of thoughts, and not about objects [Button] |
| Full Idea: According to the coherence theory of truth, for our thoughts to be true is not for them to be about objects, but only for them to cohere with one another. This is rather terrifying. | |
| From: Tim Button (The Limits of Reason [2013], 14.2) | |
| A reaction: Davidson espoused this view in 1983, but then gave it up. It strikes me as either a daft view of truth, or a denial of truth. The coherence theory of justification, on the other hand, is correct. |
| 18694 | Permutation Theorem: any theory with a decent model has lots of models [Button] |
| Full Idea: The Permutation Theorem says that any theory with a non-trivial model has many distinct isomorphic models with the same domain. | |
| From: Tim Button (The Limits of Reason [2013], 02.1) | |
| A reaction: This may be the most significant claim of model theory, since Putnam has erected an argument for anti-realism on it. See the ideas of Tim Button. |
| 18692 | Realists believe in independent objects, correspondence, and fallibility of all theories [Button] |
| Full Idea: External realists have three principles: Independence - the world is objects that are independent of mind, language and theory; Correspondence - truth involves some correspondence of thoughts and things; Cartesian - an ideal theory might be false. | |
| From: Tim Button (The Limits of Reason [2013], 01.1-3) | |
| A reaction: [compressed; he cites Descartes's Demon for the third] Button is setting these up as targets. I subscribe to all three, in some form or other. Of course, as a theory approaches the success implying it is 'ideal', it becomes highly likely to be accurate. |
| 18693 | Indeterminacy arguments say if a theory can be made true, it has multiple versions [Button] |
| Full Idea: Indeterminacy arguments aim to show that if there is any way to make a theory true, then there are many ways to do so. | |
| From: Tim Button (The Limits of Reason [2013], 02.1) | |
| A reaction: Button says the simplest indeterminacy argument is Putnam's Permutation Argument - that you can shuffle the objects in a formal model, without affecting truth. But do we belief that metaphysics can be settled in this sort of way? |
| 18695 | An ideal theory can't be wholly false, because its consistency implies a true model [Button] |
| Full Idea: If realists think an ideal theory could be false, then the theory is consistent, and hence complete, and hence finitely modellable, and hence it is guaranteed that there is some way to make it true. | |
| From: Tim Button (The Limits of Reason [2013], 02.2) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This challenges the realists' supposed claim that even the most ideal of theories could possibly be false. Presumably for a theory to be 'ideal' is not all-or-nothing. Are we capable of creating a fully ideal theory? [Löwenheim-Skolem] |
| 7289 | Do not try to do things, or to master knowledge; just be empty [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Do not try to do things. Do not try to master knowledge. ...Just be empty. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: Stands as a nice challenge to the assumption that knowledge is a good thing. Aristotle's views make a nice contrast (Ideas 548 and 549). Personally I totally agree with Aristotle, and with the western tradition. |
| 18700 | Cartesian scepticism doubts what is true; Kantian scepticism doubts that it is sayable [Button] |
| Full Idea: Cartesian scepticism agonises over whether our beliefs are true or false, whereas Kantian scepticism agonises over how it is even possible for beliefs to be true or false. | |
| From: Tim Button (The Limits of Reason [2013], 07.2) | |
| A reaction: Kant's question is, roughly, 'how can our thoughts succeed in being about the world?' Kantian scepticism is the more drastic, and looks vulnerable to a turning of the tables, but asking how Kantian worries can even be expressed. |
| 23403 | You know you were dreaming when you wake, but there might then be a greater awakening from that [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Often after waking do you know that your dream was a dream. Still, there may be an even greater awakening after which you will know that this, too, was just a greater dream. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], 02), quoted by Bryan van Norden - Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy 9.2 | |
| A reaction: This is the key to the full horror of dream scepticism (as dramatised in the film 'The Matrix'). We can never know whether there is yet another awakening about to occur. |
| 7285 | Did Chuang Tzu dream he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dream he was Chuang Tzu? [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Once I, Chuang Tzu, dreamt that I was a butterfly, flitting around and enjoying myself. Suddenly I woke and was Chuang Tzu again. But had I been Chuang Tzu dreaming I was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I was now Chuang Tzu? | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Plato (Idea 2047) also spotted this problem, later made famous by Descartes (Idea 2250). Given the size of a butterfly's brain, this suggests that Chuang Tzu was a dualist. What can't I take the idea seriously, when reason says I should? |
| 18698 | Predictions give the 'content' of theories, which can then be 'equivalent' or 'adequate' [Button] |
| Full Idea: The empirical 'content' of a theory is all its observable predictions. Two theories with the same predictions are empirically 'equivalent'. A theory which gets it all right at this level is empirically 'adequate'. | |
| From: Tim Button (The Limits of Reason [2013], 05.1) |
| 16861 | A false theory could hardly rival the explanatory power of natural selection [Darwin] |
| Full Idea: It can hardly be supposed that a false theory would explain, in so satisfactory a manner as does the theory of natural selection, the several large classes of facts above specified. | |
| From: Charles Darwin (The Origin of the Species [1859], p.476), quoted by Peter Lipton - Inference to the Best Explanation (2nd) 11 'The scientific' | |
| A reaction: More needs to be said, since the whims of God could explain absolutely everything (in a manner that would be somehow less that fully satisfying to the enquiring intellect). |
| 7277 | The perfect man has no self [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: As the saying goes, 'The perfect man has no self' | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be quoted with approval. This is interesting because it implies that lesser beings do have a self, and that having a self is a moral issue, and one which can be controlled. One could, I suppose, concentrate on externals. |
| 7286 | To see with true clarity, your self must be irrelevant [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: When a man discerns his own self as irrelevant, he sees with true clarity. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: Seeing 'with clarity' is only one of the ways of seeing, and one mustn't unquestioningly assume that it is the best. Wisdom should contemplate vision with and without the self, and then rise higher and compare the two views. Compare Parfit (Idea 5518). |
| 18697 | A sentence's truth conditions are all the situations where it would be true [Button] |
| Full Idea: A sentence's truth conditions comprise an exhaustive list of the situations in which that sentence would be true. | |
| From: Tim Button (The Limits of Reason [2013], 03.4) | |
| A reaction: So to know its meaning you must know those conditions? Compare 'my cat is licking my finger' with 'dramatic events are happening in Ethiopia'. It should take an awful long time to grasp the second sentence. |
| 7279 | If words can't be defined, they may just be the chirruping of chicks [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Our words are not just hot air. Words work because they are something, but the problem is that, if we cannot define a word's meaning, it doesn't really say anything. Can we make a case for it being anything different from the chirruping of chicks? | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This obviously points us towards Quine's challenge to analyticity, and hence the value of definitions (Ideas 1622 and 1624). Even for Chuang Tzu, it seems naïve to think that you cannot use a word well if you cannot define it. |
| 23404 | Words are for meaning, and once you have that you can forget the words [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Words are for meaning: when you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], 26), quoted by Bryan van Norden - Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy 9.VI | |
| A reaction: 'What exactly did this person say?' 'Don't know, but I've given you the accurate gist'. This is such an obvious phenomenon that I amazed by modern philosophers who deny propositions, or deny meaning entirely. |
| 7283 | Great courage is not violent [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Great courage is not violent. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: A very nice remark. This, I think, is what the Greeks were struggling to say about courage, but they never quite pinned it down as Chuang Tzu does. |
| 7280 | As all life is one, what need is there for words? [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: As all life is one, what need is there for words? | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: In a sense this is nonsense, but it has an appeal. I presume that God would not need words, any more than he would need arithmetic. Life is obviously a complex one, with parts which can be discussed. |
| 7288 | Go with the flow, and be one with the void of Heaven [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Don't struggle, go with the flow, and you will find yourself at one with the vastness of the void of Heaven. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: Ugh. I've got all eternity to do that. The underlying assumption of Taoism seems to be that it is better not to have been born, and if you are thus unfortunate, you should try to pretend that it never happened. Much too negative for my taste. |
| 7287 | Fish forget about each other in the pond and forget each other in the Tao [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Fish forget about each other in the pond and forget each other in the Tao. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: Strikingly different from Christianity. No wonder Europeans used to describe orientals as 'enigmatic'; the faces of Taoists presumably express indifference. Not for me, I'm afraid. I identify with my fellow humans, because of our shared predicaments. |