Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Bert Leuridan, Derek Parfit and Simon Critchley

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48 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 2. Ancient Philosophy / b. Pre-Socratic philosophy
Philosophy really got started as the rival mode of discourse to tragedy [Critchley]
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / d. Philosophy as puzzles
Philosophy begins in disappointment, notably in religion and politics [Critchley]
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 8. Humour
Humour is practically enacted philosophy [Critchley]
Humour can give a phenomenological account of existence, and point to change [Critchley]
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 3. Scientism
If infatuation with science leads to bad scientism, its rejection leads to obscurantism [Critchley]
Scientism is the view that everything can be explained causally through scientific method [Critchley]
Science gives us an excessively theoretical view of life [Critchley]
1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 1. Continental Philosophy
To meet the division in our life, try the Subject, Nature, Spirit, Will, Power, Praxis, Unconscious, or Being [Critchley]
The French keep returning, to Hegel or Nietzsche or Marx [Critchley]
German idealism aimed to find a unifying principle for Kant's various dualisms [Critchley]
Since Hegel, continental philosophy has been linked with social and historical enquiry. [Critchley]
Continental philosophy fights the threatened nihilism in the critique of reason [Critchley]
Continental philosophy is based on critique, praxis and emancipation [Critchley]
Continental philosophy has a bad tendency to offer 'one big thing' to explain everything [Critchley]
1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 2. Phenomenology
Phenomenology is a technique of redescription which clarifies our social world [Critchley]
Phenomenology uncovers and redescribes the pre-theoretical layer of life [Critchley]
2. Reason / E. Argument / 7. Thought Experiments
Imaginary cases are good for revealing our beliefs, rather than the truth [Parfit]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction
Reduction can be by identity, or constitution, or elimination [Parfit, by PG]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
Generalisations must be invariant to explain anything [Leuridan]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / h. Explanations by function
Biological functions are explained by disposition, or by causal role [Leuridan]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism
Mechanisms must produce macro-level regularities, but that needs micro-level regularities [Leuridan]
Mechanisms are ontologically dependent on regularities [Leuridan]
Mechanisms can't explain on their own, as their models rest on pragmatic regularities [Leuridan]
We can show that regularities and pragmatic laws are more basic than mechanisms [Leuridan]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / b. Ultimate explanation
There is nothing wrong with an infinite regress of mechanisms and regularities [Leuridan]
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 5. Self as Associations
Personal identity is just causally related mental states [Parfit, by Maslin]
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 1. Identity and the Self
Psychologists are interested in identity as a type of person, but philosophers study numerical identity [Parfit]
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / b. Self as mental continuity
One of my future selves will not necessarily be me [Parfit]
If my brain-halves are transplanted into two bodies, I have continuity, and don't need identity [Parfit]
Over a period of time what matters is not that 'I' persist, but that I have psychological continuity [Parfit]
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 4. Split Consciousness
If we split like amoeba, we would be two people, neither of them being us [Parfit]
It is fine to save two dying twins by merging parts of their bodies into one, and identity is irrelevant [Parfit]
If two humans are merged surgically, the new identity is a purely verbal problem [Parfit]
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 5. Concerns of the Self
Concern for our own lives isn't the source of belief in identity, it is the result of it [Parfit]
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 4. Denial of the Self
It doesn't matter whether I exist with half my components replaced (any more than an audio system) [Parfit]
21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 8. The Arts / b. Literature
Wallace Stevens is the greatest philosophical poet of the twentieth century in English [Critchley]
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
Interesting art is always organised around ethical demands [Critchley]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / d. Ethical theory
The problems is not justifying ethics, but motivating it. Why should a self seek its good? [Critchley]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / f. Ultimate value
Food first, then ethics [Critchley]
23. Ethics / E. Utilitarianism / 1. Utilitarianism
We should focus less on subjects of experience, and more on the experiences themselves [Parfit]
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 2. Nihilism
Perceiving meaninglessness is an achievement, which can transform daily life [Critchley]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 2. Anarchism
Anarchism used to be libertarian (especially for sexuality), but now concerns responsibility [Critchley]
The state, law, bureaucracy and capital are limitations on life, so I prefer federalist anarchism [Critchley]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 3. Conservatism
Belief that humans are wicked leads to authoritarian politics [Critchley]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 3. Natural Function
Rather than dispositions, functions may be the element that brought a thing into existence [Leuridan]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 3. Laws and Generalities
Pragmatic laws allow prediction and explanation, to the extent that reality is stable [Leuridan]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 4. Regularities / a. Regularity theory
Strict regularities are rarely discovered in life sciences [Leuridan]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature
A 'law of nature' is just a regularity, not some entity that causes the regularity [Leuridan]