Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Kurt Vonnegut, David Roochnik and Alexander Nehamas

expand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these philosophers


22 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 1. Philosophy
You have to be a Platonist to debate about reality, so every philosopher is a Platonist [Roochnik]
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / b. Philosophy as transcendent
Philosophy aims to satisfy the chief human desire - the articulation of beauty itself [Roochnik]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 2. Logos
The logos enables us to track one particular among a network of objects [Nehamas]
A logos may be short, but it contains reference to the whole domain of the object [Nehamas]
'Logos' ranges from thought/reasoning, to words, to rational structures outside thought [Roochnik]
In the seventeenth century the only acceptable form of logos was technical knowledge [Roochnik]
The hallmark of a person with logos is that they give reasons why one opinion is superior to another [Roochnik]
Logos cannot refute the relativist, and so must admit that it too is a matter of desire (for truth and agreement) [Roochnik]
Human desire has an ordered structure, with logos at the pinnacle [Roochnik]
Logos is not unconditionally good, but good if there is another person willing to engage with it [Roochnik]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 4. Aims of Reason
We prefer reason or poetry according to whether basics are intelligible or not [Roochnik]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 8. Naturalising Reason
Modern science, by aiming for clarity about the external world, has abandoned rationality in the human world [Roochnik]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 9. Limits of Reason
Attempts to suspend all presuppositions are hopeless, because a common ground must be agreed for the process [Roochnik]
Unfortunately for reason, argument can't be used to establish the value of argument [Roochnik]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 3. Reality
Reality can be viewed neutrally, or as an object of desire [Roochnik]
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 6. Platonic Forms / a. Platonic Forms
Forms are not a theory of universals, but an attempt to explain how predication is possible [Nehamas]
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 6. Platonic Forms / b. Partaking
Only Tallness really is tall, and other inferior tall things merely participate in the tallness [Nehamas]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
'Episteme' is better translated as 'understanding' than as 'knowledge' [Nehamas]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 6. Relativism Critique
Relativism is a disease which destroys the possibility of rational debate [Roochnik]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
Out of more than a hundred planets, Earth is the only one with the idea of free will [Vonnegut]
19. Language / F. Communication / 1. Rhetoric
If relativism is the correct account of human values, then rhetoric is more important than reasoning [Roochnik]
Reasoning aims not at the understanding of objects, but at the desire to give beautiful speeches [Roochnik]