Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Saunders MacLane, Michel Foucault and Michael Williams

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66 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 2. Ancient Thought
Early Greeks cared about city and companions; later Greeks concentrated on the self [Foucault]
1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 4. Later European Philosophy / c. Eighteenth century philosophy
The big issue since the eighteenth century has been: what is Reason? Its effect, limits and dangers? [Foucault]
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined
Critical philosophy is what questions domination at every level [Foucault]
1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 1. Continental Philosophy
Philosophy and politics are fundamentally linked [Foucault]
1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 4. Linguistic Structuralism
Structuralism systematically abstracted the event from sciences, and even from history [Foucault]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 2. Logos
When logos controls our desires, we have actually become the logos [Foucault]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 7. Status of Reason
Foucault originally felt that liberating reason had become an instrument of domination [Foucault, by Gutting]
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 4. Uses of Truth
'Truth' is the procedures for controlling which statements are acceptable [Foucault]
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 9. Rejecting Truth
Truth doesn't arise from solitary freedom, but from societies with constraints [Foucault]
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 3. Correspondence Truth critique
The only way to specify the corresponding fact is asserting the sentence [Williams,M]
3. Truth / D. Coherence Truth / 1. Coherence Truth
Coherence needs positive links, not just absence of conflict [Williams,M]
Justification needs coherence, while truth might be ideal coherence [Williams,M]
4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 4. Axioms for Sets / a. Axioms for sets
ZFC could contain a contradiction, and it can never prove its own consistency [MacLane]
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 3. Value of Logic
Deduction shows entailments, not what to believe [Williams,M]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 1. Knowledge
Why does knowledge appear in sudden bursts, and not in a smooth continuous development? [Foucault]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / a. Beliefs
We could never pin down how many beliefs we have [Williams,M]
11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 1. Certainty
Propositions make error possible, so basic experiential knowledge is impossible [Williams,M]
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 2. Phenomenalism
Phenomenalism is a form of idealism [Williams,M]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / a. Sense-data theory
Sense data avoid the danger of misrepresenting the world [Williams,M]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / d. Sense-data problems
Sense data can't give us knowledge if they are non-propositional [Williams,M]
13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 1. Justification / a. Justification issues
Is it people who are justified, or propositions? [Williams,M]
13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 2. Justification Challenges / a. Agrippa's trilemma
Coherentists say that regress problems are assuming 'linear' justification [Williams,M]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 2. Pragmatic justification
What works always takes precedence over theories [Williams,M]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / a. Foundationalism
Traditional foundationalism is radically internalist [Williams,M]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / b. Basic beliefs
Experience must be meaningful to act as foundations [Williams,M]
Basic judgements are immune from error because they have no content [Williams,M]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / c. Empirical foundations
Are empirical foundations judgements or experiences? [Williams,M]
Sensory experience may be fixed, but it can still be misdescribed [Williams,M]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / f. Foundationalism critique
Foundationalists are torn between adequacy and security [Williams,M]
Strong justification eliminates error, but also reduces our true beliefs [Williams,M]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / c. Coherentism critique
Why should diverse parts of our knowledge be connected? [Williams,M]
Coherence theory must give a foundational status to coherence itself [Williams,M]
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 1. External Justification
Externalism does not require knowing that you know [Williams,M]
Externalism ignores the social aspect of knowledge [Williams,M]
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 2. Causal Justification
In the causal theory of knowledge the facts must cause the belief [Williams,M]
How could there be causal relations to mathematical facts? [Williams,M]
Only a belief can justify a belief [Williams,M]
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 3. Reliabilism / a. Reliable knowledge
Externalist reliability refers to a range of conventional conditions [Williams,M]
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 3. Reliabilism / b. Anti-reliabilism
Sometimes I ought to distrust sources which are actually reliable [Williams,M]
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 5. Controlling Beliefs
We control our beliefs by virtue of how we enquire [Williams,M]
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 10. Anti External Justification
In the context of scepticism, externalism does not seem to be an option [Williams,M]
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 1. Scepticism
Scepticism just reveals our limited ability to explain things [Williams,M]
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 2. Types of Scepticism
Scepticism can involve discrepancy, relativity, infinity, assumption and circularity [Williams,M]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 1. Relativism
Saying games of truth were merely power relations would be a horrible exaggeration [Foucault]
Foucault challenges knowledge in psychology and sociology, not in the basic sciences [Foucault, by Gutting]
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 1. Observation
Seeing electrons in a cloud chamber requires theory [Williams,M]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / a. Consciousness
Unlike Marxists, Foucault explains thought internally, without deference to conscious ideas [Foucault, by Gutting]
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 2. Self as Social Construct
A subject is a form which can change, in (say) political or sexual situations [Foucault]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / a. Nature of emotions
Feelings are not unchanging, but have a history (especially if they are noble) [Foucault]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / a. Sentence meaning
Foundationalists base meaning in words, coherentists base it in sentences [Williams,M]
21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 8. The Arts / b. Literature
The author function of any text is a plurality of selves [Foucault, by Gutting]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / b. Defining ethics
Ethics is the conscious practice of freedom [Foucault]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / h. Fine deeds
Why couldn't a person's life become a work of art? [Foucault]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / b. Types of pleasure
Greeks and early Christians were much more concerned about food than about sex [Foucault]
24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 3. Natural Values / c. Natural rights
Nature is not the basis of rights, but the willingness to risk death in asserting them [Foucault]
24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 1. Purpose of a State
Every society has a politics of truth, concerning its values, functions, prestige and mechanisms [Foucault]
24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 1. Social Power
Marxists denounced power as class domination, but never analysed its mechanics [Foucault]
Power doesn't just repress, but entices us with pleasure, artefacts, knowledge and discourse [Foucault]
Foucault can't accept that power is sometimes decent and benign [Foucault, by Scruton]
The aim is not to eliminate power relations, but to reduce domination [Foucault]
24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 3. Government / a. Government
The big question of the Renaissance was how to govern everything, from the state to children [Foucault]
24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 4. Changing the State / a. Centralisation
Power is localised, so we either have totalitarian centralisation, or local politics [Foucault, by Gutting]
25. Social Practice / A. Freedoms / 5. Freedom of lifestyle
Prisons gradually became our models for schools, hospitals and factories [Foucault, by Gutting]
The idea of liberation suggests there is a human nature which has been repressed [Foucault]
25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 3. Punishment / d. Reform of offenders
Power is used to create identities and ways of life for other people [Foucault, by Shorten]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / d. Study of history
History lacks 'meaning', but it can be analysed in terms of its struggles [Foucault]