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Single Idea 19066

[filed under theme 1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / a. Philosophy as worldly ]

Full Idea

Philosophy is an attempt to understand the world, as it is revealed to us both in our ordinary experience and by the discoveries and theories of science.

Gist of Idea

Philosophy aims to understand the world, through ordinary experience and science

Source

Michael Dummett (The Justification of Deduction [1973], p.311)

Book Ref

Dummett,Michael: 'Truth and Other Enigmas' [Duckworth 1978], p.311


A Reaction

I don't see a sharp division between 'ordinary' and 'scientific'. I really like this idea, first because it makes 'understanding' central, and second because it wants both revelations. In discussing matter and time, there is too much emphasis on science.

Related Idea

Idea 12038 Translate as 'humans all desire by nature to understand' (not as 'to know') [Aristotle, by Annas]


The 11 ideas from 'The Justification of Deduction'

Deduction is justified by the semantics of its metalanguage [Dummett, by Hanna]
Syntactic consequence is positive, for validity; semantic version is negative, with counterexamples [Dummett]
In standard views you could replace 'true' and 'false' with mere 0 and 1 [Dummett]
Truth-tables are dubious in some cases, and may be a bad way to explain connective meaning [Dummett]
An explanation is often a deduction, but that may well beg the question [Dummett]
Classical two-valued semantics implies that meaning is grasped through truth-conditions [Dummett]
Beth trees show semantics for intuitionistic logic, in terms of how truth has been established [Dummett]
Holism is not a theory of meaning; it is the denial that a theory of meaning is possible [Dummett]
Soundness and completeness proofs test the theory of meaning, rather than the logic theory [Dummett]
Philosophy aims to understand the world, through ordinary experience and science [Dummett]
A successful proof requires recognition of truth at every step [Dummett]