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Single Idea 6310
[filed under theme 1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 6. Metaphysics as Conceptual
]
Full Idea
No enquiry is possible without some conceptual scheme, so we may as well retain and use the best one we know.
Gist of Idea
Enquiry needs a conceptual scheme, so we should retain the best available
Source
Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §01)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Word and Object' [MIT 1969], p.4
A Reaction
This remark leads to Davidson's splendid paper 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme'. Quine's remark raises the question of how we know which conceptual scheme is 'best'.
The
24 ideas
with the same theme
[metaphysics as study of our conceptual schemes]:
21408
|
For any subject, its system of non-experiential concepts needs a metaphysics
[Kant]
|
21768
|
Logic is metaphysics, the science of things grasped in thoughts
[Hegel]
|
22077
|
Metaphysics is the lattice which makes incoming material intelligible
[Hegel]
|
21761
|
If we start with indeterminate being, we arrive at being and nothing as a united pair
[Hegel, by Houlgate]
|
21764
|
Thought about being leads to a string of other concepts, like becoming, quantity, specificity, causality...
[Hegel, by Houlgate]
|
21769
|
We must start with absolute abstraction, with no presuppositions, so we start with pure being
[Hegel]
|
12112
|
Metaphysics is just the oversubtle qualification of abstract names for phenomena
[Comte]
|
19219
|
Metaphysical reasoning is simple enough, but the concepts are very hard
[Peirce]
|
13876
|
The syntactic category is primary, and the ontological category is derivative
[Frege, by Wright,C]
|
20352
|
Nietzsche has a metaphysics, as well as perspectives - the ontology is the perspectives
[Nietzsche, by Richardson]
|
11103
|
We aren't stuck with our native conceptual scheme; we can gradually change it
[Quine]
|
6310
|
Enquiry needs a conceptual scheme, so we should retain the best available
[Quine]
|
15801
|
Many philosophers aim to understand metaphysics by studying ourselves
[Chisholm]
|
7922
|
Descriptive metaphysics concerns unchanging core concepts and categories
[Strawson,P]
|
6979
|
Serious metaphysics cares about entailment between sentences
[Jackson]
|
15215
|
Philosophy devises and assesses conceptual schemes in the service of worldviews
[Harré/Madden]
|
4214
|
Maybe such concepts as causation, identity and existence are primitive and irreducible
[Lowe]
|
13919
|
Philosophy aims not at the 'analysis of concepts', but at understanding the essences of things
[Lowe]
|
15003
|
It seems unlikely that the way we speak will give insights into the universe
[Sider]
|
15169
|
Metaphysics is clarifying how we speak and think (and possibly improving it)
[Sidelle]
|
9217
|
Modern empirical metaphysics focuses on ontological commitments of discourse, or on presuppositions
[Loux/Zimmerman]
|
16257
|
Kant survives in seeing metaphysics as analysing our conceptual system, which is a priori
[Maudlin]
|
14898
|
Modern metaphysics pursues aesthetic criteria like story-writing, and abandons scientific truth
[Ladyman/Ross]
|
18835
|
Logic doesn't have a metaphysical basis, but nor can logic give rise to the metaphysics
[Rumfitt]
|