Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Wisdom', 'Essays on Intellectual Powers 5: Abstraction' and 'Axiomatic Theories of Truth'

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2 ideas

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 3. Wisdom Deflated
The devil was wise as an angel, and lost no knowledge when he rebelled [Whitcomb]
     Full Idea: The devil is evil but nonetheless wise; he was a wise angel, and through no loss of knowledge, but, rather, through some sort of affective restructuring tried and failed to take over the throne.
     From: Dennis Whitcomb (Wisdom [2011], 'Argument')
     A reaction: ['affective restructuring' indeed! philosophers- don't you love 'em?] To fail at something you try to do suggests a flaw in the wisdom. And the new regime the devil wished to introduce doesn't look like a wise regime. Not convinced.
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 5. Linguistic Analysis
Analysis rests on natural language, but its ideal is a framework which revises language [Halbach]
     Full Idea: For me, although the enterprise of philosophical analysis is driven by natural language, its goal is not a linguistic analysis of English but rather an expressively strong framework that may at best be seen as a revision of English.
     From: Volker Halbach (Axiomatic Theories of Truth [2011], 12)
     A reaction: I agree, but the problem is that there are different ideals for the revision, which may be in conflict. Logicians, mathematicians, metaphysicians, scientists, moralists and aestheticians are queueing up to improve in their own way.