Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Abstract Objects' and 'Negative Dialectics'

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2 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 1. Philosophy
If philosophy could be summarised it would be pointless [Adorno]
     Full Idea: Philosophy is in essence not summarisable. Otherwise it would be superfluous; that most of it allows its to be summarised speaks against it.
     From: Theodor W. Adorno (Negative Dialectics [1966], p.34), quoted by Gerhard Richter - Benjamin and Adorno 3
     A reaction: This seems contradict the Cicero quotation which I take to be the epigraph of my collection of ideas. Adorno has a very 'continental' view, placing philosophy much closer to poetry (Heidegger's later view) than to science. Not like advocacy either.
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 5. Linguistic Analysis
Questions about objects are questions about certain non-vacuous singular terms [Hale]
     Full Idea: I understand questions about the Fregean notion of an object to be inseparable from questions in the philosophy of language - questions of the existence of objects are tantamount to questions about non-vacuous singular terms of a certain kind.
     From: Bob Hale (Abstract Objects [1987], Ch.1)
     A reaction: This view hovers somewhere between Quine and J.L. Austin, and Dummett is its originator. I am instinctively deeply opposed to the identification of metaphysics with semantics.