Combining Texts

Ideas for 'The Evolution of Logic', 'The Moral Problem' and 'Letters to Johann Bernoulli'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 4. Later European Philosophy / c. Eighteenth century philosophy
We are all post-Kantians, because he set the current agenda for philosophy [Hart,WD]
     Full Idea: We are all post-Kantians, ...because Kant set an agenda for philosophy that we are still working through.
     From: William D. Hart (The Evolution of Logic [2010], 2)
     A reaction: Hart says that the main agenda is set by Kant's desire to defend the principle of sufficient reason against Hume's attack on causation. I would take it more generally to be the assessment of metaphysics, and of a priori knowledge.
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / d. Philosophy as puzzles
The problems are the monuments of philosophy [Hart,WD]
     Full Idea: The real monuments of philosophy are its problems.
     From: William D. Hart (The Evolution of Logic [2010], 2)
     A reaction: Presumably he means '....rather than its solutions'. No other subject would be very happy with that sort of claim. Compare Idea 8243. A complaint against analytic philosophy is that it has achieved no consensus at all.
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 4. Conceptual Analysis
Analysis aims to express the full set of platitudes surrounding a given concept [Smith,M]
     Full Idea: The aim of analysis is to give us knowledge of all and only the platitudes surrounding our use of the concept that is up for analysis.
     From: Michael Smith (The Moral Problem [1994], 1.10)
     A reaction: His earlier specimen concept is 'redness'. For other concepts there might be considerable disagreement about which propositions are or are not the relevant platitudes. Smith emphasises that analysis need not be reductive.
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 6. Logical Analysis
To study abstract problems, some knowledge of set theory is essential [Hart,WD]
     Full Idea: By now, no education in abstract pursuits is adequate without some familiarity with sets.
     From: William D. Hart (The Evolution of Logic [2010], 10)
     A reaction: A heart-sinking observation for those who aspire to study metaphysics and modality. The question is, what will count as 'some' familiarity? Are only professional logicians now allowed to be proper philosophers?