display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
20338 | We often treat a type as if it were a sort of token [Wollheim] |
Full Idea: Much of the time we think and talk of a type as though it were itself a kind of token. | |
From: Richard Wollheim (Art and Its Objects [1968], 35) | |
A reaction: A helpful way of connecting what I call 'objectification' to the more conventional modern philosophical vocabulary. Thus I might claim that beauty is superior to truth, as if they were two tokens. |
9088 | Skill comes from a general assumption obtained from thinking about similar things [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: A skill arises when from the many cases of thinking in experience a single general assumption is formed in connection with similar things. | |
From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0981a04) | |
A reaction: [He gives the administration of appropriate medicine as the example of a 'skill'] Note that it is 'thinking in' experience, rather than just the raw having of experiences. This is the intellectualist version of empirical abstractionism. I like it. |
16153 | Aristotle distinguishes two different sorts of generality - kinds, and properties [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
Full Idea: Aristotle counts as general not only properties but also the kinds, into which objects fall, i.e. the genera, species, and differentiae of substances; and these are to be differentiated strictly from properties. | |
From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], kind) by Michael Frede - Individuals in Aristotle Intro | |
A reaction: I take properties to be prior, since the kind of a thing is presumably decided by its properties. I'm increasingly thinking that 'general', 'generality' and 'generalisation' are far more useful words in philosophy than other words in that area. |
9791 | Science is more accurate when it is prior and simpler, especially without magnitude or movement [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: A scientific subject will possess more accuracy (i.e. simplicity) the more that it is about conceptually prior and simpler things, and so it will be more accurate without than with magnitude being involved, and above all being without movement. | |
From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1078a10) | |
A reaction: Aristotle is especially concerned to show how we can achieve accuracy, even while abstracting away from the details of the objects we are studying. Frege should have studied Aristotle more closely. |