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2 ideas
24102 | Thoughts are signs (just as words are) [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Thoughts are merely signs, as words are signs for thoughts. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1881-82 [1882], 5[1]272) | |
A reaction: The obvious question he invites is 'signs of what?'. His point must be that most thinking is both non-verbal and non-conscious, which he took to be true even of intellectual thought. I sympathise with his view. |
9070 | We learn primitives and universals by induction from perceptions [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: We must get to know the primitives by induction; for this is the way in which perception instils universals. | |
From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 100b04) | |
A reaction: This statement is so strongly empirical it could have come from John Stuart Mill. The modern post-Fregean view of universals is essentially platonist - that they have a life and logic of their own, and their method of acquisition is irrelevant. |