Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Theories of Everything' and 'Philosophical Naturalism'

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2 ideas

19. Language / F. Communication / 1. Rhetoric
Plato's whole philosophy may be based on being duped by reification - a figure of speech [Benardete,JA on Plato]
     Full Idea: Plato is liable to the charge of having been duped by a figure of speech, albeit the most profound of all, the trope of reification.
     From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.12
     A reaction: That might be a plausible account if his view was ridiculous, but given how many powerful friends Plato has, especially in the philosophy of mathematics, we should assume he was cleverer than that.
19. Language / F. Communication / 4. Private Language
The Private Language argument only means people may misjudge their experiences [Papineau]
     Full Idea: I take the moral of the Private Language argument to be that there must be room for error in people's judgements about their experiences, not that those judgements must necessarily be expressed in a language used by a community.
     From: David Papineau (Philosophical Naturalism [1993], 4.4 n10)
     A reaction: These two readings don't seem to be in conflict, and the argument must have something to say about the communal nature of thought expressed in language. Language imposes introspection on us?