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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Discourse on the Origin of Inequality' and 'What is Logic?'

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2 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 9. Limits of Reason
Reason leads to prudent selfishness, which overrules natural compassion [Rousseau]
     Full Idea: Reason is what engenders egocentrism ...turns man in upon himself ...and separates him from all that troubles him and afflicts him. Philosophy is what ...moves him to say at the sight of a suffering man 'Perish if you will; I am safe and sound'.
     From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I)
     A reaction: He goes on to observe that fights in the marketplace are stopped by women, while the philosophers have all run away! This thinking leads to the sentimental movement, and then to romanticism.
2. Reason / D. Definition / 3. Types of Definition
A decent modern definition should always imply a semantics [Hacking]
     Full Idea: Today we expect that anything worth calling a definition should imply a semantics.
     From: Ian Hacking (What is Logic? [1979], §10)
     A reaction: He compares this with Gentzen 1935, who was attempting purely syntactic definitions of the logical connectives.