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Ideas for 'works', 'Regressive Method for Premises in Mathematics' and 'Davidson on himself'

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5 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 2. Logos
For Aristotle logos is essentially the ability to talk rationally about questions of value [Roochnik on Aristotle]
     Full Idea: For Aristotle logos is the ability to speak rationally about, with the hope of attaining knowledge, questions of value.
     From: comment on Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.26
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 4. Aims of Reason
Aristotle is the supreme optimist about the ability of logos to explain nature [Roochnik on Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Aristotle is the great theoretician who articulates a vision of a world in which natural and stable structures can be rationally discovered. His is the most optimistic and richest view of the possibilities of logos
     From: comment on Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.95
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 5. Objectivity
Truth and objectivity depend on a community of speakers to interpret what they mean [Davidson]
     Full Idea: The basis on which the concepts of truth and objectivity depend for application is a community of understanding, agreement among speakers on how each is to be understood.
     From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.233)
     A reaction: Obviously all understanding is, in practice, an interpretation by a community, but that isn't what 'truth' means. We mean 'true independently of any community'.
There are no ultimate standards of rationality, since we only assess others by our own standard [Davidson]
     Full Idea: It makes no sense to speak of comparing or agreeing on ultimate standards of rationality, since it is our own standards in each case to which we must turn in interpreting others. This is not a failure of objectivity, but where 'questions come to an end'.
     From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.232)
     A reaction: This seems wrong, given the commitment to truth and charity in interpretation. He could have said the same about perception, but I doubt if he would.
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence
If one proposition is deduced from another, they are more certain together than alone [Russell]
     Full Idea: Two obvious propositions of which one can be deduced from the other both become more certain than either in isolation; thus in a complicated deductive system, many parts of which are obvious, the total probability may become all but absolute certainty.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Regressive Method for Premises in Mathematics [1907], p.279)
     A reaction: Thagard picked this remark out, in support of his work on coherence.