Combining Texts

Ideas for 'The Fixation of Belief', 'Laudatio: Prof Ruth Barcan Marcus' and 'Introduction to German Philosophy'

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2 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 1. On Reason
Art can make reason more all-inclusive, by articulating what seemed inexpressible [Bowie]
     Full Idea: The early German Romantics argued that art pointed to a more all-inclusive conception of reason, which can offer ways of articulating what is not conceptually accessible.
     From: Andrew Bowie (Introduction to German Philosophy [2003], 5 'Reason')
     A reaction: [This is Novalis, F.Schlegel, Schleiermacher, and Hölderlin] I'm in favour of expanding reason, to include assessment of situations and coherence, rather than just stepwise reasoning. Not sure that art 'articulates' something new.
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 4. Aims of Reason
Reason aims to discover the unknown by thinking about the known [Peirce]
     Full Idea: The object of reasoning is to find out, from the consideration of what we already know, something else which we do not know.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p. 7)
     A reaction: I defy anyone to come up with a better definition of reasoning than that. The emphasis is on knowledge rather than truth, which you would expect from a pragmatist. …Actually the definition doesn't cover conditional reasoning terribly well.