Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Is Hume's Principle analytic?' and 'The Semantic Conception of Truth'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 1. Dialectic
Two contradictories force us to find a relation which will correlate them [Plato, by Weil]
     Full Idea: Where contradictions appear there is a correlation of contraries, which is relation. If a contradiction is imposed on the intelligence, it is forced to think of a relation to transform the contradiction into a correlation, which draws the soul higher.
     From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Simone Weil - God in Plato p.70
     A reaction: A much better account of the dialectic than anything I have yet seen in Hegel. For the first time I see some sense in it. A contradiction is not a falsehood, and it must be addressed rather than side-stepped. A kink in the system, that needs ironing.
2. Reason / D. Definition / 1. Definitions
For a definition we need the words or concepts used, the rules, and the structure of the language [Tarski]
     Full Idea: We must specify the words or concepts which we wish to use in defining the notion of truth; and we must also give the formal rules to which the definition should conform. More generally, we must describe the formal structure of the language.
     From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 01)
     A reaction: This, of course, is a highly formal view of how definition should be achieved, offered in anticipation of one of the most famous definitions in logic (of truth, by Tarski). Normally we assume English and classical logic.