15626
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Categories create objective experience, but are too conditioned by things to actually grasp them [Hegel]
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Full Idea:
It is the categories that elevate mere perception into objectivity, into experience; but these concepts ...are conditioned by the given material. ...Hence the understanding, or cognition through categories, cannot become cognizant of things-in-themselves.
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From:
Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §43-4)
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A reaction:
As one often fears with Hegel, this sounds like a deep insight, but is less persuasive when translated into simpler English (if I've got it right!). Being 'conditioned by the material' strikes me as just what is needed for good categories.
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15616
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If truth is just non-contradiction, we must take care that our basic concepts aren't contradictory [Hegel]
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Full Idea:
If truth were nothing more than lack of contradiction, one would have to examine first of all, with regard to each concept, whether it does not on its own account, contain an inner contradiction.
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From:
Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §33 Rem)
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A reaction:
This is a very nice thought, which modern analytic philosophers, steeped in logic, should think about. It is always presumed that a contradiction is between a proposition and its negation, not some inner feature.
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15639
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Socratic dialectic is subjective, but Plato made it freely scientific and objective [Hegel]
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Full Idea:
It is in the Platonic philosophy that dialectic first occurs in a form which is freely scientific, and hence also objective. With Socrates, dialectical thinking still has a predominantly subjective shape, consistent with his irony.
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From:
Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §81 Add1)
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A reaction:
I don't understand how dialectic can be 'objective', given that it is a method rather than a belief. Plato certainly seems to elevate dialectic into something almost mystical, because of what is said to be within its power.
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5831
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The new view is that "water" is a name, and has no definition [Schwartz,SP]
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Full Idea:
Perhaps the modern view is best expressed as saying that "water" has no definition at all, at least in the traditional sense, and is a proper name of a specific substance.
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From:
Stephen P. Schwartz (Intro to Naming,Necessity and Natural Kinds [1977], §III)
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A reaction:
This assumes that proper names have no definitions, though I am not clear how we can grasp the name 'Aristotle' without some association of properties (human, for example) to go with it. We need a definition of 'definition'.
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