Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Vagueness and Contradiction' and 'Infinity: Quest to Think the Unthinkable'

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

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 3. Antinomies
Denying problems, or being romantically defeated by them, won't make them go away [Sorensen]
     Full Idea: An unsolvable problem is still a problem, despite Wittgenstein's view that there are no genuine philosophical problems, and Kant's romantic defeatism in his treatment of the antinomies of pure reason.
     From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 4.3)
     A reaction: I like the spin put on Kant, that he is a romantic in his defeatism. He certainly seems reluctant to slash at the Gordian knot, e.g. by being a bit more drastically sceptical about free will.
5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 6. Paradoxes in Language / a. The Liar paradox
Banning self-reference would outlaw 'This very sentence is in English' [Sorensen]
     Full Idea: The old objection to the ban on self-reference is that it is too broad; it bans innocent sentences such as 'This very sentence is in English'.
     From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 11.1)
     A reaction: Tricky. What is the sigificant difference between 'this sentence is in English' and 'this sentence is a lie'? The first concerns context and is partly metalinguistic. The second concerns semantics and truth. Concept and content..