display all the ideas for this combination of texts
10 ideas
| 4475 | Saying a thing 'is' adds nothing to it - otherwise if my concept exists, it isn't the same as my concept [Kant] |
| Full Idea: We do not make the least addition to a thing when we declare the thing 'is'. Otherwise it would not be exactly the same thing that exists, but something more than we had thought in the concept, so we could not say the exact object of my concept exists. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B628/A600) | |
| A reaction: This still strikes me as a wonderful objection to the ontological argument for God. It raises the question of what 'is' does mean. Is it a 'quantifier'? What is the ontological status of a quantifier? |
| 5992 | Chrysippus says action is the criterion for existence, which must be physical [Chrysippus, by Tieleman] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus regarded power to act and be acted upon as the criterion for existence or being - a test satisfied by bodies alone. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Teun L. Tieleman - Chrysippus | |
| A reaction: This defines existence in terms of causation. Is he ruling out a priori a particle (say) which exists, but never interacts with anything? If so, he is inclining towards anti-realism. |
| 7416 | Kant is read as the phenomena being 'contrained' by the noumenon, or 'free-floating' [Talbot on Kant] |
| Full Idea: The two readings of Kant depend on whether the world of phenomena is 'constrained' by the noumenon, or whether it is 'free-floating'. | |
| From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781]) by Marianne Talbot - talk | |
| A reaction: The free-floating reading leads to idealism, since the noumenon then becomes a quite irrelevant part of Kant's theory, and can be dropped (since its existence means nothing if it has no causal role). On the first reading, constraint becomes interesting. |
| 19386 | Without the subject or the senses, space and time vanish, as their appearances disappear [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If we remove our own subject or even ....the senses in general, then all the constitution, all relations of objects in space and time, indeed space and time themselves would disappear, and as appearances they cannot exist in themselves, but only in us. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B059/A42) | |
| A reaction: This is as clear a statement of anti-realist idealism as I have ever found in Kant. You can interpret him as a thorough scientific realist, but you have to put a tricky spin on passages like this. Or maybe only the 'appearances' of space and time vanish? |
| 21445 | Even the most perfect intuition gets no closer to things in themselves [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Even if we could bring this intuition of ours to the highest degree of distinctiveness we would not thereby come any closer to the constitution of objects in themselves. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B060/A43) | |
| A reaction: Either slightly ridiculous anti-realism, or a self-evident platitude. Personally I think I know the reality of trees pretty well, but to totally embrace their constitution I would have to become a tree (an Ent). My experience of me is only partial. |
| 21673 | There are simple and complex facts; the latter depend on further facts [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus says there are two classes of facts, simple and complex. An instance of a simple fact is 'Socrates will die at a given date', ...but 'Milo will wrestle at Olympia' is a complex statement, because there can be no wrestling without an opponent. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 13.30 | |
| A reaction: We might say that there are atomic and complex facts, but our atomic facts tend to be much simpler, usually just saying some object has some property. |
| 21448 | Categories are general concepts of objects, which determine the way in which they are experienced [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The categories are the concepts of an object in general, by means of which its intuition is regarded as determined with regard to one of the logical functions of government. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B128/A95) | |
| A reaction: These are Kant's 'transcendental' categories. I'm wondering what he made of our more normal categories, such as animal species, genera etc. |
| 5554 | Categories are necessary, so can't be implanted in us to agree with natural laws [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If one proposed a middle way, that categories are subjective predispositions for thinking, implanted in us so that their use would agree exactly with the laws of nature,..then the categories would lack the necessity which is essential to their concept. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B167) | |
| A reaction: Kant might want to rethink this once he got the hang of the theory of evolution. If we have innate categories, they must have some survival value. I don't understand Kant's claim that the categories are necessary. They just reflect nature. |
| 6160 | Does Kant say the mind imposes categories, or that it restricts us to them? [Rowlands on Kant] |
| Full Idea: It is unclear whether Kant says the mind imposes space and time and categories, such as substance and cause and effect, on empirical objects, or whether our mind restricts our cognition to such features of noumenal objects. Imposition, say the majority. | |
| From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781]) by Mark Rowlands - Externalism Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: Rowlands says, rightly, that Kant probably thought the mind imposed categories, but that he should have said that it restricts us to them. The imposition view leads to idealism, anti-realism and madness; restriction is common sense, really. |
| 16652 | Stoics categories are Substrate, Quality, Disposition, and Relation [Chrysippus, by Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The Stoics proposed a rather modest categorisation of Substrate, Quality, Disposition, and Relation. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 12.1 |