Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Idealism: a critical survey', 'Metaphysical Foundations of Mathematics' and 'The Sense of Reality'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 1. History of Ideas

7460	The great moments are the death of Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Romanticism [Berlin, by Watson]
	Full Idea: Berlin says there were three great turning points: after the death of Aristotle (when Greek schools focused on the inner life of individuals, instead of as social beings), Machiavelli's division of political and individual virtues, and Romanticism.
	From: report of Isaiah Berlin (The Sense of Reality [1996], p.168-9) by Peter Watson - Ideas Intro
	A reaction: I have the impression that Machiavelli introduced a new hard-boiled ethics, which dominated the sixteenth century, but in the seventeenth and eighteenth century they fought back, and Machiavellianism turned out to be just a phase.

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / b. Pro-coherentism

21513	We can no more expect a precise definition of coherence than we can of the moral ideal [Ewing]
	Full Idea: I think it is wrong to tie down the advocates of the coherence theory to a precise definition. ...It would be altogether unreasonable to demand that the moral ideal should be exhaustively defined, and the same may be true of the ideal of thought.
	From: A.C. Ewing (Idealism: a critical survey [1934], p.231), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 7.6
	A reaction: I strongly agree. It is not a council of despair. I think the criteria of coherence can be articulated quite well (e.g by Thagard), and the virtues of enquiry can also be quite well specified (e.g. by Zagzebski). Very dissimilar evidence must cohere.

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / c. Coherentism critique

21497	If undetailed, 'coherence' is just a vague words that covers all possible arguments [Ewing]
	Full Idea: Without a detailed account, coherence is reduced to the mere muttering of the word 'coherence', which can be interpreted so as to cover all arguments, but only by making its meaning so wide as to rob it of almost all significance.
	From: A.C. Ewing (Idealism: a critical survey [1934], p.246), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 2.2
	A reaction: I'm a fan of coherence, but it is a placeholder, involving no intrinsic or detailed theory. I just think it points to the reality of how we make judgements, especially practical ones. We can categorise the inputs, and explain the required virtues.

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / g. Time's arrow

22908	When one element contains the grounds of the other, the first one is prior in time [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: When one of two non-contemporaneous elements contains the grounds for the other, the former is regarded as the antecedent, and the latter as the consequence
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Metaphysical Foundations of Mathematics [1715], p.201)
	A reaction: Bardon cites this passage of Leibniz as the origin of the idea that time's arrow is explained by the direction of causation. Bardon prefers it to the psychological and entropy accounts.