35 ideas
9271 | Human knowledge may not produce well-being; the examined life may not be worth living [Gray] |
Full Idea: Human knowledge is one thing, human well-being another. There is no predetermined harmony between the two. The examined life may not be worth living. | |
From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 1.9) | |
A reaction: John Gray has set himself up as the Eeyore of modern times, but this point may obviously be correct. Presumably Socrates meant that the examined life was better even if the result was less 'well-being'. Even Gray doesn't want a lobotomy. |
3358 | Metaphysics focuses on Platonism, essentialism, materialism and anti-realism [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: In contemporary metaphysics the major areas of discussion are Platonism, essentialism, materialism and anti-realism. | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], After) |
3312 | There are the 'is' of predication (a function), the 'is' of identity (equals), and the 'is' of existence (quantifier) [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: At least since Russell, one has routinely distinguished between the 'is' of predication ('Socrates is wise', Fx), the 'is' of identity ('Morning Star is Evening Star', =), and the 'is' of existence ('the cat is under the bed', Ex). | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 7) | |
A reaction: This seems horribly nitpicking to many people, but I love it - because it is just true, and it is a truth right at the basis of the confusions in our talk. Analytic philosophy forever! [P.S. 'Tiddles is a cat' - the 'is' membership] |
3352 | Analytical philosophy analyses separate concepts successfully, but lacks a synoptic vision of the results [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: Analytical philosophy excels in the piecemeal analysis of causation, perception, knowledge and so on, but there is a striking poverty of any synoptic vision of these independent studies. | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.22) |
3329 | Presumably the statements of science are true, but should they be taken literally or not? [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: As our bible, the Book of Science is presumed to contain only true sentences, but it is less clear how they are to be construed, which literally and which non-literally. | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.13) |
3326 | Set theory attempts to reduce the 'is' of predication to mathematics [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: Set theory offers the promise of a complete mathematization of the 'is' of predication. | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.13) |
3327 | The set of Greeks is included in the set of men, but isn't a member of it [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: Set inclusion is sharply distinguished from set membership (as the set of Greeks is found to be included in, but not a member of, the set of men). | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.13) |
3335 | The standard Z-F Intuition version of set theory has about ten agreed axioms [Benardete,JA, by PG] |
Full Idea: Zermelo proposed seven axioms for set theory, with Fraenkel adding others, to produce the standard Z-F Intuition. | |
From: report of José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.17) by PG - Db (ideas) |
3332 | Greeks saw the science of proportion as the link between geometry and arithmetic [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: The Greeks saw the independent science of proportion as the link between geometry and arithmetic. | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.15) |
3330 | Negatives, rationals, irrationals and imaginaries are all postulated to solve baffling equations [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: The Negative numbers are postulated (magic word) to solve x=5-8, Rationals postulated to solve 2x=3, Irrationals for x-squared=2, and Imaginaries for x-squared=-1. (…and Zero for x=5-5) …and x/0 remains eternally open. | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.14) |
3337 | Natural numbers are seen in terms of either their ordinality (Peano), or cardinality (set theory) [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: One approaches the natural numbers in terms of either their ordinality (Peano), or cardinality (set theory). | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.17) |
3310 | If slowness is a property of walking rather than the walker, we must allow that events exist [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: Once we conceded that Tom can walk slowly or quickly, and that the slowness and quickness is a property of the walking and not of Tom, we can hardly refrain from quantifying over events (such as 'a walking') in our ontology. | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 6) |
12793 | Early pre-Socratics had a mass-noun ontology, which was replaced by count-nouns [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: With their 'mass-noun' ontologies, the early pre-Socratics were blind to plurality ...but the count-noun ontologists came to dominate the field forever after. | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 6) | |
A reaction: The mass-nouns are such things as earth, air, fire and water. This is a very interesting historical observation (cited by Laycock). Our obsession with identity seems tied to formal logic. There is a whole other worldview waiting out there. |
3353 | If there is no causal interaction with transcendent Platonic objects, how can you learn about them? [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: How can you learn of the existence of transcendent Platonic objects if there is no causal interaction with them? | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.22) |
3304 | Why should packed-together particles be a thing (Mt Everest), but not scattered ones? [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: Why suppose these particles packed together constitute a macro-entity (namely, Mt Everest), whereas those, of equal number, scattered around, fail to add up to anything beyond themselves? | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 2) |
3350 | Could a horse lose the essential property of being a horse, and yet continue to exist? [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: Is being a horse an essential property of a horse? Can we so much as conceive the abstract possibility of a horse's ceasing to be a horse even while continuing to exist? | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.20) |
3309 | If a soldier continues to exist after serving as a soldier, does the wind cease to exist after it ceases to blow? [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: If a soldier need not cease to exist merely because he ceases to be a soldier, there is room to doubt that the wind ceases to exist when it ceases to be a wind. | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 6) |
3351 | One can step into the same river twice, but not into the same water [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: One can step into the same river twice, but one must not expect to step into the same water. | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.21) |
3314 | Absolutists might accept that to exist is relative, but relative to what? How about relative to itself? [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: With the thesis that to be as such is to be relative, the absolutist may be found to concur, but the issue turns on what it might be that a thing is supposed to be relative to. Why not itself? | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 8) |
3323 | Maybe self-identity isn't existence, if Pegasus can be self-identical but non-existent [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: 'Existence' can't be glossed as self-identical (critics say) because Pegasus, even while being self-identical, fails to exist. | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.11) |
2614 | Modern phenomenalism holds that objects are logical constructions out of sense-data [Ayer] |
Full Idea: Nowadays phenomenalism is held to be a theory of perception which says that physical objects are logical constructions out of sense-data. | |
From: A.J. Ayer (Phenomenalism [1947], §1) |
3306 | The clearest a priori knowledge is proving non-existence through contradiction [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: One proves non-existence (e.g. of round squares) by using logic to derive a contradiction from the concept; it is precisely here, in such proofs, that we find the clearest example of a priori knowledge. | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 4) |
3349 | If we know truths about prime numbers, we seem to have synthetic a priori knowledge of Platonic objects [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: Assume that we know to be true propositions of the form 'There are exactly x prime numbers between y and z', and synthetic a priori truths about Platonic objects are delivered to us on a silver platter. | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.18) |
3341 | Logical positivism amounts to no more than 'there is no synthetic a priori' [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: Logical positivism has been concisely summarised as 'there is no synthetic a priori'. | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.18) |
3344 | Assertions about existence beyond experience can only be a priori synthetic [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: No one thinks that the proposition that something exists that transcends all possible experience harbours a logical inconsistency. Its denial cannot therefore be an analytic proposition, so it must be synthetic, though only knowable on a priori grounds. | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.18) |
3345 | Appeals to intuition seem to imply synthetic a priori knowledge [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: Appeals to intuition - no matter how informal - can hardly fail to smack of the synthetic a priori. | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.18) |
2615 | The concept of sense-data allows us to discuss appearances without worrying about reality [Ayer] |
Full Idea: The introduction of the term 'sense-datum' is a means of referring to appearances without prejudging the question of what it is, if anything, that they are appearances of. | |
From: A.J. Ayer (Phenomenalism [1947], §1) |
9275 | Knowledge does not need minds or nervous systems; it is found in all living things [Gray] |
Full Idea: Knowledge does not need minds, or even nervous systems. It is found in all living things. | |
From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 2.10) | |
A reaction: I consider it a misnomer to call such things 'knowledge', for which I have much higher standards. Gray is talking about 'information'. Knowledge needs reasons, and possibility of error, not just anticipatory behaviour. |
9276 | The will hardly ever does anything; most of our life just happens to us [Gray] |
Full Idea: We think our actions express our decisions, but in nearly all of our life, willing decides nothing. We cannot wake up or fall asleep, remember or forget our dreams, summon or banish our thoughts, by deciding to do so. | |
From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 2.12) | |
A reaction: Gray's point does not rule out occasional total control over mental life, but his point is important. The traditional picture is of a life controlled, so the will is seen as at the centre of a person, but it just isn't the case. |
9278 | Nowadays we identify the free life with the good life [Gray] |
Full Idea: We do not value freedom more than people did in earlier times, but we have identified the good life with the chosen life. | |
From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 3.13) | |
A reaction: Interesting. This is Enlightenment liberalism gradually filtering down into common consciousness, especially via the hegemony of American culture. I sympathise the Gray; don't get me wrong, but I think freedom is overrated. |
3334 | Rationalists see points as fundamental, but empiricists prefer regions [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: Rationalists have been happier with an ontology of points, and empiricists with an ontology of regions. | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.16) |
9280 | Over forty percent of the Earth's living tissue is human [Gray] |
Full Idea: Humans co-opt over forty per cent of the Earth's living tissue. | |
From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 4.15) | |
A reaction: If you add our domestic animals, I understand that the figure goes up to 95 per cent! I take this to be virtually the only significant ecological fact - population, population, population. Why are there so many cars? So many carbon footprints? |
3308 | In the ontological argument a full understanding of the concept of God implies a contradiction in 'There is no God' [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: In the ontological argument a deep enough understanding of the very concept of God allows one to derive by logic a contradiction from the statement 'There is no God'. | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 4) |
9272 | Without Christianity we lose the idea that human history has a meaning [Gray] |
Full Idea: For Christians, it is because they occur in history that the lives of humans have a meaning that the lives of other animals do not. ..If we truly leave Christianity behind, we must give up the idea that human history has a meaning. | |
From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 2.3) | |
A reaction: Interesting. Compare the dispute between 'whig' and 'tory' historians, the former of whom believe that history is going somewhere. |
9279 | What was our original sin, and how could Christ's suffering redeem it? [Gray] |
Full Idea: No one can say what was humankind's original sin, and no one understands how the suffering of Christ can redeem it. | |
From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 4.1) | |
A reaction: This nicely articulates a problem that has half bothered me, but I have never put into words. I always assumed Eve committed the sin, and Adam cops the blame for not controlling his woman. Dying for our sins has always puzzled me. |