4 ideas
21959 | Metaphysics is the most general attempt to make sense of things [Moore,AW] |
Full Idea: Metaphysics is the most general attempt to make sense of things. | |
From: A.W. Moore (The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics [2012], Intro) | |
A reaction: This is the first sentence of Moore's book, and a touchstone idea all the way through. It stands up well, because it says enough without committing to too much. I have to agree with it. It implies explanation as the key. I like generality too. |
21958 | Appearances are nothing beyond representations, which is transcendental ideality [Moore,AW] |
Full Idea: Appearances in general are nothing outside our representations, which is just what we mean by transcendental ideality. | |
From: A.W. Moore (The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics [2012], B535/A507) |
3913 | Maybe imagination is the source of a priori justification [Casullo] |
Full Idea: Some maintain that experiments in imagination are the source of a priori justification. | |
From: Albert Casullo (A priori/A posteriori [1992], p.1) | |
A reaction: What else could assessments of possibility and necessity be based on except imagination? |
9145 | We form the image of a cardinal number by a double abstraction, from the elements and from their order [Cantor] |
Full Idea: We call 'cardinal number' the general concept which, by means of our active faculty of thought, arises when we make abstraction from an aggregate of its various elements, and of their order. From this double abstraction the number is an image in our mind. | |
From: George Cantor (Beitrage [1915], §1), quoted by Kit Fine - Cantorian Abstraction: Recon. and Defence Intro | |
A reaction: [compressed] This is the great Cantor, creator of set theory, endorsing the traditional abstractionism which Frege and his followers so despise. Fine offers a defence of it. The Frege view is platonist, because it refuses to connect numbers to the world. |