6 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. |
16415 | Esoteric metaphysics aims to be top science, investigating ultimate reality [Hofweber] |
Full Idea: Esoteric metaphysics appeals to those, I conjecture, who deep down hold that philosophy is the queen of sciences after all, since it investigates what the world is REALLY like. | |
From: Thomas Hofweber (Ambitious, yet modest, Metaphysics [2009], 2) | |
A reaction: He mentions Kit Fine and Jonathan Schaffer as esoteric metaphysicians. I see a pyramid of increasing generality and abstraction, with metaphysics at the top. This doesn't make it 'queen', though, because uncertainties multiply higher up. |
16413 | Science has discovered properties of things, so there are properties - so who needs metaphysics? [Hofweber] |
Full Idea: Material science has found that some features of metals make them more susceptible to corrosion but more resistant to fracture. Thus this immediately implies that there are features, i.e. properties. What is left for metaphysics to do? | |
From: Thomas Hofweber (Ambitious, yet modest, Metaphysics [2009], 1.1) | |
A reaction: Presumably economists have discovered 'features' of economies that cause unemployment, and literary critics have discovered 'features' of novels that make them good. |
16416 | The quantifier in logic is not like the ordinary English one (which has empty names, non-denoting terms etc) [Hofweber] |
Full Idea: The inferential role of the existential quantifier in first order logic does not carry over to the existential quantifier in English (we have empty names, singular terms that are not even in the business of denoting, and so on). | |
From: Thomas Hofweber (Ambitious, yet modest, Metaphysics [2009], 2) |
21982 | I only wish I had such eyes as to see Nobody! It's as much as I can do to see real people. [Carroll,L] |
Full Idea: "I see nobody on the road," said Alice. - "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked. ..."To be able to see Nobody! ...Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people." | |
From: Lewis Carroll (C.Dodgson) (Through the Looking Glass [1886], p.189), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7 | |
A reaction: [Moore quotes this, inevitably, in a chapter on Hegel] This may be a better candidate for the birth of philosophy of language than Frege's Groundwork. |
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) |