7 ideas
| 13365 | Russell's Paradox is a stripped-down version of Cantor's Paradox [Priest,G on Russell] |
| Full Idea: Russell's Paradox is a stripped-down version of Cantor's Paradox. | |
| From: comment on Bertrand Russell (Letters to Frege [1902]) by Graham Priest - The Structure of Paradoxes of Self-Reference §2 |
| 10711 | Russell's paradox means we cannot assume that every property is collectivizing [Potter on Russell] |
| Full Idea: Russell's paradox showed that we cannot consistently assume what is sometimes called the 'naïve comprehension principle', namely that every property is collectivizing. | |
| From: comment on Bertrand Russell (Letters to Frege [1902]) by Michael Potter - Set Theory and Its Philosophy 03.6 |
| 9127 | Russell refuted Frege's principle that there is a set for each property [Russell, by Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: Russell refuted Frege's principle that there is a set for each property. | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (Letters to Frege [1902], 1904.12.12) by Roy Sorensen - Vagueness and Contradiction 6.1 | |
| A reaction: This is the principle stumbling block to any attempt to explain properties purely in terms of sets. I would say that Russell proved there couldn't be a set for each predicate. You can't glibly equate proper properties with predicates. |
| 15308 | Science is the reduction of diverse forces and powers to a smaller number that explain them [Kant] |
| Full Idea: All natural philosophy consists in the reduction of given forces apparently diverse to a smaller number of forces and powers sufficient for the explication of the actions of the former. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science [1786], 534) | |
| A reaction: I'm beginning to think science is just tracking of complex forces and powers back to fundamental forces and powers. In which case, that is the analysis Kant is talking of. The standard model of physics would thrill him to bits. |
| 5987 | Alcmaeon was the first to say the brain is central to thinking [Alcmaeon, by Staden, von] |
| Full Idea: Alcmaeon apparently was the first Greek to assign central cognitive and biological functions to the brain. | |
| From: report of Alcmaeon (fragments/reports [c.490 BCE]) by Heinrich von Staden - Alcmaeon | |
| A reaction: The name of Alcmaeon should be remembered with honour. This was 200 years before Aristotle, who still hadn't worked it out. I presume Alcmaeon inferred the truth from head injuries, which is overwhelming evidence, if you notice it. |
| 7531 | We don't assert private thoughts; the objects are part of what we assert [Russell] |
| Full Idea: I believe Mont Blanc itself is a component part of what is actually asserted in the proposition 'Mont Blanc is more than 4000 metres high'; we do not assert the thought, which is a private psychological matter, but the object of the thought. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Letters to Frege [1902], 1904.12.12), quoted by Ray Monk - Bertrand Russell: Spirit of Solitude Ch.4 | |
| A reaction: This would appear to be pretty much externalism about concepts, given that Russell would accept that other people know much more about Mont Blanc than he does, and their knowledge is included in what he asserts. |
| 24043 | Soul must be immortal, since it continually moves, like the heavens [Alcmaeon, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Alcmaeon says that the soul is immortal because it resembles immortal things and that this affection belongs to it because it is always in movement, like divine things, such the moon, the sun, the stars and the whole heaven. | |
| From: report of Alcmaeon (fragments/reports [c.490 BCE], DK 24) by Aristotle - De Anima 405a30 | |
| A reaction: Hm. Fish and rivers seem to be continually moving too. Presumably we are like gods, but then Greek gods seem awfully like humans. I don't know the history of belief in immortality; an interesting topic. |