42 ideas
| 8472 | Sentential logic is consistent (no contradictions) and complete (entirely provable) [Orenstein] |
| Full Idea: Sentential logic has been proved consistent and complete; its consistency means that no contradictions can be derived, and its completeness assures us that every one of the logical truths can be proved. | |
| From: Alex Orenstein (W.V. Quine [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: The situation for quantificational logic is not quite so clear (Orenstein p.98). I do not presume that being consistent and complete makes it necessarily better as a tool in the real world. |
| 8476 | Axiomatization simply picks from among the true sentences a few to play a special role [Orenstein] |
| Full Idea: In axiomatizing, we are merely sorting out among the truths of a science those which will play a special role, namely, serve as axioms from which we derive the others. The sentences are already true in a non-conventional or ordinary sense. | |
| From: Alex Orenstein (W.V. Quine [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: If you were starting from scratch, as Euclidean geometers may have felt they were doing, you might want to decide which are the simplest truths. Axiomatizing an established system is a more advanced activity. |
| 8480 | S4: 'poss that poss that p' implies 'poss that p'; S5: 'poss that nec that p' implies 'nec that p' [Orenstein] |
| Full Idea: The five systems of propositional modal logic contain successively stronger conceptions of necessity. In S4 'it is poss that it is poss that p' implies 'it is poss that p'. In S5, 'it is poss that it is nec that p' implies 'it is nec that p'. | |
| From: Alex Orenstein (W.V. Quine [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: C.I. Lewis originated this stuff. Any serious student of modality is probably going to have to pick a system. E.g. Nathan Salmon says that the correct modal logic is even weaker than S4. |
| 8474 | Unlike elementary logic, set theory is not complete [Orenstein] |
| Full Idea: The incompleteness of set theory contrasts sharply with the completeness of elementary logic. | |
| From: Alex Orenstein (W.V. Quine [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be Quine's reason for abandoning the Frege-Russell logicist programme (quite apart from the problems raised by Gödel. |
| 8465 | Mereology has been exploited by some nominalists to achieve the effects of set theory [Orenstein] |
| Full Idea: The theory of mereology has had a history of being exploited by nominalists to achieve some of the effects of set theory. | |
| From: Alex Orenstein (W.V. Quine [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Some writers refer to mereology as a 'theory', and others as an area of study. This appears to be an interesting line of investigation. Orenstein says Quine and Goodman showed its limitations. |
| 8452 | Traditionally, universal sentences had existential import, but were later treated as conditional claims [Orenstein] |
| Full Idea: In traditional logic from Aristotle to Kant, universal sentences have existential import, but Brentano and Boole construed them as universal conditionals (such as 'for anything, if it is a man, then it is mortal'). | |
| From: Alex Orenstein (W.V. Quine [2002], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: I am sympathetic to the idea that even the 'existential' quantifier should be treated as conditional, or fictional. Modern Christians may well routinely quantify over angels, without actually being committed to them. |
| 8475 | The substitution view of quantification says a sentence is true when there is a substitution instance [Orenstein] |
| Full Idea: The substitution view of quantification explains 'there-is-an-x-such-that x is a man' as true when it has a true substitution instance, as in the case of 'Socrates is a man', so the quantifier can be read as 'it is sometimes true that'. | |
| From: Alex Orenstein (W.V. Quine [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: The word 'true' crops up twice here. The alternative (existential-referential) view cites objects, so the substitution view is a more linguistic approach. |
| 8454 | The whole numbers are 'natural'; 'rational' numbers include fractions; the 'reals' include root-2 etc. [Orenstein] |
| Full Idea: The 'natural' numbers are the whole numbers 1, 2, 3 and so on. The 'rational' numbers consist of the natural numbers plus the fractions. The 'real' numbers include the others, plus numbers such a pi and root-2, which cannot be expressed as fractions. | |
| From: Alex Orenstein (W.V. Quine [2002], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: The 'irrational' numbers involved entities such as root-minus-1. Philosophical discussions in ontology tend to focus on the existence of the real numbers. |
| 9992 | The 'extension of a concept' in general may be quantitatively completely indeterminate [Cantor] |
| Full Idea: The author entirely overlooks the fact that the 'extension of a concept' in general may be quantitatively completely indeterminate. Only in certain cases is the 'extension of a concept' quantitatively determinate. | |
| From: George Cantor (Review of Frege's 'Grundlagen' [1885], 1932:440), quoted by William W. Tait - Frege versus Cantor and Dedekind | |
| A reaction: Cantor presumably has in mind various infinite sets. Tait is drawing our attention to the fact that this objection long precedes Russell's paradox, which made the objection more formal (a language Frege could understand!). |
| 8473 | The logicists held that is-a-member-of is a logical constant, making set theory part of logic [Orenstein] |
| Full Idea: The question to be posed is whether is-a-member-of should be considered a logical constant, that is, does logic include set theory. Frege, Russell and Whitehead held that it did. | |
| From: Alex Orenstein (W.V. Quine [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: This is obviously the key element in the logicist programme. The objection seems to be that while first-order logic is consistent and complete, set theory is not at all like that, and so is part of a different world. |
| 8458 | Just individuals in Nominalism; add sets for Extensionalism; add properties, concepts etc for Intensionalism [Orenstein] |
| Full Idea: Modest ontologies are Nominalism (Goodman), admitting only concrete individuals; and Extensionalism (Quine/Davidson) which admits individuals and sets; but Intensionalists (Frege/Carnap/Church/Marcus/Kripke) may have propositions, properties, concepts. | |
| From: Alex Orenstein (W.V. Quine [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: I don't like sets, because of Idea 7035. Even the ontology of individuals could collapse dramatically (see the ideas of Merricks, e.g. 6124). The intensional items may be real enough, but needn't have a place at the ontological high table. |
| 20146 | 'Luck' is the unpredictable and inexplicable intersection of causal chains [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: 'Luck' is loose shorthand. It stands for various causal chains that intersect and whose intersection we can neither predict nor explain, because we lack the relevant knowledge. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 01.2) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle's example is a chance meeting in the market place. The point about 'intersection' seems good, since luck doesn't seem to arise for an event in isolation. |
| 8457 | The Principle of Conservatism says we should violate the minimum number of background beliefs [Orenstein] |
| Full Idea: The principle of conservatism in choosing between theories is a maxim of minimal mutilation, stating that of competing theories, all other things being equal, choose the one that violates the fewest background beliefs held. | |
| From: Alex Orenstein (W.V. Quine [2002], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: In this sense, all rational people should be conservatives. The idea is a modern variant of Hume's objection to miracles (Idea 2227). A Kuhnian 'paradigm shift' is the dramatic moment when this principle no longer seems appropriate. |
| 8477 | People presume meanings exist because they confuse meaning and reference [Orenstein] |
| Full Idea: A good part of the confidence people have that there are meanings rests on the confusion of meaning and reference. | |
| From: Alex Orenstein (W.V. Quine [2002], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: An important point. Everyone assumes that sentences link to the world, but Frege shows that that is not part of meaning. Words like prepositions and conjunctions ('to', 'and') don't have 'a meaning' apart from their function and use. |
| 8471 | Three ways for 'Socrates is human' to be true are nominalist, platonist, or Montague's way [Orenstein] |
| Full Idea: 'Socrates is human' is true if 1) subject referent is identical with a predicate referent (Nominalism), 2) subject reference member of the predicate set, or the subject has that property (Platonism), 3) predicate set a member of the subject set (Montague) | |
| From: Alex Orenstein (W.V. Quine [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Orenstein offers these as alternatives to Quine's 'inscrutability of reference' thesis, which makes the sense unanalysable. |
| 8484 | If two people believe the same proposition, this implies the existence of propositions [Orenstein] |
| Full Idea: If we can say 'there exists a p such that John believes p and Barbara believes p', logical forms such as this are cited as evidence for our ontological commitment to propositions. | |
| From: Alex Orenstein (W.V. Quine [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: Opponents of propositions (such as Quine) will, of course, attempt to revise the logical form to eliminate the quantification over propositions. See Orenstein's outline on p.171. |
| 20169 | An action may be intended under one description, but not under another [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: People can usually be described as intending an action under one description, but not under another. ...Consequently the same action may reasonably be said to be both intentional and unintentional. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 07.2) | |
| A reaction: This is the terrorist/freedom fighter problem. The problem seems to arise with long-term intentions, rather than immediate ones. Maybe it is the significance of the intention, rather than the intention itself? |
| 20149 | To control our actions better, make them result from our attitudes, not from circumstances [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: We increase our control by making our actions more and more the effects of our attitudes, and less and less the effects of external forces acting on us independently of our attitudes. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 02.4) | |
| A reaction: He says that the attitudes should be focused on our well-being. Attitudes may also, however, serve some exernal ideal, such as altruism or patriotism. He has built a case for 'control' being a much more important value than 'free will'. |
| 19738 | Values are an attempt to achieve well-being by bringing contingencies under control [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Our system of values should be understood, among other things, as our attempt to cope with contingencies by making the connection between our well-being and actions less contingent and more within our control. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], Intro) | |
| A reaction: He gives an account in which every aspect of morality focuses on human well-being. Of course, the values will dictate what constitutes that well-being, as well as good means of attaining it. |
| 20145 | Values help us to control life, by connecting it to what is stable and manageable [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Values are ...an attempt to cope with contingencies by making the connection between our well-being and actions less contingent and more within our control. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This sounds more like principles than values, since the former tell you what to do, but a value in itself is just a picture of possibilities. |
| 20170 | Responsibility is unprovoked foreseeable harm, against society, arising from vicious character [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Full responsibility is when evil-doers can fully foresee the harm that results, their victims have not provoked it, it violates the requirements of physical protection in a society, the action reflects character, and it is viciously motivated. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 07.4) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] The point of this is to omit any reference to an explicit intention to perform an evil act. The Nazi Franz Stangl claimed that he never intended evil, but Kekes says that if true he is innocent, but the above definition makes him guilty. |
| 20165 | Reason and morality do not coincide; immorality can be reasonable, with an ideology [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: A central assumption of Western moral thought is mistaken: the requirements of reason and morality do not coincide. Immorality need not be unreasonable. ...Malevolent motives in combination with ideologies supply reasons for doing evil. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 06.5) | |
| A reaction: I presume that Kant would say the malevolent motives are irrational. If I perform an evil act because someone gives me a stupid reason for doing it, I am not thereby rational because I am acting for a reason. Wrong. |
| 20171 | Practical reason is not universal and impersonal, because it depends on what success is [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: The assumption that the requirements of reason are universal and impersonal ...is false of practical reason that aims at successful action. Whether a belief is true depends on the facts. Whether an action is successful depends on what success consists in. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 08.5) | |
| A reaction: Kekes is trying to eliminate the Kantian idea that reason can lead us to the 'right' thing to do. He rightly points to the complex demands of human, cultural and personal values. |
| 20175 | If morality has to be rational, then moral conflicts need us to be irrational and immoral [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: The absurdity follows [from Kant's categorical imperative] that in the case of moral conflicts reason and morality require us to act irrationally and immorally. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: We can't pick one from two equals if we must have a reason for the preference, but that does not make it 'irrational' to choose one of them, when it doesn't matter which one is chosen. Taking one of the cheese sandwiches is not irrational. |
| 20174 | Relativists say all values are relative; pluralists concede much of that, but not 'human' values [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: We must distinguish between pluralism and relativism about values. Pluralists accept that the validity of cultural and personal values is relative to societies and individuals. But they also hold that human values are objectively valid. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 09.4) | |
| A reaction: This is a very attractive response to global moral relativism. I see a problem in the neat division into three distinct forms of value. Each of the three sets of values ought to be sensitive to the other two areas. Humans are cultured individuals. |
| 20159 | Cultural values are interpretations of humanity, conduct, institutions, and evaluations [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: I distinguish four types of cultural values likely to be found in a particular society: interpretations of human values; forms of expression and conduct; institutions and practices within them; and modes of evaluation. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 05.2) | |
| A reaction: He proceeds to enlarge on these four. This sub-divides the second of his three main areas of value. I like philosophers who do that sort of thing. It gives you the reassuring feeling that you can break a problem down into elements we understand.... |
| 20161 | The big value problems are evil (humanity), disenchantment (cultures), and boredom (individuals) [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: The major problem for the human dimension of values is the prevalence of evil; for the cultural dimension it is widespread disenchantment; and for the personal dimension it is pervasive boredom. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 05.5) | |
| A reaction: Boldly simple claims, but quite persuasive. Presumably it is the evil in human beings, rather than natural evil (like earthquakes) that is the problem. Disenchantment must come through alienation from social values. Powerlessness, rather than boredom? |
| 20156 | We are bound to regret some values we never aspired to [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: We inevitably feel regret for the many values we could have, but did not, try to realize. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 04.5) | |
| A reaction: He's obviously talking about working harder at our projects. |
| 20150 | There are far more values than we can pursue, so they are optional possibilities [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: A significant feature of our system of values is that it provides many more values than we could pursue. ...We encounter values as possibilities, and we must accept or reject them. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 03.1) | |
| A reaction: This immediately invites the lovely question of what values you are going to invoke when you discriminate among the values available in your culture. Nietzsche says it comes down to 'taste'. |
| 20158 | Innumerable values arise for us, from our humanity, our culture, and our individuality [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: There is an irreducible plurality of values that follow from the universal requirements of human well-being, from a shared cultural identity, and from individual conceptions of well-being. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 05 Intro) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a very helpful division. It seems reasonably obvious, but I have not encountered it elsewhere. It is an obvious foundation for international negotiations. We can criticise another culture by appealing to human values. |
| 20151 | Our attitudes include what possibilities we value, and also what is allowable, and unthinkable [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: The beliefs, emotions, motives, and desires that form our attitudes ...include not only what possibilities we value, but also the limits we should not transgress. ...The strongest limit is what I call 'the unthinkable'. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 03.2) | |
| A reaction: Another chance to link to my favourite idea from Democritus! Ideally we want a theory which shows how a vision of the possibilities immediately points to the limits, and to what is unthinkable. |
| 20152 | Unconditional commitments are our most basic convictions, saying what must never be done [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Unconditional commitments are the most basic convictions we have. They tell us what we must not do no matter what, what we regard as outrageous, horrible, beyond the pale, or, in religious language, as sacrilegious. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: The Aztecs should have made rather different unconditional commitments from the ones they ended up with. How do you persuade someone to make such an unconditional commitment. Abortion seems to involve huge clashes here. |
| 20153 | Doing the unthinkable damages ourselves, so it is more basic than any value [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Doing the unthinkable causes deep, often irreparable, damage to our sense of ourselves. ...That is why the unthinkable indicates a more basic commitment than what we have to any value. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: Kekes makes the interesting claim that what is unthinkable is so basic that it doesn't even count as a value - it is more like a fact of your own nature, which is prior to your values. Not sure about that. |
| 20162 | Evil isn't explained by nature, by monsters, by uncharacteristic actions, or by society [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Four inadequate explanations of human evil attribute it to natural causes, moral monsters, uncharacteristic actions, and corrupting social conditions. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 06.3) | |
| A reaction: He is addressing the 'secular problem of evil', which arises if you assume that human beings are essentially good, and then look around you. He says evil explains corrupting social conditions, so we can't be circular about it. |
| 20157 | Well-being needs correct attitudes and well-ordered commitments to local values [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: A reasonable conception of well-being requires mistake-free attitudes and well-ordered commitments to some values selected from our society's system of values. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 05 Intro) | |
| A reaction: This summarises where he has got to so far. |
| 20154 | Control is the key to well-being [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Increasing control is the key to our well-being. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 04 Intro) | |
| A reaction: This slogan emerges from a sustained discussion. Hitler and Stalin increased control rather impressively, so we obviously need a bit more than this to get proper well-being. There's also something to be said for going with the flow. |
| 20172 | Boredom destroys our ability to evaluate [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: The threat of boredom is the dissolution of the evaluative dimension of our life. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 09.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems right. If nothing is interesting, then there is no scale of values left, except perhaps 'of possible interest to other people'. |
| 20173 | Boredom is apathy and restlessness, yearning for something interesting [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Boredom combines apathy and restlessness. ...We crave stimulation, worthwhile activities, and objects that engage our interest. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 09.1) |
| 20155 | Society is alienating if it lacks our values, and its values repel us [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: We feel estranged from our society if the values we prize are not available, and if we do not want to live by the available values. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 04.4) | |
| A reaction: There are two pictures here, for a monolithic culture, and for pluralism. For example, the values of Islam are fairly available in the Christian/atheist UK - but not sharia law. Pluralism can embrace a huge array of moderate values, but not extremes? |
| 20164 | The ideal of an ideology is embodied in a text, a role model, a law of history, a dream of the past... [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: The ideal in an ideology may be set down in a sacred text, exemplified in an exceptional life, dictated by laws of history, sociology, or psychology, located in a past uncorrupted idyllic past, or in a future Utopia of perfected human nature, and so on. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 06.4) | |
| A reaction: A bit grumpy, but a fair observation about an awful lot of slightly mad social endeavours. |
| 20163 | Ideologies have beliefs about reality, ideals, a gap with actuality, and a program [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Ideologies have a set of beliefs about the world, an ideal of life, an explanation of the gap between the ideal and actuality, and a program for closing the gap. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 06.4) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Kekes emerges as a bit right of centre in his politics. He clearly despises such ideologies, yet his book is an optimistic program for correcting things. Maybe the enemy is dogmatic ideologies. Kekes gives an undogmatic account of values. |
| 20148 | Equal distribution is no good in a shortage, because there might be no one satisfied [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: It is useless to distribute insufficient resources equally, because the equal distribution of insufficient resources may result in the even worse outcome that no one's reasonable expectations are met. | |
| From: John Kekes (The Human Condition [2010], 01.5) | |
| A reaction: He gives a shortage of oxygen tanks as a persuasive example, but that is hardly typical of the sorts of things that we normally want to distribute. |