6 ideas
| 8970 | Our notion of identical sets involves identical members, which needs absolute identity [Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: Our conceptual grip on the notion of a set is founded on the axiom of extensionality: a set x is the same as a set y iff x and y have the same members. But this axiom deploys the notion of absolute identity ('same members'). | |
| From: John Hawthorne (Identity [2003], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: Identity seems to be a primitive, useful and crucial concept, so don't ask what it is. I suspect that numbers can't get off the ground without it (especially, in view of the above, if you define numbers in terms of sets). |
| 22049 | Transcendental idealism aims to explain objectivity through subjectivity [Bowie] |
| Full Idea: The aim of transcendental idealism is to give a basis for objectivity in terms of subjectivity. | |
| From: Andrew Bowie (German Philosophy: a very short introduction [2010], 1) | |
| A reaction: Hume used subjectivity to undermine the findings of objectivity. There was then no return to naive objectivity. Kant's aim then was to thwart global scepticism. Post-Kantians feared that he had failed. |
| 22055 | The Idealists saw the same unexplained spontaneity in Kant's judgements and choices [Bowie] |
| Full Idea: The Idealist saw in Kant that knowledge, which depends on the spontaneity of judgement, and self-determined spontaneous action, can be seen as sharing the same source, which is not accessible to scientific investigation. | |
| From: Andrew Bowie (German Philosophy: a very short introduction [2010]) | |
| A reaction: This is the 'spontaneity' of judgements and choices which was seen as the main idea in Kant. It inspired romantic individualism. The judgements are the rule-based application of concepts. |
| 22054 | German Idealism tried to stop oppositions of appearances/things and receptivity/spontaneity [Bowie] |
| Full Idea: A central aim of German Idealism is to overcome Kant's oppositions between appearances and thing in themselves, and between receptivity and spontaneity. | |
| From: Andrew Bowie (German Philosophy: a very short introduction [2010], 2) | |
| A reaction: I have the impression that there were two strategies: break down the opposition within the self (Fichte), or break down the opposition in the world (Spinozism). |
| 22056 | Crucial to Idealism is the idea of continuity between receptivity and spontaneous judgement [Bowie] |
| Full Idea: A crucial idea for German Idealism (from Hamann) is that apparently passive receptivity and active spontaneity are in fact different degrees of the same 'activity, and the gap between subject and world can be closed. | |
| From: Andrew Bowie (German Philosophy: a very short introduction [2010], 3) | |
| A reaction: The 'passive' bit seems to be Hume's 'impressions', which are Kant's 'intuitions', which need 'spontaneous' interpretation to become experiences. Critics of Kant said this implied a dualism. |
| 1460 | Religious experience deserves the same respect as our other key experiences, and is best called 'holy' [Taylor,AE, by PG] |
| Full Idea: We respect the religious experience of others in a similar way to our respect for their artistic or sense experiences, and the quality which makes them seem authentic can only be called 'holy'. | |
| From: report of A.E. Taylor (Vindication of Religion (extract) [1926], III) by PG - Db (ideas) |