42 ideas
| 13985 | A true proposition seems true of one fact, but a false proposition seems true of nothing at all. [Ryle] |
| Full Idea: Whereas there might be just one fact that a true proposition was like, we would have to say that a false proposition was unlike any fact. We could not speak of the fact that it was false of, so we could not speak of its being false of anything at all. | |
| From: Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], 'Objections') | |
| A reaction: Ryle brings out very nicely the point Russell emphasised so much, that the most illuminating studies in philosophy are of how falsehood works, rather than of how truths work. If I say 'the Queen is really a man' it is obvious what that is false of. |
| 13984 | Two maps might correspond to one another, but they are only 'true' of the country they show [Ryle] |
| Full Idea: One map of Sussex is like another, but it is not true of that other map, but only of the county. | |
| From: Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], 'Objections') | |
| A reaction: One might question whether a map is in any sense 'true' of Sussex, though one must admit that there are good and bad maps of Sussex. The point is a nice one, which shows that there is no simple account of truth as correspondence. |
| 1564 | True and false statements can use exactly the same words [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: There is no difference between a true statement and a false statement, because they can use exactly the same words. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §4) |
| 13979 | Logic studies consequence, compatibility, contradiction, corroboration, necessitation, grounding.... [Ryle] |
| Full Idea: Logic studies the way in which one thing follows from another, in which one thing is compatible with another, contradicts, corroborates or necessitates another, is a special case of another or the nerve of another. And so on. | |
| From: Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], IV) | |
| A reaction: I presume that 'and so on' would include how one thing proves another. This is quite a nice list, which makes me think a little more widely about the nature of logic (rather than just about inference). Incompatibility isn't a process. |
| 13988 | Many sentences do not state facts, but there are no facts which could not be stated [Ryle] |
| Full Idea: There are many sentences which do not state facts, while there are no facts which (in principle) could not be stated. | |
| From: Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], 'Substitute') | |
| A reaction: Hm. This seems like a nice challenge. The first problem would be infinite facts. Then complex universal facts, beyond the cognizance of any mind. Then facts that change faster than thinking can change. Do you give up yet? Then there's.... |
| 22744 | Parts are not parts if their whole is nothing more than the parts [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: If the whole is nothing more than the sum of the parts, the parts will not be parts. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], I.343) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Bricks lying on the ground are not parts of a wall. For them to be parts of a wall there has to be a wall which is not just the bricks. Nihilists like Van Inwagen can deny the wall in ontology, but in thought we need walls. Conceptual dependence. |
| 13983 | Representation assumes you know the ideas, and the reality, and the relation between the two [Ryle] |
| Full Idea: The theory of Representative Ideas begs the whole question, by assuming a) that we can know these 'Ideas', b) that we can know the realities they represent, and c) we can know a particular 'idea' to be representative of a particular reality. | |
| From: Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], 'Objections') | |
| A reaction: Personally I regard the ideas as immediate (rather than acquired by some knowledge process), and I am dimly hoping that they represent reality (or I'm in deep trouble), and I am struggling to piece together the reality they represent. I'm happy with that. |
| 22748 | Some say motion is perceived by sense, but others say it is by intellect [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: Some assert that motion is perceived by sense, but others that it is not perceived at all by sense but by the intellect through sensation. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], II.062) | |
| A reaction: Descartes' wax argument defends the idea that change is perceived by intellect. The intellect has to distinguish the relative aspect of each motion, such as when someone is walking around on a moving ship. Even sense also need memory. |
| 1561 | Anything can be acceptable in some circumstances and unacceptable in others [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: Anything can be acceptable under the right circumstances, and unacceptable under the wrong circumstances. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §2) |
| 1560 | Lydians prostitute their daughters to raise a dowery, but no Greek would marry such a girl [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: The Lydians find it acceptable for their daughters to work as prostitutes to raise money for getting married, but no one in Greece would be prepared to marry such a girl. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §2) |
| 1559 | Thracians think tattooing adds to a girl's beauty, but elsewhere it is a punishment [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: Thracians think that tattooing enhances a girl's beauty, whereas for everyone else tattooing is a punishment for a crime. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §2) |
| 22746 | If we try to conceive of a line with no breadth, it ceases to exist, and so has no length [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: When we have gone so far as to deprive the length of its breadth altogether, we no longer conceive even the length, but along with the removal of the breadth the conception of the length is also removed. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], I.392) | |
| A reaction: The only explanation of our retaining an understanding of a line even after we have removed its breadth is that we have abandoned experience and conceptualised the line - by idealising it. |
| 22741 | The incorporeal is not in the nature of body, and so could not emerge from it [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: The incorporeal will never come into existence from body because the nature of the incorporeal does not exist in body. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], I.225) | |
| A reaction: So nothing high could be made of pebbles because pebbles are not high? His argument depends on incorporeality having an intrinsically incorporeal nature. Pebbles have some height which can be extended. |
| 13980 | If you like judgments and reject propositions, what are the relata of incoherence in a judgment? [Ryle] |
| Full Idea: Those who find 'judgments' everywhere and propositions nowhere find that some judgments cohere whereas others are incoherent. What is the status of the terms between which these relations hold? | |
| From: Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], IV) | |
| A reaction: Ryle is playing devil's advocate, but this strikes me as a nice point. I presume Russell after 1906 is the sort of thinker he has in mind. |
| 13978 | Husserl and Meinong wanted objective Meanings and Propositions, as subject-matter for Logic [Ryle] |
| Full Idea: It is argued by Husserl and (virtually) by Meinong that only if there are such entities as objective Meanings - and propositions are just a species of Meaning - is there anything for Logic to be about. | |
| From: Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], IV) | |
| A reaction: It is presumably this proposal which led to the scepticism about meanings in Wittgenstein, Quine and Kripke. The modern view, which strikes me as right, is that logic is about inference, and so doesn't need a subject-matter. |
| 13977 | When I utter a sentence, listeners grasp both my meaning and my state of mind [Ryle] |
| Full Idea: If I have uttered my sentence aloud, a listener can both understand what I say or grasp my meaning, and also infer to my state of mind. | |
| From: Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], I) | |
| A reaction: This simple observations seems rather important. If we shake written words onto the floor, they might add up to a proper sentence, but half of the point of a sentence is missing. Irony trades on the gap between meaning and state of mind. |
| 13976 | 'Propositions' name what is thought, because 'thoughts' and 'judgments' are too ambiguous [Ryle] |
| Full Idea: As the orthodox terms 'thoughts' and 'judgments' are equivocal, since they may equally well denote 'thinkings' as 'what-is-thought', the 'accusatives' of acts of thinking have come to be called 'propositions'. | |
| From: Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], I) | |
| A reaction: I have understood propositions to be capable of truth or falsity. 'What is thought' could be a right old jumble of images and disjointed fragments. Propositions are famous for their unity! |
| 13981 | Several people can believe one thing, or make the same mistake, or share one delusion [Ryle] |
| Full Idea: We ordinarily find no difficulty in saying of a given thing that several people believe it and so, if they think it false, 'make the same mistake' or 'labour under the same delusion'. | |
| From: Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], IV) | |
| A reaction: Ryle is playing devil's advocate, but this (like 13980) strikes me as quite good support for propositions. I suppose you can describe these phenomena as assent to sentences, but they might be very different sentences to express the same delusion. |
| 13987 | We may think in French, but we don't know or believe in French [Ryle] |
| Full Idea: Although we speak of thinking in French, we never talk of knowing or believing or opining in French. | |
| From: Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], 'Substitute') | |
| A reaction: Once again Ryle is playing devil's advocate, but he does it rather well, and offers good support for my belief in propositions. I love this. 'I know, in French, a bank where the wild thyme blows'. |
| 13989 | There are no propositions; they are just sentences, used for thinking, which link to facts in a certain way [Ryle] |
| Full Idea: There are no substantial propositions...There is just a relation between grammatical structure and the logical structure of facts. 'Proposition' denotes the same as 'sentence' or 'statement'. A proposition is not what I think, but what I think or talk in. | |
| From: Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], 'Conclusions') | |
| A reaction: The conclusion of Ryle's discussion, but I found his support for propositions much more convincing than his critique of them, or his attempt at an alternative linguistic account. He never mentioned animals, so he self-evidently hasn't grasped the problem. |
| 13982 | If we accept true propositions, it is hard to reject false ones, and even nonsensical ones [Ryle] |
| Full Idea: All the arguments for the subsistence of true propositions seem to hold good for the subsistence of false ones. We might even have to find room for absurd or nonsensical ones like 'some round squares are not red-headed'. | |
| From: Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], 'Objections') | |
| A reaction: A particularly nice example of a Category Mistake from the man who made them famous. Why can't we just make belief a proposition attitude, so I equally believe 'sea is blue', 'grass is pink' and 'trees are bifocal', but the status of my belief varies? |
| 1567 | How could someone who knows everything fail to act correctly? [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: If someone knows the nature of everything, how could he fail to be able also to act correctly in every case? | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §8) |
| 1563 | Every apparent crime can be right in certain circumstances [Anon (Diss), by PG] |
| Full Idea: It can be right, in certain circumstances, to steal, to break a solemn promise, to rob temples, and even (as Orestes did) to murder one's nearest and dearest. | |
| From: report of Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §3) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: Not sure about the last one! I suppose you can justify any hideousness if the fate of the universe depends on it. It must be better to die than the perform certain extreme deeds. |
| 1562 | It is right to lie to someone, to get them to take medicine they are reluctant to take [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: It is right to lie to your parents, in order to get them to take a good medicine they are reluctant to take. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §3) | |
| A reaction: I dread to think what the medicines were which convinced the writer of this. A rule such as this strikes me as dangerous. Justifiable in extreme cases. House on fire etc. |
| 1566 | The first priority in elections is to vote for people who support democracy [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: A lottery is not democratic, because every state contains people who are not democratic, and if the lottery chooses them they will destroy the democracy. People should elect those who are observed to favour democracy. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §7) |
| 1565 | We learn language, and we don't know who teaches us it [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: We learn language, and we don't know who teaches us it. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §6) |
| 22747 | A man walking backwards on a forwards-moving ship is moving in a fixed place [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: If a ship moves forward and a man carries a rod backwards on it, then it is possible for an object to move without quitting its place. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], II.056) | |
| A reaction: [summary of a verbose paragraph] The point is that you cannot define movement as change of place (contrary to Russell's proposal!). The concept of a place seems to be relative. Walking on a treadmill. |
| 22749 | Time doesn't end with the Universe, because tensed statements about destruction remain true [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: It is absurd to say that when the Universe is destroyed time does not exist; for the statement that it was destroyed once and that it is being destroyed are indicative of times. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], II.188) | |
| A reaction: Intriguing. He takes it that a proposition can be true even though nothing exists. This is not merely an affirmation of the tensed A-series view of time, but he even offers tenses as evidence that the A-series is correct. That time could cease was a view. |
| 22750 | Time is divisible, into past, present and future [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: Time cannot be indivisible, since it is divided into past, present and future. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], II.193) | |
| A reaction: Does the fact that you can name the parts of something prove that it is divisible? Do electrons have left and right-hand sides? |
| 22742 | Socrates either dies when he exists (before his death) or when he doesn't (after his death) [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: Socrates either dies when existing, or when not existing. …He does not die when he exists, for he is alive, and he does not die when he has died, for then he will be dying twice, which is absurd. So then, Socrates does not die. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], I.269) | |
| A reaction: A nice dramatisation of a major dilemma. The present moment is just the boundary between the past and the future, and so has no magnitude, and hence nothing can occur during the present. Perhaps my favourite philosophical dilemma. |
| 22751 | If the present is just the limit of the past or the future, it can't exist because they don't exist [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: If the present is the limit of the past, and the limit of the past has passed away together with that of which it is the limit, the present no longer exists. And if the present begins the future, which doesn't exist, the present does not yet exist. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], II.201) | |
| A reaction: If I mark a line on the ground where the wall will begin, the limit seems prior to the object. The gun starts the race, but is not part of it. That said, I cannot think of any more mysterious entity than the present moment. It isn't a line or a bang. |
| 22730 | All men agree that God is blessed, imperishable, happy and good [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: All men have one common preconception about God, according to which he is a blessed creature and imperishable and perfect in happiness and receptive of nothing evil. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], I.033) | |
| A reaction: He observes this after he has pointed the enormous variety of religious beliefs. He offers this unanimity as a reason to believe that it is true. |
| 22739 | God must suffer to understand suffering [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: God cannot have a notion of suffering if he has not experience it. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], I.163) | |
| A reaction: Christians like to portray God as suffering because of his son's horrible death. We can imagine experiences we have never had, and presumably God is better at that than we are. |
| 22738 | The Divine must lack the virtues of continence and fortitude, because they are not needed [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: If the Divine is all-virtuous, it possesses all the virtues. But it does not possess the virtues of continence and fortitude unless there are certain things which are hard for God to abstain from and hard to endure. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], I.151) | |
| A reaction: Courage would also be unnecessary, we assume. Good people are not tempted to steal, and hence do not need to resist it. It is a mistake to attribute human virtues to the Divine. Humans lack the virtues of a good frog. |
| 22734 | God is defended by agreement, order, absurdity of denying God, and refutations [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: Arguments for God have four modes: from universal agreement, from the orderly arrangement of the universe, from the absurd consequences of denying God, and from undermining the opposing arguments. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], I.060) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] The loss of status of the argument from universal agreement has had a huge influence. We now realise that a very wide consensus is no guarantee of truth in anything. |
| 22736 | God's sensations imply change, and hence perishing, which is absurd, so there is no such God [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: If God has sensation he is altered, …so he is receptive of change, including change for the worse. If so, he is also perishable, but that is absurd; therefore it is absurd also to claim that God exists. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], I.146) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] It is certainly paradoxical to think that God is eternal and unchanging, but also capable of perception and thought, which necessitate change. Some theological ingenuity is needed to explain this. |
| 22740 | God without virtue is absurd, but God's virtues will be better than God [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: If the Divine exists it either has or has not virtue. If it has not it is base and unhappy, which is absurd. But if it has it, there will exist something which is better than God, just as a virtue of a horse is better than the horse itself. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], I.176) | |
| A reaction: It is obviously better to think of a virtue as some mode of a thing, rather than as a separate attachment. This is an ontological argument, because it is inferred from the concept of God. |
| 22735 | The original substance lacked motion or shape, and was given these by a cause [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: They say that the substance of existing things being of itself motionless and shapeless must be put in motion and shape by some cause. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], I.075) | |
| A reaction: Interestingly, Sextus doesn't seem to think that the existence of the original substance also needs a cause. This substance sounds like a relative of Aristotle's Prime Matter. The source of motion isn't really a 'design' argument. |
| 22732 | The perfections of God were extrapolations from mankind [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: It is said that …the idea that God is eternal and imperishable and perfect in happiness was introduced by way of transference from mankind. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], I.045) | |
| A reaction: This view is found in Hume, and in Feuerbach. I presume 'transference' means extrapolation and idealisation. If God exists, we may have no option but to think of God anthropomorphically. |
| 22728 | Gods were invented as watchers of people's secret actions [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: It is asserted that those who first led mankind …invented gods as watchers of all the sinful and righteous acts of men, so that none should dare to do wrong even in secret. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], I.016) | |
| A reaction: Sextus is a sceptic about everything, so this scepticism about the gods is nothing special. I'm not sure if this is why the gods were invented, but it seems to be the main role assigned to God by the Christian church, as the basis of religious morality. |
| 22737 | An incorporeal God could do nothing, and a bodily god would perish, so there is no God [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: The Divine is not incorporeal, since that is inanimate and insensitive and incapable of any action; nor is it a body, since that is subject to change and perishable; so the Divine does not exist. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], I.151) | |
| A reaction: I find this quite persuasive. An incorporeal God has to be ascribed magical powers in order to interact with what is corporeal. A corporeal God is subject to entropy and all the depredations of the physical world. |
| 22731 | It is mad to think that what is useful to us, like lakes and rivers, are gods [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: To suppose that lakes and rivers, and whatsoever else is of a nature to be useful to us, are gods surpasses the height of lunacy. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], I.040) | |
| A reaction: He also points out the what is useful to us decays and changes. Sextus lived in a time when monotheism was becoming dominant. |