Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Nature of Things', 'Brains and Behaviour' and 'The Communist Manifesto'

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15 ideas

4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 7. Natural Sets
A class is natural when everybody can spot further members of it [Quinton]
     Full Idea: To say that a class is natural is to say that when some of its members are shown to people they pick out others without hesitation and in agreement.
     From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat')
     A reaction: He concedes a number of problems with his view, but I admire his attempt to at least begin to distinguish the natural (real!) classes from the ersatz ones. A mention of causal powers would greatly improve his story.
7. Existence / E. Categories / 5. Category Anti-Realism
Extreme nominalists say all classification is arbitrary convention [Quinton]
     Full Idea: Pure, extreme nominalism sees all classification as the product of arbitrary convention.
     From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat')
     A reaction: I'm not sure what the word 'arbitrary' is doing there. Nominalists are not daft, and if they can classify any way they like, they are not likely to choose an 'arbitrary' system. Pragmatism tells the right story here.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 5. Natural Properties
The naturalness of a class depends as much on the observers as on the objects [Quinton]
     Full Idea: The naturalness of a class depends as essentially on the nature of the observers who classify as it does on the nature of the objects that they classify. ...It depends on our perceptual apparatus, and on our relatively mutable needs and interests.
     From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat')
     A reaction: This seems to translate 'natural' as 'natural for us', which is not much use to scientists, who spend quite a lot of effort combating folk wisdom. Do desirable sports cars constitute a natural class?
Properties imply natural classes which can be picked out by everybody [Quinton]
     Full Idea: To say there are properties is to say there are natural classes, classes introduction to some of whose members enables people to pick out others without hesitation and in agreement.
     From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat')
     A reaction: Aristotle would like this approach, but it doesn't find many friends among modern logician/philosophers. We should go on to ask why people agree on these things. Causal powers will then come into it.
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 4. Uninstantiated Universals
Uninstantiated properties must be defined using the instantiated ones [Quinton]
     Full Idea: Properties that have no concrete instances must be defined in terms of those that have.
     From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat')
     A reaction: I wonder what the dodo used to smell like?
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / b. Individuation by properties
An individual is a union of a group of qualities and a position [Quinton, by Campbell,K]
     Full Idea: Quinton proposes that an individual is a union of a group of qualities and a position.
     From: report of Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], Pt I) by Keith Campbell - The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars §5
     A reaction: This seems the obvious defence of a bundle account of objects against the charge that indiscernibles would have to be identical. It introduces, however, 'positions' into the ontology, but maybe that price must be paid. Materialism needs space.
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 4. Cultural relativism
For the proletariate, law, morality and religion are just expressions of bourgeois interests [Marx/Engels]
     Full Idea: Law, morality, religion are to the proletarian so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.
     From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §1)
     A reaction: This Marxist idea has been the main driving force in spreading relativist views through modern culture. There is a lot of truth here, but philosophy is plausibly the search for truths which both the bourgeois and the proletarian will accept.
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 4. Behaviourism Critique
Superactors and superspartans count against behaviourism [Putnam, by Searle]
     Full Idea: Putnam proposed the superactor/superspartan objection to behaviourism.
     From: report of Hilary Putnam (Brains and Behaviour [1963]) by John Searle - The Rediscovery of the Mind Ch. 2.II
     A reaction: This is a beautiful compression of the obvious counterexamples, which are behaviour-wth-no-experience, and experience-with-no-behaviour. Presumably, though, Spartans are disposed to go 'aagh!' when they get home, and there are no 'super' actors.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention
Bourgeois interests create our morality, law and religion [Marx/Engels]
     Full Idea: Morality, law and religion are bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.
     From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], p.230), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 9
     A reaction: The obvious question is whether this creation of values is conscious or unconscious. Personally I believe in conspiracies. Some cynical conversations go on behind the scenes, of which historians will never hear.
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 9. Communism
Modern governments are just bourgeois management committees [Marx/Engels]
     Full Idea: The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.
     From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §1)
     A reaction: In Britain the Labour Party and the Trade Unions have appeared since 1848, but bourgeoisie control of the media has pushed us a long way back towards Marx's time. Government will always be someone's management committee.
Communism aims to abolish not all property, but bourgeois property [Marx/Engels]
     Full Idea: The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property.
     From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §2)
     A reaction: This is a sinister remark which has led to huge numbers of murders in the Soviet Union and China. People resent having their property 'abolished', especially if they have worked hard for it. But most of our wealth is owned by about 2% of our people.
Many of the bourgeois rights grievances are a form of self-defence [Marx/Engels]
     Full Idea: A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances, in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society.
     From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §3.II)
     A reaction: …so don't try being nice to us. No TRUE bourgeois would actually want to help the proletariate… Nevertheless, he is probably largely right. Do we want the poor to suffer? No. Do we want them to be as rich as us? No!
25. Social Practice / A. Freedoms / 5. Freedom of lifestyle
The free development of each should be the condition for the free development of all [Marx/Engels]
     Full Idea: In a communist society we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
     From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §2)
     A reaction: This ringing slogan is remarkably close to John Stuart Mill's defence of liberalism, where liberty is an absolute, as long as it avoids the liberty of others. Personally I think freedom is marginal in political philosophy, like food and shelter.
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles
Communists want to rescue education from the ruling class [Marx/Engels]
     Full Idea: Communists seek to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.
     From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §2)
     A reaction: Someone has to control education, and I would personally prefer it if the controllers were well educated themselves. Neutral education is an idle dream. We must educate for democracy, if we really want democracy.
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / d. Study of history
The history of all existing society is the history of class struggles [Marx/Engels]
     Full Idea: The history of all existing society is the history of class struggles.
     From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §1)
     A reaction: This seems to make, say, the English Peasants' Revolt of 1481 crucial, and the building of Lincoln Cathedral fairly minor. Where does the advent of the telephone figure? Etc. Still, we must concede his point. Most medieval history is about power.