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6844
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Scientism is the view that everything can be explained causally through scientific method [Critchley]
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Full Idea:
Scientism is the belief that all phenomena can be explained through the methodology of the natural sciences, and the belief that, therefore, all phenomena are capable of a causal explanation.
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From:
Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.196)
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A reaction:
He links two ideas together, but I tend to subscribe fully to the second idea, but less fully to the first. Scientific method, if there is such a thing (Idea 6804), may not be the best way to lay bare the causal network of reality.
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6835
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German idealism aimed to find a unifying principle for Kant's various dualisms [Critchley]
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Full Idea:
In his Third Critique Kant established a series of dualisms (pure/practical reason, nature/freedom, epistemology/ethics) but failed to provide a unifying principle; German idealism can be seen as an attempt to provide this principle.
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From:
Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.187)
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A reaction:
He cites 'subject', 'spirit', 'art', 'will to power', 'praxis' and 'being' as candidates. This is a helpful overview for someone struggling to get to grips with that tradition.
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6837
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Since Hegel, continental philosophy has been linked with social and historical enquiry. [Critchley]
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Full Idea:
In continental philosophy from Hegel onwards, systematic philosophical questions have to be linked to socio-historical enquiry, and the distinctions between philosophy, history and society begin to fall apart.
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From:
Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.188)
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A reaction:
I have a strong sales resistance to this view of philosophy, just as I would if it was said about mathematics. It seems to imply a bogus view that history exhibits direction and purpose (the 'Whig' view). There are pure reasons among the prejudices.
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6845
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Continental philosophy has a bad tendency to offer 'one big thing' to explain everything [Critchley]
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Full Idea:
In continental philosophy there is a pernicious tendency to explain everything in terms of 'one big thing', such as the 'death drive' (Freud), 'being' (Heidegger), 'the real' (Lacan), 'power' (Foucault), 'the other' (Levinas), or 'différance' (Derrida).
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From:
Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.197)
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A reaction:
From a fan of this type of philosophy, this is a refreshing remark, because if pinpoints a very off-putting feature. Each of these 'big things' should be up for question, not offered as axiomatic assumptions that explain everything else.
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18383
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Plantinga says there is just this world, with possibilities expressed in propositions [Plantinga, by Armstrong]
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Full Idea:
Plantinga rejects other possible worlds, but adds to our world an uncountable multitude of sets of propositions, each set a way that the world might have been, but is in fact not. (Roughly, for each Lewis world, Plantinga has such a set).
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From:
report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974]) by David M. Armstrong - Truth and Truthmakers 07.2
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A reaction:
To me it seems as ontologically extravagant to postulate unexpressed propositions as to postulate concrete possible worlds. I think the best line is that there is just the actual world, with the possibilities implied in its dispositions.
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11891
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Possibilities for an individual can only refer to that individual, in some possible world [Plantinga, by Mackie,P]
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Full Idea:
Plantinga says for an individual to exist with certain properties in some possible world is simply for it to be true that, had that possible world obtained, that individual would have existed with those properties.
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From:
report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 5.1
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A reaction:
This is intended to dissolve the problem of transworld identity, and is certainly a flat rejection of counterparts. I take the point to be that the individual is the key element in defining the possible world, so can't possibly be different.
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6843
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Perceiving meaninglessness is an achievement, which can transform daily life [Critchley]
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Full Idea:
If nihilism is the threat of the collapse of meaning, then my position is that one has to accept meaninglessness as an achievement, as an accomplishment that permits a transformed relation to everyday life.
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From:
Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.193)
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A reaction:
This sounds cheerfully upbeat and life-enhancing, but I don't quite see how it works. One could easily end up laughing at the most appalling tragedies, and that seems to me to be an inappropriate (Aristotelian word) way to respond to tragedy.
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20704
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A possible world contains a being of maximal greatness - which is existence in all worlds [Plantinga, by Davies,B]
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Full Idea:
Plantinga reformulates Malcolm's argument thus: 1) There is a possible world in which there exists a being with maximal greatness, 2) A being has maximal greatness in a world only if it exists in every world.
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From:
report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974], p.213) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 4 'b Descartes'
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A reaction:
This is only Plantinga's starting point, which says nothing about the nature of God, but only that this 'great' being exists in all worlds. I would like to know why it is a 'being' rather than a 'thing'. Malcolm says if it is possible it is necessary.
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