7 ideas
20955 | Art can make reason more all-inclusive, by articulating what seemed inexpressible [Bowie] |
Full Idea: The early German Romantics argued that art pointed to a more all-inclusive conception of reason, which can offer ways of articulating what is not conceptually accessible. | |
From: Andrew Bowie (Introduction to German Philosophy [2003], 5 'Reason') | |
A reaction: [This is Novalis, F.Schlegel, Schleiermacher, and Hölderlin] I'm in favour of expanding reason, to include assessment of situations and coherence, rather than just stepwise reasoning. Not sure that art 'articulates' something new. |
9159 | You can't simply convert geometry into algebra, as some spatial content is lost [Burge] |
Full Idea: Although one can translate geometrical propositions into algebraic ones and produce equivalent models, the meaning of geometrical propositions seems to me to be thereby lost. Pure geometry involves spatial content, even if abstracted from physical space. | |
From: Tyler Burge (Frege on Apriority [2000], IV) | |
A reaction: This supports Frege's view (against Quine) that geometry won't easily fit into the programme of logicism. I agree with Burge. You would be focusing on the syntax of geometry, and leaving out the semantics. |
20950 | German Idealism says our thinking and nature have the same rational structure [Bowie] |
Full Idea: German Idealism aims to demonstrate that our thinking relates to a nature which is intelligibly structured in the same way as our thinking is structured. | |
From: Andrew Bowie (Introduction to German Philosophy [2003], 3 'Limits') | |
A reaction: Now that's an idealism I might buy into. Frege thought his logic was mapping rational reality. My angle is that we are a product of this 'reality', so we should expect our thinking to be similarly structured. Reason is derived from nature. |
20942 | Nazis think race predetermines the self [Bowie] |
Full Idea: The Nazi idea is that the self is predetermined primarily by its race. | |
From: Andrew Bowie (Introduction to German Philosophy [2003], Intro) | |
A reaction: I suspect that I occasionally encounter this view, in very patriotic people. But then you meet people who feeling that their self is mainly determined by support of a football team. Note, though, 'pre-'determined. Hegel makes this idea possible? |
20946 | Rhetoric is built into language, so it cannot be stripped from philosophy [Bowie] |
Full Idea: The attempt to rid philosophy of rhetoric falls prey precisely to that fact that what is involved in rhetoric is inherent in what is built into all natural languages by their genesis in the real historical world. | |
From: Andrew Bowie (Introduction to German Philosophy [2003], 2 'Hamann') | |
A reaction: Rhetoric can range from charming to bullying, and it is the latter which is the problem. The underlying issue is dogma versus dialectic. Some analytic philosophers have a good shot at being non-rhetorical. |
1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |