27 ideas
| 11103 | We aren't stuck with our native conceptual scheme; we can gradually change it [Quine] |
| Full Idea: We must not leap to the fatalistic conclusion that we are stuck with the conceptual scheme that we grew up in. We can change it bit by bit, plank by plank. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 5) | |
| A reaction: This is an interesting commitment to Strawson's 'revisionary' metaphysics, rather than its duller cousin 'descriptive' metaphysics. Good for Quine. Remember, though, Davidson's 'On the Very Idea of Conceptual Scheme'. |
| 11092 | A river is a process, with stages; if we consider it as one thing, we are considering a process [Quine] |
| Full Idea: A river is a process through time, and the river stages are its momentary parts. Identification of the river bathed in once with the river bathed in again is just what determines our subject matter to be a river process as opposed to a river stage. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 1) | |
| A reaction: So if we take a thing which has stages, but instead of talking about the stages we talk about a single thing that endures through them, then we are talking about a process. Sounds very good to me. |
| 11093 | We don't say 'red' is abstract, unlike a river, just because it has discontinuous shape [Quine] |
| Full Idea: 'Red' is surely not going to be opposed to 'Cayster' [name of a river], as abstract to concrete, merely because of discontinuity in geometrical shape? | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 2) | |
| A reaction: I've been slow to grasp the truth of this. However, Quine assumes that 'red' is concrete because 'Cayster' is, but it is perfectly arguable that 'Cayster' is an abstraction, despite all that water. |
| 11101 | General terms don't commit us ontologically, but singular terms with substitution do [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The use of general terms does not commit us to admitting a corresponding abstract entity into our ontology, but an abstract singular term, including the law of putting equals for equals, flatly commits us to an abstract entity named by the term. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 4) | |
| A reaction: Does this mean that in 'for the sake of the children', I have to believe in 'sakes' if I can find a synonym which will substitute for it? |
| 11096 | Discourse generally departmentalizes itself to some degree [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Discourse generally departmentalizes itself to some degree. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 2) | |
| A reaction: I pick this out because I think it is important. There is a continually shifting domain in any conversation ('what we are talking about'), and speech cannot be understand if the shifting domain or department has not been grasped. |
| 11099 | Understanding 'is square' is knowing when to apply it, not knowing some object [Quine] |
| Full Idea: No more need be demanded of 'is square' than that our listener learn when to expect us to apply it to an object and when not; there is no need for the phrase itself to be the name in turn of a separate object of any kind. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 4) |
| 11094 | 'Red' is a single concrete object in space-time; 'red' and 'drop' are parts of a red drop [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Why not view 'red' as naming a single concrete object extended in space and time? ..To say a drop is red is to say that the one object, the drop, is a spatio-temporal part of the other, red, as a waterfall is part of a river. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 2) |
| 11097 | Red is the largest red thing in the universe [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Red is the largest red thing in the universe - the scattered total thing whose parts are all the red things. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 3) |
| 17595 | To unite a sequence of ostensions to make one object, a prior concept of identity is needed [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The concept of identity is central in specifying spatio-temporally broad objects by ostension. Without identity, n acts of ostension merely specify up to n objects. ..But when we affirm identity of object between ostensions, they refer to the same object. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 1) | |
| A reaction: Quine says that there is an induction involved. On the whole, Quine seems to give a better account of identity than Geach or Wiggins can offer. |
| 11095 | We should just identify any items which are indiscernible within a given discourse [Quine] |
| Full Idea: We might propound the maxim of the 'identification of indiscernibles': Objects indistinguishable from one another within the terms of a given discourse should be construed as identical for that discourse. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 2) | |
| A reaction: This increasingly strikes me as the correct way to discuss such things. Identity is largely contextual, and two things can be viewed as type-identical for practical purposes (e.g. teaspoons), but distinguished if it is necessary. |
| 11104 | Concepts are language [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Concepts are language. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 5) | |
| A reaction: Hm. This seems to mean that animals and pre-linguistic children have no concepts. I just don't believe that. |
| 11102 | Apply '-ness' or 'class of' to abstract general terms, to get second-level abstract singular terms [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Applying the operator '-ness' or 'class of' to abstract general terms, we get second-level abstract singular terms. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 5) | |
| A reaction: This is the derivation of abstract concepts by naming classes, rather than by deriving equivalence classes. Any theory which doesn't allow multi-level abstraction is self-evidently hopeless. Quine says Frege and Russell get numbers this way. |
| 3926 | The human heart has a natural concern for public good [Hume] |
| Full Idea: While the human heart is compounded of the same elements as at present, it will never be wholly indifferent to public good. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry concerning Principles of Morals [1751], IX.I.222) | |
| A reaction: Even criminals can be patriotic. Why do people dump rubbish in beauty spots? |
| 3929 | No moral theory is of any use if it doesn't serve the interests of the individual concerned [Hume] |
| Full Idea: What theory of morals can ever serve any useful purpose, unless it can show, by a particular detail, that all the duties which it recommends, are also the true interest of each individual? | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry concerning Principles of Morals [1751], IX.II.228) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to disagree, even if occasional cases of extreme altruism can occur. |
| 3925 | Personal Merit is the possession of useful or agreeable mental qualities [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Personal Merit consists altogether in the possession of mental qualities, useful or agreeable to the person himself or to others. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry concerning Principles of Morals [1751], IX.I.217) | |
| A reaction: If pleasure and utility can be intrinsically valuable, why can't virtue be as well? |
| 3922 | Justice only exists to support society [Hume] |
| Full Idea: The necessity of justice to the support of society is the sole foundation of that virtue. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry concerning Principles of Morals [1751], III.II.163) | |
| A reaction: A sense of fairness precedes the building of a society, rather than arising out of it. |
| 23560 | If we all naturally had everything we could ever desire, the virtue of justice would be irrelevant [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Suppose nature has bestowed on humans such abundance of external conveniences that every individual is fully provided with whatever his appetites can want. …Justice, in that case, would be totally useless, and have no place in the catalogue of virtues. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry concerning Principles of Morals [1751], I.III.145) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This seems to emphasise possessions and satisfaction of appetites, but presumably it would also need total security from other humans, which nature might struggle to provide. No sharing in this imagined world. |
| 3918 | Moral philosophy aims to show us our duty [Hume] |
| Full Idea: The end of all moral speculations is to teach us our duty. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry concerning Principles of Morals [1751], I.136) | |
| A reaction: A surprising view from someone who thinks morals are basically sentiment. |
| 3919 | Conclusions of reason do not affect our emotions or decisions to act [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Inference and conclusions of the understanding have no hold of the affections nor set in motion the active powers of man. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry concerning Principles of Morals [1751], I.136) | |
| A reaction: I disagree. This is a typical empiricist separation of ideas from experience, of inner from outer, of analytic from synthetic. |
| 3928 | Virtue just requires careful calculation and a preference for the greater happiness [Hume] |
| Full Idea: The sole trouble which virtue demands is that of just calculation, and a steady preference for the greater happiness. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry concerning Principles of Morals [1751], IX.II.228) | |
| A reaction: Hume was the parent of utilitarianism. Can one person exhibit virtue on a desert island? |
| 3923 | No one would cause pain to a complete stranger who happened to be passing [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Would any man, who is walking along, tread as willingly on another's gouty toes, whom he has no quarrel with, as on the hard flint and pavement? | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry concerning Principles of Morals [1751], V.II.183) | |
| A reaction: He is right that we empathise with the pain of others, and this is presumably one of the bases of morality. Animals lack sympathy for other animals. |
| 3924 | Nature makes private affections come first, because public concerns are spread too thinly [Hume] |
| Full Idea: It is wisely ordained by nature, that private connexions should commonly prevail over universal views and considerations; otherwise our affections and actions would be dissipated and lost, for want of a proper limited object. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry concerning Principles of Morals [1751], V.II.186n) | |
| A reaction: A very good objection to the excessively altruistic demands of utilitarianism. |
| 3921 | The safety of the people is the supreme law [Hume] |
| Full Idea: The safety of the people is the supreme law. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry concerning Principles of Morals [1751], III.II.157) | |
| A reaction: No political system ever seems able to disagree with this. |
| 3927 | Society prefers helpful lies to harmful truth [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Truths which are pernicious to society, if any such there be, will yield to errors which are salutary and advantageous. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry concerning Principles of Morals [1751], IX.II.228) | |
| A reaction: Hume probably meant religion. Two centuries later we have a greater appetite for uncomfortable truth. |
| 3920 | If you equalise possessions, people's talents will make them unequal again [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Render possessions ever so equal, men's different degrees of art, care, and industry will immediately break that equality. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry concerning Principles of Morals [1751], III.II.155) | |
| A reaction: This might not be so if there is a totalitarian restriction of economic freedom. |
| 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. |