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18702
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Names, descriptions and predicates refer to things; without that, language and thought are baffling [Davidson]
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Full Idea:
The simple thesis that names and descriptions often refer to things, and that predicates often have an extension in the world of things, is obvious, and essential to the most elementary appreciation of both language and the thoughts we express.
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From:
Donald Davidson (Replies to Critics [1998], p.323)
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A reaction:
In 1983 Davidson had been a rare modern champion of the coherence theory of truth, but this is his clearest later renunciation of that view (and quite right too).
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23692
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Good and bad are a matter of actions, not of internal dispositions [Foot]
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Full Idea:
Some philosophers insist that dispositions, motives and other 'internal' elements are the primary determinants of moral goodness and badness. I have never been a 'virtue ethicist' is this sense. For me it is what is done that stands in this position.
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From:
Philippa Foot (Rationality and Goodness [2004], p.2), quoted by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought 4 'Virtue'
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A reaction:
[She mentions Hursthouse, Slote, Swanton] I'm quite struck by this. Aristotle insists that morality concerns actions. It doesn't seem that a person could be a saint by having wonderful dispositions, but doing nothing. Paraplegics?
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