9 ideas
9184 | We can't presume that all interesting concepts can be analysed [Williamson] |
Full Idea: We have no prior reason to suppose that philosophically significant concepts have interesting analyses into necessary and sufficient conditions. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (Review of Bob Hale's 'Abstract Objects' [1988]) | |
A reaction: We might think that they are either analysable or primitive, and that failure of analysis invites us to take a concept as primitive. But maybe God can analyse it and we can't. |
9183 | Platonism claims that some true assertions have singular terms denoting abstractions, so abstractions exist [Williamson] |
Full Idea: The Fregean argument for platonism is that some true assertions contain singular terms which denote abstract objects if they denote anything; since the assertions are true, the singular terms denote. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (Review of Bob Hale's 'Abstract Objects' [1988]) | |
A reaction: I am perplexed that anyone would rest their view of reality on such an argument. The obvious comparison would be with true remarks about blatantly fictional characters, or blatantly invented concepts such as 'checkmate'. |
21733 | The right-wing conception of freedom is based on the idea of self-ownership [Cohen,GA] |
Full Idea: The right-wing conception of freedom is, I think, founded on the idea that each person is the morally rightful owner of himself, even if existing legal systems do not acknowledge it. Let us call that the 'self-ownership' thesis. | |
From: G.A. Cohen (Are Freedom and Equality Compatible? [1986], 1) | |
A reaction: He cites Nozick as articulating this view. At the end Cohen rejects self-ownership, though he agrees that no one would accept that the state could be the owner of your eyes. Do I own my hair after it is cut? |
21739 | Plenty of people have self-ownership, but still lack autonomy [Cohen,GA] |
Full Idea: Universal self-ownership fails to ensure autonomy, since it tends to produce proletarians, who lack it. | |
From: G.A. Cohen (Are Freedom and Equality Compatible? [1986], 3) | |
A reaction: The implication is that autonomy is not a property of individuals but a social phenomenon. Self-owning people can still be imprisoned. What about autonomy without self-ownership? A bright slave who is given extensive responsibility? |
21734 | It is plausible that no one has an initial right to own land and natural resources [Cohen,GA] |
Full Idea: One may plausibly say of external things in their initial state, of raw land and natural resources, that no person has a greater right to them than any other does. | |
From: G.A. Cohen (Are Freedom and Equality Compatible? [1986], 1) | |
A reaction: How about if your group has lived on that plot for fifty generations, and some interlopers arrive and claim part of it. No one thought of 'owning' it till the interlopers arrived. Native Americans and Australians. |
21736 | It is doubtful whether any private property was originally acquired legitimately [Cohen,GA] |
Full Idea: It is easy to doubt that much actually existing private property was formed in what anyone could think was a legitimating way. | |
From: G.A. Cohen (Are Freedom and Equality Compatible? [1986], 2) | |
A reaction: What if I created an artificial island out of unwanted raw materials? What about the first humans to reach some remote territory? |
21735 | Every thing which is now private started out as unowned [Cohen,GA] |
Full Idea: In the prehistory of anything that is now private property there was at least one moment at which something privately unowned was taken into private ownership. | |
From: G.A. Cohen (Are Freedom and Equality Compatible? [1986], 2) | |
A reaction: He is obviously talking about land and natural resources. Presumably a table which I made and own was always private property, although the land where the trees were grown was not. Though in some communities what I make could be automatically communal. |
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. |