6 ideas
| 15045 | The big issue since the eighteenth century has been: what is Reason? Its effect, limits and dangers? [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: I think the central issue of philosophy and critical thought since the eighteenth century has always been, still is, and will, I hope, remain the question: What is this Reason that we use? What are its historical effects? What are its limits and dangers? | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Space, Knowledge and Power (interview) [1982], p.358) | |
| A reaction: One can hardly deny the fairness of the question, but I hope that won't prevent us from trying to be rational. Maybe logicians do a better job of clarifying reason than the political and historical speculations of Foucault? |
| 14796 | Independent truth (if there is any) is the ultimate result of sufficient enquiry [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: I hold that truth's independence of individual opinions is due (so far as there is any 'truth') to its being the predestined result to which sufficient enquiry would ultimately lead. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Pragmatism in Retrospect [1906], p.288) |
| 15335 | Peirce's theory offers anti-realist verificationism, but surely how things are is independent of us? [Horsten on Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Peirce's anti-realist theory of a truth is a verificationist theory. Truth is judged to be an epistemic notion. But the way things are is independent of the evidence we may be able to obtain for or against a judgement. | |
| From: comment on Charles Sanders Peirce (Pragmatism in Retrospect [1906]) by Leon Horsten - The Tarskian Turn 02.1 | |
| A reaction: This criticism doesn't quite capture the point that Peirce's theory is that truth is an ideal, not the set of opinions that miserable little humans eventually settle for when they get bored. Truth is an aspect of rationality, perhaps. |
| 14795 | Pragmatism is a way of establishing meanings, not a theory of metaphysics or a set of truths [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Pragmatism is no doctrine of metaphysics, no attempt to determine the truth of things. It is merely a method of ascertaining the meanings of hard words and of abstract concepts. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Pragmatism in Retrospect [1906], p.271) | |
| A reaction: Suddenly I recognise a prominent strand of modern philosophy of language (especially in America) for what it is. |
| 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. |