41 ideas
| 22087 | Philosophy fails to articulate the continual becoming of existence [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
| Full Idea: Kierkegaard criticise philosophy for its inability to grasp and to articulate the movement, the continual becoming, that characterises existence. | |
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 2 | |
| A reaction: Heraclitus had a go, and Hegel's historicism focuses on dynamic thought, but this idea concerns the immediacy of individual life. |
| 5651 | Traditional views of truth are tautologies, and truth is empty without a subject [Kierkegaard, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Kierkegaard developed the idea of 'truth as subjectivity'; the traditional conceptions of truth - correspondence or coherence - he regarded as equally empty, not because false, but because tautologous; truth ceases to be empty when related to a subject. | |
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.13 | |
| A reaction: It strikes me that the correspondence theory of truth also involves a subject. If you become too obsessed with the subject, you lose the concept of truth. You need a concept of the non-subject too. Truth concerns the contents of thought. |
| 22919 | A thing which makes no difference seems unlikely to exist [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: It is a powerful argument for something's non-existence that it would make absolutely no difference. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 02 'Everything') | |
| A reaction: Powerful, but not conclusive. Neutrinos don't seem to do much, so it isn't far from there to get a particle which does nothing. |
| 22926 | In addition to causal explanations, they can also be inferential, or definitional, or purposive [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Not all explanations are causal. We can explain some things by showing what follows logically from what, or what is required by the definition of a term, or in terms of purpose. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 05 'Limits') | |
| A reaction: Would these fully qualify as 'explanations'? You don't explain the sea by saying that 'wet' is part of its definition. |
| 22932 | We don't just describe a time as 'now' from a private viewpoint, but as a fact about the world [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: In describing a time as 'now' one is not merely describing the world from one's own point of view, but describing the world as it is. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Mystery') | |
| A reaction: If we accept this view (which implies absolute time, and the A-series view), then 'now' is not an indexical, in the way that 'I' and 'here' are indexicals. |
| 22090 | For me time stands still, and I with it [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
| Full Idea: Time flows, life is a stream, people say, and so on. I do not notice it. Time stands still, and I with it. | |
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843], I:26) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 3 | |
| A reaction: This is from the spokesman for the aesthetic option in life, which is largely pleasure-seeking. No real choices ever occur. |
| 9305 | The plebeians bore others; only the nobility bore themselves [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: Those who bore others are the plebeians, the crowd, the endless train of humanity in general; those who bore themselves are the chosen ones, the nobility. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843], Pt.1), quoted by Lars Svendsen - A Philosophy of Boredom Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: [p.288 in Princeton Edn] Stunningly elitist, but ask where boredom is most overtly found. "Boring" was once a very fashionable word among the English upper classes. Education and wealth seem to intensify boredom. |
| 5650 | Reason is just abstractions, so our essence needs a subjective 'leap of faith' [Kierkegaard, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: For Kierkegaard, reason, which produces only abstractions, negates our individual essence; this essence is subjectivity, and subjectivity exists only in the 'leap of faith', whereby the individual casts in his lot with eternity. | |
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.13 | |
| A reaction: Interesting, but this strikes me as a confusion of reason and logic. A logical life would indeed be a sort of death, and need faith as an escape, but a broad view of the rational life includes emotion, imagination and laughter. Blind faith is disaster. |
| 22095 | There are aesthetic, ethical and religious subjectivity [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
| Full Idea: Kierkegaard distinguishes three main types of subjectivity: aesthetic, ethical and religious. But are these types of people, or different phases of one person's life? | |
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 4 | |
| A reaction: His picture of the religious mode holds no appeal for me. I also can't accept that the aesthetic and the moral are somewho distinct. People may discover they have slipped into one of these modes, but no one chooses them, do they? |
| 20747 | What matters is not right choice, but energy, earnestness and pathos in the choosing [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: In making a choice, it is not so much a question of choosing the right way as of the energy, the earnestness, and the pathos with which one chooses. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843], p.106), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Phenomenology' | |
| A reaction: I'm struggling to identify with the experience he is describing. I can't imagine a more quintessentially existentialist remark than this. Reference to 'energy' in choosing strikes me as very romantic. Is 'the way not taken' crucial (in 'pathos')? |
| 22091 | Kierkegaard prioritises the inward individual, rather than community [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
| Full Idea: Whereas Hegel argues that individuals find fulfilment through participation in their community, Kierkegaard prioritises the inwardness of each person, which is shared only with God. | |
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 3 | |
| A reaction: Sounds like the protestant religion opposing the catholic religion (although Hegel was a protestant). Individual v community is the great debate of the last two centuries in Europe. |
| 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 |
| 22927 | The logical properties of causation are asymmetry, transitivity and irreflexivity [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The usual logical properties of the causal relation are asymmetry (one-way), transitivity and irreflexivity (no self-causing). | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 05 'Great') | |
| A reaction: If two balls rebound off each other, that is only asymmetric if we split the action into two parts, which may be a fiction. Does a bomb cause its own destruction? |
| 22922 | We can identify unoccupied points in space, so they must exist [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: If the midpoint on a line between the chair and the window is five feet from the end of the bookcase. This can be true, but if no object occupies that midpoint, then unoccupied points exist | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 03 'Lessons') | |
| A reaction: We can also locate perfect circles (running through fairy rings, or the rings of Saturn), so they must also exist. But then we can also locate the Loch Ness monster. Hm. |
| 22924 | If spatial points exist, then they must be stationary, by definition [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: If there are such things as points in space, independently of any other object, then these points are by definition stationary (since to be stationary is to stay in the same place, and a point is a place). | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 03 'Search') | |
| A reaction: So what happens if the whole universe moves ten metres to the left? Is the universe defined by the objects in it (which vary), or by the space that contains them? Why can't a location move, even if that is by definition undetectable? |
| 22923 | Absolute space explains actual and potential positions, and geometrical truths [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Absolutists say space plays a number of roles. It is what we refer to when we talk of positions. It makes other things possible (by moving into unoccupied positions). And it explains geometrical truths. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 03 'Redundancy') | |
| A reaction: I am persuaded by these, and am happy to treat space (and time) as a primitive of metaphysics. |
| 22928 | For relationists moving an object beyond the edge of space creates new space [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: For the relationist, if Archytas goes to the edge of space and extends his arm, he is creating a new spatial relation between objects, and thus extending space, which is, after all, just the collection of thos relations. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 05 'beyond') | |
| A reaction: The obvious point is what are you moving your arm into? And how can some movements be in space, while others create new space? It's a bad theory. |
| 22931 | We distinguish time from space, because it passes, and it has a unique present moment [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The most characteristic features of time, which distinguish it from space, are the fact that time passes, and the fact that the present is in some sense unique | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Mystery') | |
| A reaction: The B-series view tries to avoid passing time and present moments. I suspect that modern proponents of the B-series mainly want to unifying their view of time with Einstein's, to give us a scientific space-time. |
| 22917 | Since nothing occurs in a temporal vacuum, there is no way to measure its length [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Since, by definition, nothing happens in a temporal vacuum, there is no possible means of determining its length. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 02 'without change') | |
| A reaction: This is offered a part of a dubious proof that a temporal vacuum is impossible. I like Shoemaker's three worlds thought experiment, which tests this idea to the limit. |
| 22921 | Temporal vacuums would be unexperienced, unmeasured, and unending [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Three arguments that a temporal vacuum is impossible: we can't experience it, we can't measure it, and it would have no reason to ever terminate. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 03 'Lessons') | |
| A reaction: [summarised] The first two reasons are unimpressive. The interiors of black holes are off limits for us. The arrival of time into a timeless situation may actually have occurred, but be beyond our understanding. |
| 22934 | Time can't speed up or slow down, so it doesn't seem to be a 'process' [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Processes can speed up or slow down, but surely the passage of time is not something that can speed up or slow down? | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Mystery') | |
| A reaction: If something is a process we can ask 'process of what?', but the only answer seems to be that it's a process of processing. So it is that which makes processes possible (and so, as I keep saying) it is best viewed as a primitive. |
| 22939 | The B-series doesn't seem to allow change [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: How can anything change in a B-universe? | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Second') | |
| A reaction: It seems that change needs time to move on. A timeless series of varying states doesn't seem to be the same thing as change. B-seriesers must be tempted to deny change, and yet nothing seems more obvious to us than change. |
| 22938 | To say that the past causes the present needs them both to be equally real [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The causal connection between the past and the present seems to require that the past is as real as the present. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'First') | |
| A reaction: Cause and effect need to conjoin in space, but their subsequent separation doesn't seem to be a problem. The idea that causes and their effects must be eternally compresent is an absurdity. |
| 22940 | If the B-universe is eternal, why am I trapped in a changing moment of it? [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: What in the B-universe determines my temporal perspective? I can move around in space at will, but I have no choice over where I am in time. What time I am is something that changes, and again I have no control over that | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Second') | |
| A reaction: The B-series always has to be asserted from the point of view of eternity (e.g. by Einstein). Yet an omniscient mind would still see each of us trapped in our transient moments, so that is part of eternal reality. |
| 22947 | An ordered series can be undirected, but time favours moving from earlier to later [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: A series can be ordered without being directed (such as the series of integers), …but the passage of time indicates a preferred direction, moving from earlier to later events, and never the other way around. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Hidden') | |
| A reaction: I wonder what 'preferred' means here? It is not just memory versus anticipation. The saddest words in the English language are 'Too late!'. It is absurd to say that being too late is an illusion. |
| 22952 | If time's arrow is causal, how can there be non-simultaneous events that are causally unconnected? [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: An objection to the Causal analysis of time's arrow is that it is surely possible for non-simultaneous events to be causally unconnected. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Seeds') | |
| A reaction: I suppose the events could be linked causally by intermediaries. If reality is a vast causal nexus, everything leads to everything else, in some remote way. It's still a good objections, though. |
| 22953 | Time's arrow is not causal if there is no temporal gap between cause and effect [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: If there is no temporal gap between cause and effect, then the causal analysis of time's arrow is doomed. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'simultaneous') | |
| A reaction: A number of recent commentators have rejected the sharp distinction between cause and effect, seeing it as a unified process (which takes time to occur). |
| 22951 | If time's arrow is psychological then different minds can impose different orders on events [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: If the Psychological account of time's arrow is correct …then there is nothing to prevent different minds from imposing different orders on the world. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'The mind's') | |
| A reaction: All we need is for two people to disagree about the order of some past events. The idea that we are psychologically creating time's arrow when everyone feels they are its victims strikes me as a particularly silly theory. |
| 22948 | There are Thermodynamic, Psychological and Causal arrows of time [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The three most significant arrows of time are the Thermodynamic (the direction from order to disorder), the Psychological (from perceptions of events to memories), and the Causal (from cause to effect). | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Three') | |
| A reaction: It would be nice if one of these explained the other two. Le Poidevin rejects the Psychological arrow, and seems to favour the Causal. Since I favour taking time as a primitive, I'm inclined to think that the arrow is included in the deal. |
| 22949 | Presumably if time's arrow is thermodynamic then time ends when entropy is complete [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: One consequence of the Thermodynamic analysis of time's arrow is that a universe in which things are as disordered as they could be would exhibit no direction of time at all, because there would be no more significant changes in entropy. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Three') | |
| A reaction: And presumably time would gradually fizzle out, rather than ending abruptly. If entropy then went into reverse, there would be no time interval between the end and the new beginning. Entropy can vary locally, so it has to be universal. |
| 22950 | If time is thermodynamic then entropy is necessary - but the theory says it is probable [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The Second Law of Thermodynamics says it is overwhelmingly probable that entropy will increase. This leaves the door open for occasional isolated instances of decrease. But the thermodynamic arrow makes the increase a necessity. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Three') | |
| A reaction: Le Poidevin sees this as a clincher against the thermodynamic explanation of the arrow. I'm now sure how the Second Law can even be stated without explicit or implicit reference to time. |
| 22943 | Instantaneous motion is an intrinsic disposition to be elsewhere [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Being in motion at a particular time can be an intrinsic property of an object, as a disposition to be elsewhere than the place it is. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'in present') | |
| A reaction: This needs an ontology which includes unrealised dispositions. People trapped in boring meetings have a disposition to be elsewhere, but they are stuck. I think 'power' is a better word here than 'disposition'. The disposition isn't just for 'elsewhere'. |
| 22945 | The dynamic view of motion says it is primitive, and not reducible to objects, properties and times [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: According to the dynamic account of motion, an object's being in motion is a primitive event, not further analysable in terms of objects, properties and times. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'Zeno') | |
| A reaction: [The rival view is 'static'] Physics suggests that motion may be indefinable, but acceleration can be given a reductive account. If time and space are taken as primitive (which seems sensible to me), then making motion also primitive is a bit greedy. |
| 22937 | If the present could have diverse pasts, then past truths can't have present truthmakers [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: If any number of pasts are compatible with the present state of affairs, and it is only the present state of affairs which can make true or false statements about the past, then no statement about the past is either true or false. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'First') | |
| A reaction: He suggests an explosion which could have had innumerable different causes. The explosion could have had different origins, but not sure that the whole of present reality could. Presentists certainly have problems with truthmakers for the past. |
| 22925 | The present is the past/future boundary, so the first moment of time was not present [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The present is the boundary between past and future, therefore if there was a first moment of time, it could not have been present - because there can be no past at the beginning of time. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 05 'Limits') | |
| A reaction: How about at the start of a race the athletes cannot be running. How about 'all moments of time have preceding moments - apart from the first moment'? |
| 22944 | The primitive parts of time are intervals, not instants [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Intervals of time can be viewed as primitive, and not decomposable into a series of instants. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'in present') | |
| A reaction: Given that instants are nothing, and intervals are something, the latter are clearly the better candidates to be the parts of time. Is there a smallest interval? |
| 22942 | If time is infinitely divisible, then the present must be infinitely short [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Assuming time to be infinitely divisible, the present can have no duration at all, for if it did, we could divide it into parts, and some parts would be earlier than others. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'in present') | |
| A reaction: I quite like Aristotle's view that things only have parts when you actually divide them. In modern physics fields don't seem to be infinitely divisible. It's a puzzle, though, innit? |
| 22946 | The multiverse is distinct time-series, as well as spaces [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: The multiverse is not just a collection of distinct spaces, it is also a collection of distinct time-series. | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 11 'Objections') | |
| A reaction: This boggles the imagination even more than distinct spatial universes. |
| 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. |
| 22941 | How could a timeless God know what time it is? So could God be both timeless and omniscient? [Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Could a timeless being now know what the time was? If so, does this show that there must be something wrong with the idea of God as both timeless and omniscient? | |
| From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'Questions') | |
| A reaction: This is a potential contradiction between the perfections of a supreme God which I had not noticed before. Leibniz tried to refute such objections, but not very successfully, I think. |
| 22088 | Faith is like a dancer's leap, going up to God, but also back to earth [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
| Full Idea: Kierkegaard doesn't use the phrase 'leap of faith'. His metaphor of a dancer's leap expresses the way faith goes 'up' towards God, but also comes back down to earth, and is a way of living in the world. | |
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 2 | |
| A reaction: This entirely contradicts what I was taught about this idea many years ago. Memes turn into Chinese whispers. |