9 ideas
18270 | Choice suggests that intensions are not needed to ensure classes [Coffa] |
Full Idea: The axiom of choice was an assumption that implicitly questioned the necessity of intensions to guarantee the presence of classes. | |
From: J. Alberto Coffa (The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap [1991], 7 'Log') | |
A reaction: The point is that Choice just picks out members for no particular reason. So classes, it seems, don't need a reason to exist. |
18263 | The semantic tradition aimed to explain the a priori semantically, not by Kantian intuition [Coffa] |
Full Idea: The semantic tradition's problem was the a priori; its enemy, Kantian pure intuition; its purpose, to develop a conception of the a priori in which pure intuition played no role; its strategy, to base that theory on a development of semantics. | |
From: J. Alberto Coffa (The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap [1991], 2 Intro) | |
A reaction: It seems to me that intuition, in the modern sense, has been unnecessarily demonised. I would define it as 'rational insights which cannot be fully articulated'. Sherlock Holmes embodies it. |
18272 | Platonism defines the a priori in a way that makes it unknowable [Coffa] |
Full Idea: The trouble with Platonism had always been its inability to define a priori knowledge in a way that made it possible for human beings to have it. | |
From: J. Alberto Coffa (The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap [1991], 7 'What') | |
A reaction: This is the famous argument of Benacerraf 1973. |
18266 | Mathematics generalises by using variables [Coffa] |
Full Idea: The instrument of generality in mathematics is the variable. | |
From: J. Alberto Coffa (The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap [1991], 4 'The conc') | |
A reaction: I like the idea that there are variables in ordinary speech, pronouns being the most obvious example. 'Cats' is a variable involving quantification over a domain of lovable fluffy mammals. |
4051 | People will volunteer for euthanasia because they think other people want them dead [Kamisar] |
Full Idea: In the process of voluntary euthanasia we will sweep up some who are not really tired of life, but think others are tired of them. | |
From: Yale Kamisar (Against Euthanasia [1958], p.78) | |
A reaction: We could permit such choices. Or set up systems to eliminate such cases. |
4050 | We only allow voluntary euthanasia to someone who is both sane and crazed by pain [Kamisar] |
Full Idea: It seems that voluntary euthanasia can only be carried out by someone who is both sane, and crazed by pain. | |
From: Yale Kamisar (Against Euthanasia [1958], p.77) | |
A reaction: A fair point, despite its obvious exaggeration. How much pain must someone experience before we permit them to choose euthanasia? |
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 |
18279 | Relativity is as absolutist about space-time as Newton was about space [Coffa] |
Full Idea: If the theory of relativity might be thought to support an idealist construal of space and time, it is no less absolutistic about space-time than Newton's theory was about space. | |
From: J. Alberto Coffa (The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap [1991]) | |
A reaction: [He cites Minkowski, Weyl and Cartan for this conclusion] Coffa is clearly a bit cross about philosophers who draw naive idealist and relativist conclusions from relativity. |
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. |