22 ideas
| 1749 | If all laws were abolished, philosophers would still live as they do now [Aristippus elder] |
| Full Idea: If all laws were abolished, philosophers would still live as they do now. | |
| From: Aristippus the elder (fragments/reports [c.395 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.4 | |
| A reaction: Presumably philosophers develop inner laws which other people lack. |
| 6118 | Philosophy is logical analysis, followed by synthesis [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The business of philosophy, as I conceive it, is essentially that of logical analysis, followed by logical synthesis. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.162) | |
| A reaction: I am uneasy about Russell's hopes for the contribution that logic could make, but I totally agree that analysis is the route to wisdom, and I take Aristotle as my role model of an analytical philosopher, rather than the modern philosophers of logic. |
| 6116 | A logical language would show up the fallacy of inferring reality from ordinary language [Russell] |
| Full Idea: We are trying to create a perfectly logical language to prevent inferences from the nature of language to the nature of the world, which are fallacious because they depend upon the logical defects of language. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.159) | |
| A reaction: Wittgenstein seems to have rebelled against this idea, so that one strand of his later philosophy leads to 'ordinary language' philosophy, which is exactly what Russell is criticising. Wittgenstein seems to have seen 'logical language' as an oxymoron. |
| 6117 | Philosophy should be built on science, to reduce error [Russell] |
| Full Idea: We would be wise to build our philosophy upon science, because the risk of error in philosophy is pretty sure to be greater than in science. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.160) | |
| A reaction: If you do very little, it reduces the 'risk of error'. I agree that philosophers should start from the facts, and be responsive to new facts, and that science is excellent at discovering facts. But I don't think cognitive science is the new epistemology. |
| 6110 | Subject-predicate logic (and substance-attribute metaphysics) arise from Aryan languages [Russell] |
| Full Idea: It is doubtful whether the subject-predicate logic, with the substance-attribute metaphysic, would have been invented by people speaking a non-Aryan language. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.151) | |
| A reaction: This is not far off the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (e.g. Idea 3917), which Russell would never accept. I presume that Russell would see true logic as running deeper, and the 'Aryan' approach as just one possible way to describe it. |
| 6107 | It is logic, not metaphysics, that is fundamental to philosophy [Russell] |
| Full Idea: I hold that logic is what is fundamental in philosophy, and that schools should be characterised rather by their logic than by their metaphysics. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.143) | |
| A reaction: Personally I disagree. Russell seems to have been most interested in the logical form underlying language, but that seems to be because he was interested in the ontological implications of what we say, which is metaphysics. |
| 6115 | Vagueness, and simples being beyond experience, are obstacles to a logical language [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The fact that we do not experience simples is one obstacle to the actual creation of a correct logical language, and vagueness is another. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.159) | |
| A reaction: The dream of creating a perfect logical language looks doomed from the start, but it is a very interesting project to try to pinpoint why it is unlikely to be possible. I say a perfect language cuts nature exactly at the joints, so find the joints. |
| 6109 | Some axioms may only become accepted when they lead to obvious conclusions [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Some of the premisses (of my logicist theory) are much less obvious than some of their consequences, and are believed chiefly because of their consequences. This will be found to be always the case when a science is arranged as a deductive system. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.145) | |
| A reaction: We shouldn't assume the model of self-evident axioms leading to surprising conclusions, which is something like the standard model for rationalist foundationalists. Russell nicely points out that the situation could be just the opposite |
| 6108 | Maths can be deduced from logical axioms and the logic of relations [Russell] |
| Full Idea: I think that no one will dispute that from certain ideas and axioms of formal logic, but with the help of the logic of relations, all pure mathematics can be deduced. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.145) | |
| A reaction: It has been said for a long time that Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems of 1930 disproved this claim, though recently there have been defenders of logicism. Beginning with 'certain ideas' sounds like begging the question. |
| 10968 | Russell gave up logical atomism because of negative, general and belief propositions [Russell, by Read] |
| Full Idea: Russell preceded Wittgenstein in deciding that the reduction of all propositions to atomic propositions could not be achieved. The problem cases were negative propositions, general propositions, and belief propositions. | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924]) by Stephen Read - Thinking About Logic Ch.1 |
| 6113 | To mean facts we assert them; to mean simples we name them [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The way to mean a fact is to assert it; the way to mean a simple is to name it. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.156) | |
| A reaction: Thus logical atomism is a linguistic programme, of reducing our language to a foundation of pure names. The recent thought of McDowell and others is aimed at undermining any possibility of a 'simple' in perception. The myth of 'The Given'. |
| 6114 | 'Simples' are not experienced, but are inferred at the limits of analysis [Russell] |
| Full Idea: When I speak of 'simples' I am speaking of something not experienced as such, but known only inferentially as the limits of analysis. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.158) | |
| A reaction: He claims that the simples are 'known', so he does not mean purely theoretical entities. They have something like the status of quarks in physics, whose existence is inferred from experience. |
| 21722 | Better to construct from what is known, than to infer what is unknown [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Whenever possible, substitute constructions out of known entities for inferences to unknown entities. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.161), quoted by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 7 | |
| A reaction: In 1919 he said that the alternative, of 'postulating' new entities, has 'all the advantages of theft over honest toil' [IMP p.71]. This is Russell's commitment to 'constructing' everything, even his concept of matter. Arithmetic as PA is postulation. |
| 6111 | As propositions can be put in subject-predicate form, we wrongly infer that facts have substance-quality form [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Since any proposition can be put into a form with a subject and a predicate, united by a copula, it is natural to infer that every fact consists in the possession of a quality by a substance, which seems to me a mistake. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.152) | |
| A reaction: This disagrees with McGinn on facts (Idea 6075). I approve of this warning from Russell, which is a recognition that we can't just infer our metaphysics from our language. I think of this as the 'Frege Fallacy', which ensnared Quine and others. |
| 3271 | We can't control our own beliefs [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Our beliefs are always due to factors outside of our control. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Moral Luck [1976], p.27) |
| 6112 | Meaning takes many different forms, depending on different logical types [Russell] |
| Full Idea: There is not one relation of meaning between words and what they stand for, but as many relations of meaning, each of a different logical type, as there are logical types among the objects for which there are words. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.153) | |
| A reaction: This might be a good warning for those engaged in the externalist/internalist debate over the meaning of concepts such as natural kind terms like 'water'. I could have an external meaning for 'elms', but an internal meaning for 'ferns'. |
| 3558 | Only the Cyrenaics reject the idea of a final moral end [Aristippus elder, by Annas] |
| Full Idea: The Cyrenaics are the most radical ancient moral philosophers, since they are the only school explicitly to reject the importance of achieving an overall final end. | |
| From: report of Aristippus the elder (fragments/reports [c.395 BCE]) by Julia Annas - The Morality of Happiness 11.1 | |
| A reaction: This looks like dropping out, but it could also be Keats's 'negative capability', of simply participating in existence without needing to do anything about it. |
| 3272 | Moral luck can arise in character, preconditions, actual circumstances, and outcome [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Moral luck involves one's character, the antecedent circumstances of the act, the actual circumstances of the act, and the outcome of the act. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Moral Luck [1976], p.28) | |
| A reaction: Meaning, I take it, that there can be luck in any one of those four. A neat slicing up that doesn't quite fit the real world, where things flow. Helpful, though. |
| 5835 | The road of freedom is the surest route to happiness [Aristippus elder, by Xenophon] |
| Full Idea: The surest road to happiness is not the path through rule nor through servitude, but through liberty. | |
| From: report of Aristippus the elder (fragments/reports [c.395 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 2.1.9 | |
| A reaction: The great anarchist slogan. Personally I don't believe it, because I agree a little with Hobbes that authority is required to make cooperation flourish, and that is essential for full happiness. If I were a slave, I would agree with Aristippus. |
| 3018 | People who object to extravagant pleasures just love money [Aristippus elder, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: When blamed for buying expensive food he asked "Would you have bought it for just three obols?" When the person said yes, he said,"Then it is not that I am fond of pleasure, but that you are fond of money". | |
| From: report of Aristippus the elder (fragments/reports [c.395 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.7.4 |
| 1751 | Pleasure is the good, because we always seek it, it satisfies us, and its opposite is the most avoidable thing [Aristippus elder, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Pleasure is the good because we desire it from childhood, when we have it we seek nothing further, and the most avoidable thing is its opposite, pain. | |
| From: report of Aristippus the elder (fragments/reports [c.395 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.8 |
| 1755 | Errors result from external influence, and should be corrected, not hated [Aristippus elder, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Errors ought to meet with pardon, for a man does not err intentionally, but influenced by some external circumstances. We should not hate someone who has erred, but teach him better. | |
| From: report of Aristippus the elder (fragments/reports [c.395 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.9 |