66 ideas
19693 | There is practical wisdom (for action), and theoretical wisdom (for deep understanding) [Aristotle, by Whitcomb] |
Full Idea: Aristotle takes wisdom to come in two forms, the practical and the theoretical, the former of which is good judgement about how to act, and the latter of which is deep knowledge or understanding. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Dennis Whitcomb - Wisdom Intro | |
A reaction: The interesting question is then whether the two are connected. One might be thoroughly 'sensible' about action, without counting as 'wise', which seems to require a broader view of what is being done. Whitcomb endorses Aristotle on this idea. |
6161 | Structuralism is neo-Kantian idealism, with language playing the role of categories of understanding [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: Structuralism is a form of neo-Kantian idealism, in which the job of creating Kant's phenomenal world has been taken over by language instead of forms of sensibility and categories of the understanding. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: A helpful connection, which explains my aversion to any attempt at understanding the world simply by analysing language, either in its ordinary usage, or in its underlying logical form. |
1575 | For Aristotle logos is essentially the ability to talk rationally about questions of value [Roochnik on Aristotle] |
Full Idea: For Aristotle logos is the ability to speak rationally about, with the hope of attaining knowledge, questions of value. | |
From: comment on Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.26 |
1589 | Aristotle is the supreme optimist about the ability of logos to explain nature [Roochnik on Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Aristotle is the great theoretician who articulates a vision of a world in which natural and stable structures can be rationally discovered. His is the most optimistic and richest view of the possibilities of logos | |
From: comment on Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.95 |
9023 | If you say that a contradiction is true, you change the meaning of 'not', and so change the subject [Quine] |
Full Idea: Those who regard the conjunction p.not-p as true think they are talking about negation, 'not', but this ceases to be recognisable as negation. The deviant logician's predicament is when he tries to deny the doctrine he only changes the subject. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.6) | |
A reaction: The charge of 'changing the subject' has become a classic move in modern discussions of non-standard logics. It is an important idea in discussions of arguments, and is found in Kant's account of the Ontological Argument. |
8200 | Aristotelian definitions aim to give the essential properties of the thing defined [Aristotle, by Quine] |
Full Idea: A real definition, according to the Aristotelian tradition, gives the essence of the kind of thing defined. Man is defined as a rational animal, and thus rationality and animality are of the essence of each of us. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Willard Quine - Vagaries of Definition p.51 | |
A reaction: Compare Idea 4385. Personally I prefer the Aristotelian approach, but we may have to say 'We cannot identify the essence of x, and so x cannot be defined'. Compare 'his mood was hard to define' with 'his mood was hostile'. |
4385 | Aristotelian definition involves first stating the genus, then the differentia of the thing [Aristotle, by Urmson] |
Full Idea: For Aristotle, to give a definition one must first state the genus and then the differentia of the kind of thing to be defined. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by J.O. Urmson - Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean p.157 | |
A reaction: Presumably a modern definition would just be a list of properties, but Aristotle seeks the substance. How does he define a genus? - by placing it in a further genus? |
9012 | Talk of 'truth' when sentences are mentioned; it reminds us that reality is the point of sentences [Quine] |
Full Idea: The truth predicate has its utility in places where we are compelled to mention sentences. It then serves to point through the sentence to the reality; it serves as a reminder that though sentences are mentioned, reality is still the whole point. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: A sensible interpretation of the Tarskian account of truth as disquotation. Quine neatly combines a common sense correspondence with a sophisticated logicians view of the role of truth. So what does "I want the truth here" mean? |
9011 | Truth is redundant for single sentences; we do better to simply speak the sentence [Quine] |
Full Idea: Rather than speak of truth, we do better simply to say the sentence and so speak not about language but about the world. Of singly given sentences, the perfect theory of truth is the 'disappearance theory of truth' (Sellars). | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: Quine defends truth as the crucial link between language and reality, but only for large groups of sentences. If someone accuses you of lying or being incorrect, you can respond by repeating your sentence in a firmer tone of voice. |
9013 | We can eliminate 'or' from our basic theory, by paraphrasing 'p or q' as 'not(not-p and not-q)' [Quine] |
Full Idea: The construction of 'alternation' (using 'or') is useful in practice, but superfluous in theory. It can be paraphrased using only negation and conjunction. We say that 'p or q' is paraphrased as 'not(not-p and not-q)'. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: Quine treats 'not' and 'and' as the axiomatic logical connectives, and builds the others from those, presumably because that is the smallest number he could get it down to. I quite like it, because it seems to mesh with basic thought procedures. |
13282 | Aristotle relativises the notion of wholeness to different measures [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Aristotle proposes to relativise unity and plurality, so that a single object can be both one (indivisible) and many (divisible) simultaneously, without contradiction, relative to different measures. Wholeness has degrees, with the strength of the unity. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 7.2.12 | |
A reaction: [see Koslicki's account of Aristotle for details] As always, the Aristotelian approach looks by far the most promising. Simplistic mechanical accounts of how parts make wholes aren't going to work. We must include the conventional and conceptual bit. |
9020 | My logical grammar has sentences by predication, then negation, conjunction, and existential quantification [Quine] |
Full Idea: We chose a standard grammar in which the simple sentences are got by predication, and all further sentences are generated from these by negation, conjunction, and existential quantification. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: It is interesting that we 'choose' our logic, apparently guided by an imperative to achieve minimal ontology. Of these basic ingredients, negation and predication are the more mysterious, especially the latter. Quine is a bit of an 'ostrich' about that. |
9028 | Maybe logical truth reflects reality, but in different ways in different languages [Quine] |
Full Idea: Perhaps the logical truths owe their truth to certain traits of reality which are reflected in one way by the grammar of our language, in another way by the grammar of another language, and in a third way by the grammar and lexicon of a third language. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.7) | |
A reaction: This explains Quine's subsequent interest in translation, and the interest of his pupil Davidson in charity, and whether there could actually be rival conceptual schemes. I like the link between logical truths and reality, which follows Russell. |
10014 | Quine rejects second-order logic, saying that predicates refer to multiple objects [Quine, by Hodes] |
Full Idea: Quine is unwilling to suppose second-order logic intelligible. He holds to Mill's account of the referential role of a predicate: it multiply denotes any and all objects to which it applies, and there is no need for a further 'predicative' entity. | |
From: report of Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970]) by Harold Hodes - Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic p.130 | |
A reaction: If we assume that 'quantifying over' something is a commitment to its existence, then I think I am with Quine, because you end up with a massive commitment to universals, which I prefer to avoid. |
10828 | Quantifying over predicates is treating them as names of entities [Quine] |
Full Idea: To put the predicate letter 'F' in a quantifier is to treat predicate position suddenly as name position, and hence to treat predicates as names of entities of some sort. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: It is tricky to distinguish quantifying over predicates in a first-order way (by reifying them), and in a second-order way (where it is not clear whether you are quantifying over a property or a unified set of things. |
6163 | If bivalence is rejected, then excluded middle must also be rejected [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: If you reject the principle of bivalence (that a proposition is either determinately true or false), then statements are also not subject to the Law of Excluded Middle (P or not-P). | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: I think Rowlands is wrong about this. Excluded Middle could be purely syntacti, or its semantics could be 'True or Not-True'. Only bivalent excluded middle introduces 'True or False'. Compare Idea 4752. |
9024 | Excluded middle has three different definitions [Quine] |
Full Idea: The law of excluded middle, or 'tertium non datur', may be pictured variously as 1) Every closed sentence is true or false; or 2) Every closed sentence or its negation is true; or 3) Every closed sentence is true or not true. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.6) | |
A reaction: Unlike many top philosophers, Quine thinks clearly about such things. 1) is the classical bivalent reading of excluded middle; 2) is the purely syntactic version; 3) leaves open how we interpret the 'not-true' option. |
10012 | Quantification theory can still be proved complete if we add identity [Quine] |
Full Idea: Complete proof procedures are available not only for quantification theory, but for quantification theory and identity together. Gödel showed that the theory is still complete if we add self-identity and the indiscernability of identicals. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: Hence one talks of first-order logic 'with identity', even though, as Quine observes, it is unclear whether identity is actually a logical or a mathematical notion. |
4730 | For Aristotle, the subject-predicate structure of Greek reflected a substance-accident structure of reality [Aristotle, by O'Grady] |
Full Idea: Aristotle apparently believed that the subject-predicate structure of Greek reflected the substance-accident nature of reality. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Paul O'Grady - Relativism Ch.4 | |
A reaction: We need not assume that Aristotle is wrong. It is a chicken-and-egg. There is something obvious about subject-predicate language, if one assumes that unified objects are part of nature, and not just conventional. |
9016 | Names are not essential, because naming can be turned into predication [Quine] |
Full Idea: Names are convenient but redundant, because Fa is equivalent to (an x)(a=x,Fx), so a need only occur in the context a=, but this can be rendered as a simple predicate A, so that Fa gives way to (an x)(Ax.Fx). | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: In eliminating names from analysis, Quine takes Russell's strategy a step further. It is probably this which provoked Kripke into going right back to Mill's view of names as basic labels. The name/description boundary is blurred. Mr Gradgrind. |
9015 | Universal quantification is widespread, but it is definable in terms of existential quantification [Quine] |
Full Idea: Universal quantification is prominent in logical practice but superfluous in theory, since (for all x)Fx obviously amounts to not(exists an x)not-Fx. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: The equivalence between these two works both ways, some you could take the universal quantifier as primitive instead, which would make general truths prior to particular ones. Is there something deep at stake here? |
9025 | You can't base quantification on substituting names for variables, if the irrationals cannot all be named [Quine] |
Full Idea: A customary argument against quantification based on substitution of names for variables refers to the theorem of set theory that irrational numbers cannot all be assigned integers. Although the integers can all be named, the irrationals therefore can't. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.6) | |
A reaction: [He names Ruth Marcus as a source of substitutional quantification] This sounds like more than a mere 'argument' against substitutional quantification, but an actual disproof. Or maybe you just can't quantify once you run out of names. |
9026 | Some quantifications could be false substitutionally and true objectually, because of nameless objects [Quine] |
Full Idea: An existential quantification could turn out false when substitutionally construed and true when objectually construed, because of there being objects of the purported kind but only nameless ones. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.6) | |
A reaction: (Cf. Idea 9025) Some irrational numbers were his candidates for nameless objects, but as decimals they are infinite in length which seems unfair. I don't take even pi or root-2 to be objects in nature, so not naming irrationals doesn't bother me. |
10705 | Putting a predicate letter in a quantifier is to make it the name of an entity [Quine] |
Full Idea: To put the predicate letter 'F' in a quantifier is to treat predicate positions suddenly as name positions, and hence to treat predicates as names of entities of some sort. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: Quine's famous objection to second-order logic. But Quine then struggles to give an account of predicates and properties, and hence is accused by Armstrong of being an 'ostrich'. Boolos 1975 also attacks Quine here. |
9027 | A sentence is logically true if all sentences with that grammatical structure are true [Quine] |
Full Idea: A sentence is logically true if all sentences with that grammatical structure are true. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.7) | |
A reaction: Quine spends some time on the tricky question of deciding which parts of a sentence are grammatical structure ('syncategorematic'), and which parts are what he calls 'lexicon'. I bet there is a Quinean argument which blurs the boundary. |
6155 | Supervenience is a one-way relation of dependence or determination between properties [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: Supervenience is essentially a one-way relation of dependence or determination, …which holds, in the first instance, between properties. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: This definition immediately shows why supervenient properties are in danger of being epiphenomenal (i.e. causally irrelevant). Carefully thought about the notion of a 'one-way' relation will, I think, make it more obscure rather than clearer. |
9017 | Predicates are not names; predicates are the other parties to predication [Quine] |
Full Idea: Predicates are not names; predicates are the other parties to predication. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: Does a wife only exist as party to a marriage? There's something missing here. We are taking predication to be primitive, but we then seem to single out one part of the process - the object - while ignoring the remainder. What are Quinean objects? |
9018 | A physical object is the four-dimensional material content of a portion of space-time [Quine] |
Full Idea: We might think of a physical object as simply the whole four-dimensional material content, however sporadic and heterogeneous, of some portion of space-time. If it is firm and coherent internally, we call it a body. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: An early articulation of one of the two standard views of objects in recent philosophy. I think I prefer the Quinean view, but I am still looking into that one... |
13276 | The unmoved mover and the soul show Aristotelian form as the ultimate mereological atom [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Aristotle's discussion of the unmoved mover and of the soul confirms the suspicion that form, when it is not thought of as the object represented in a definition, plays the role of the ultimate mereological atom within his system. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 6.6 | |
A reaction: Aristotle is concerned with which things are 'divisible', and he cites these two examples as indivisible, but they may be too unusual to offer an actual theory of how Aristotle builds up wholes from atoms. He denies atoms in matter. |
13277 | The 'form' is the recipe for building wholes of a particular kind [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Thus in Aristotle we may think of an object's formal components as a sort of recipe for how to build wholes of that particular kind. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 7.2.5 | |
A reaction: In the elusive business of pinning down what Aristotle means by the crucial idea of 'form', this analogy strikes me as being quite illuminating. It would fit DNA in living things, and the design of an artifact. |
6154 | It is argued that wholes possess modal and counterfactual properties that parts lack [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: Some have argued that a mereological whole should not be identified with the sum of its parts on the grounds that the former possess certain properties - specifically modal and (perhaps) counterfactual properties - that the latter lacks. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: I am not convinced that modal and counterfactual claims should count as properties. If my pen is heated it melts (a property), but if my pen were intelligent it could do philosophy. Intelligence is a property, but the situation isn't. |
9019 | Four-d objects helps predication of what no longer exists, and quantification over items from different times [Quine] |
Full Idea: The four-dimensional view of objects aids relativity, and the grammar of tenses, but in logic it makes sense of applying a predicate to something that no longer exists, or of quantifying over objects that never coexisted at any one time. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: Since you can predicate of or quantify over hypothetical or fictional objects ('Hamlet is gloomy', 'phlogiston explained fire quite well', 'peace and quiet would be nice') I don't see the necessity for this bold ontological commitment, on these grounds. |
6157 | Tokens are dated, concrete particulars; types are their general properties or kinds [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: Tokens are dated, concrete, particular occurrences or instances; types are the general properties that these occurrences exemplify or the kinds to which they belong. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: It might be said that types are sets, of which tokens are the members. The question of 'general properties' raises the question of whether universals must exist to make kinds possible. |
9014 | Some conditionals can be explained just by negation and conjunction: not(p and not-q) [Quine] |
Full Idea: Often the purpose of a conditional, 'if p, q', can be served simply by negation and conjunction: not(p and not-q), the so-called 'material conditional'. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: Logicians love the neatness of that, but get into trouble elsewhere with conditionals, particularly over the implications of not-p. |
5991 | For Aristotle, knowledge is of causes, and is theoretical, practical or productive [Aristotle, by Code] |
Full Idea: Aristotle thinks that in general we have knowledge or understanding when we grasp causes, and he distinguishes three fundamental types of knowledge - theoretical, practical and productive. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Alan D. Code - Aristotle | |
A reaction: Productive knowledge we tend to label as 'knowing how'. The centrality of causes for knowledge would get Aristotle nowadays labelled as a 'naturalist'. It is hard to disagree with his three types, though they may overlap. |
6159 | Strong idealism is the sort of mess produced by a Cartesian separation of mind and world [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: Neo-Kantian idealism, and the excesses of recent versions of it, are precisely the sort of mess one can get oneself into through an uncritical acceptance of the dichotomizing of mind and world along Cartesian internalist lines. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: I am unconvinced that internalism about the mind (that its contents can be defined without reference to anything external) leads to this disastrous split. We don't have to abandon the links between an internal mind and the world. |
11239 | The notion of a priori truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
Full Idea: The notion of a priori truth is conspicuously absent in Aristotle. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.5 | |
A reaction: Cf. Idea 11240. |
23312 | Aristotle is a rationalist, but reason is slowly acquired through perception and experience [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
Full Idea: Aristotle is a rationalist …but reason for him is a disposition which we only acquire over time. Its acquisition is made possible primarily by perception and experience. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Aristotle's Rationalism p.173 | |
A reaction: I would describe this process as the gradual acquisition of the skill of objectivity, which needs the right knowledge and concepts to evaluate new experiences. |
16111 | Aristotle wants to fit common intuitions, and therefore uses language as a guide [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
Full Idea: Since Aristotle generally prefers a metaphysical theory that accords with common intuitions, he frequently relies on facts about language to guide his metaphysical claims. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.5 | |
A reaction: I approve of his procedure. I take intuition to be largely rational justifications too complex for us to enunciate fully, and language embodies folk intuitions in its concepts (especially if the concepts occur in many languages). |
16971 | Plato says sciences are unified around Forms; Aristotle says they're unified around substance [Aristotle, by Moravcsik] |
Full Idea: Plato's unity of science principle states that all - legitimate - sciences are ultimately about the Forms. Aristotle's principle states that all sciences must be, ultimately, about substances, or aspects of substances. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE], 1) by Julius Moravcsik - Aristotle on Adequate Explanations 1 |
11243 | Aristotelian explanations are facts, while modern explanations depend on human conceptions [Aristotle, by Politis] |
Full Idea: For Aristotle things which explain (the explanantia) are facts, which should not be associated with the modern view that says explanations are dependent on how we conceive and describe the world (where causes are independent of us). | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 2.1 | |
A reaction: There must be some room in modern thought for the Aristotelian view, if some sort of robust scientific realism is being maintained against the highly linguistic view of philosophy found in the twentieth century. |
3320 | Aristotle's standard analysis of species and genus involves specifying things in terms of something more general [Aristotle, by Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: The standard Aristotelian doctrine of species and genus in the theory of anything whatever involves specifying what the thing is in terms of something more general. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.10 |
12000 | Aristotle regularly says that essential properties explain other significant properties [Aristotle, by Kung] |
Full Idea: The view that essential properties are those in virtue of which other significant properties of the subjects under investigation can be explained is encountered repeatedly in Aristotle's work. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Joan Kung - Aristotle on Essence and Explanation IV | |
A reaction: What does 'significant' mean here? I take it that the significant properties are the ones which explain the role, function and powers of the object. |
6152 | Minds are rational, conscious, subjective, self-knowing, free, meaningful and self-aware [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: The apparent features of mind which are not obviously physical include: rationality, thought, consciousness, subjectivity, infallible first-person knowledge, freedom, meaning and self-awareness. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: A helpful list, some of which can be challenged. Ryle challenges first-person infallibility. Hume challenges self-awareness. Quine challenges meaning. Lots of people (e.g. Spinoza) challenge freedom. The Churchlands seem to challenge consciousness. |
6173 | Content externalism implies that we do not have privileged access to our own minds [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: Content externalism threatens the idea of first-person authority in all its forms, and does so because it calls into question the idea that the access we have to our own mental states is privileged in the way required for such authority. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.7) | |
A reaction: I am inclined to respond by saying that since we clearly have privileged access to our own minds, that means there must be something wrong with content externalism. |
6174 | If someone is secretly transported to Twin Earth, others know their thoughts better than they do [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: If someone knew that a thinker had, without realising it, been transported to Twin Earth, they would almost certainly be a higher authority on the content of the thinker's thoughts than would the thinker. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.8) | |
A reaction: They would certainly be a higher authority on the truth of the thinker's thoughts, but only in the way that you might think I hold a diamond when I know it is a club. If the thinker believes it is H2O, the fact that it isn't is irrelevant to content. |
6158 | Supervenience of mental and physical properties often comes with token-identity of mental and physical particulars [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: One often finds a supervenience thesis concerning the relation between mental and physical properties combined with a token identity theory concerning the relation between mental and physical particulars. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: This brings out the important clarifying point that supervenience is said to be between properties, not substances. The point is that supervenience will always cry out for an explanation, preferably a sensible one. |
23300 | Aristotle and the Stoics denied rationality to animals, while Platonists affirmed it [Aristotle, by Sorabji] |
Full Idea: Aristotle, and also the Stoics, denied rationality to animals. …The Platonists, the Pythagoreans, and some more independent Aristotelians, did grant reason and intellect to animals. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Richard Sorabji - Rationality 'Denial' | |
A reaction: This is not the same as affirming or denying their consciousness. The debate depends on how rationality is conceived. |
6168 | The content of a thought is just the meaning of a sentence [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: The content of the thought that the sky is blue is simply the meaning of the sentence "The sky is blue". | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: This seems to imply that it is logically impossible for a non-language-speaker, such as a chimpanzee, to think that the sky is the same colour as the water. If we allow propositions, we might be able to keep meanings without the sentences. |
9009 | Single words are strongly synonymous if their interchange preserves truth [Quine] |
Full Idea: We can define, it would seem, a strong synonymy relation for single words by them being interchangeable salva veritate. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: This is a first step in Quine's rejection of synonymous sentences. He goes on to raise the problem of renate/cordate. Presumably any two word types can have different connotations, and hence not always be interchangeable - in poetry, for example. |
9007 | It makes no sense to say that two sentences express the same proposition [Quine] |
Full Idea: My objection to propositions is not parsimony, or disapproval of abstract entities, ..but that propositions induce a relation of synonymy or equivalence between sentences (expressing the same proposition), and this makes no objective sense. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: Personally I think propositions are unavoidable when you try to connect language to activities of the brain, and also when you consider animal thought. And also when you introspect about your own language processes. Mr Quine, he wrong. |
9008 | There is no rule for separating the information from other features of sentences [Quine] |
Full Idea: There is no evident rule for separating the information from the stylistic or other immaterial features of the sentences. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: There is no rule for deciding precisely when night falls, so I don't believe in night. I take a proposition, prima facie, as an answer to the question 'What exactly do you mean by that remark?' How do you extract logical form from sentences? |
9010 | We can abandon propositions, and just talk of sentences and equivalence [Quine] |
Full Idea: Why not just talk of sentences and equivalence and let the propositions go? Propositions have been projected as shadows of sentences, but at best they will give us nothing the sentences will not give. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: I don't understand how you decide that two sentences are equivalent. 'There's someone in that wood'; 'yes, there's a person amongst those trees'. Identical truth-conditions. We can formulate a non-linguistic fact about those truth-conditions. |
11240 | The notion of analytic truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
Full Idea: The notion of analytic truth is conspicuously absent in Aristotle. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.5 | |
A reaction: Cf. Idea 11239. |
9021 | A good way of explaining an expression is saying what conditions make its contexts true [Quine] |
Full Idea: A reasonable way of explaining an expression is by saying what conditions make its various contexts true. | |
From: Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: I like the circumspect phrasing of this, which carefully avoids any entities such as 'meanings' or 'truth conditions'. Maybe the whole core of philosophy of language should shift from theories of meaning to just trying to 'explain' sentences. |
6167 | Action is bodily movement caused by intentional states [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: An action is a bodily movement that is caused by intentional states such as beliefs, desires and so on. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: A useful definition, and clearly one that has no truck with attempts at giving behaviourist definitions of action. The definition of a 'moral action' needs to be built on this one. Particular types of belief and desire, presumably. |
6177 | Moral intuition seems unevenly distributed between people [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: The faculty of moral intuition seems to be unevenly distributed between people. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.11) | |
A reaction: This would be a good argument if it was thought that the source of moral intuitions was divine, but people vary enormously in their intuitions about maths, about character, about danger. If you believe in any intuition at all, you must accept its variety. |
6559 | Aristotle never actually says that man is a rational animal [Aristotle, by Fogelin] |
Full Idea: To the best of my knowledge (and somewhat to my surprise), Aristotle never actually says that man is a rational animal; however, he all but says it. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.1 | |
A reaction: When I read this I thought that this database would prove Fogelin wrong, but it actually supports him, as I can't find it in Aristotle either. Descartes refers to it in Med.Two. In Idea 5133 Aristotle does say that man is a 'social being'. But 22586! |
11150 | It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it. | |
From: Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) | |
A reaction: The epigraph on a David Chalmers website. A wonderful remark, and it should be on the wall of every beginners' philosophy class. However, while it is in the spirit of Aristotle, it appears to be a misattribution with no ancient provenance. |
3037 | Aristotle said the educated were superior to the uneducated as the living are to the dead [Aristotle, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Aristotle was asked how much educated men were superior to those uneducated; "As much," he said, "as the living are to the dead." | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 05.1.11 |
8660 | There are potential infinities (never running out), but actual infinity is incoherent [Aristotle, by Friend] |
Full Idea: Aristotle developed his own distinction between potential infinity (never running out) and actual infinity (there being a collection of an actual infinite number of things, such as places, times, objects). He decided that actual infinity was incoherent. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Michčle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 1.3 | |
A reaction: Friend argues, plausibly, that this won't do, since potential infinity doesn't make much sense if there is not an actual infinity of things to supply the demand. It seems to just illustrate how boggling and uncongenial infinity was to Aristotle. |
12058 | Aristotle's matter can become any other kind of matter [Aristotle, by Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Aristotle's conception of matter permits any kind of matter to become any other kind of matter. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Wiggins - Substance 4.11.2 | |
A reaction: This is obviously crucial background information when we read Aristotle on matter. Our 92+ elements, and fixed fundamental particles, gives a quite different picture. Aristotle would discuss form and matter quite differently now. |
6156 | The 17th century reintroduced atoms as mathematical modes of Euclidean space [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: The seventeenth century revolution reintroduced the classical concept of the atom in somewhat new attire as an essentially mathematical entity whose primary qualities could be precisely quantified as modes or aspects of Euclidean space. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: Obviously this very abstract view of atoms didn't last, once they began to identify specific physical atoms, such as oxygen. This view fits in with Newton's use of pure (abstract) points such as the 'centre of gravity'. |
6170 | Natural kinds are defined by their real essence, as in gold having atomic number 79 [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: Part of what it means to be a natural kind is that they are defined by a real essence, a constitution that marks them out as the substance they are (as water is essentially H2O, and gold essentially has atomic number 79). | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.6) | |
A reaction: A 'real essence' would be the opposite of a 'conventional essence', which is just a human way of seeing things. |
6178 | It is common to see the value of nature in one feature, such as life, diversity, or integrity [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: In recent environmental philosophy it is common to see the value of nature identified with one or another natural feature of the environment: life, diversity, ecosystemic integrity and so on. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.11) | |
A reaction: This thought seems to be asking for the Open Question argument. What is so good about life, or diversity? Our strongest intuition must be that the survival of the ecosystem, and whatever makes that possible, is the highest value. |
22729 | The concepts of gods arose from observing the soul, and the cosmos [Aristotle, by Sext.Empiricus] |
Full Idea: Aristotle said that the conception of gods arose among mankind from two originating causes, namely from events which concern the soul and from celestial phenomena. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE], Frag 10) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Physicists (two books) I.20 | |
A reaction: The cosmos suggests order, and possible creation. What do events of the soul suggest? It doesn't seem to be its non-physical nature, because Aristotle is more of a functionalist. Puzzling. (It says later that gods are like the soul). |