19 ideas
| 9307 | Modern Western culture suddenly appeared in Jena in the 1790s [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: Foucault was right to say that Jena in the 1790s was the arena where the fundamental interests in modern Western culture suddenly had their breakthrough. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: [Hölderlin, Novalis, Tieck, Schlegel, based on Kant and Fichte] Romanticism seems to have been born then. Is that the essence of modernism? Foucault and his pals are hoping to destroy the Enlightenment by ignoring it, but that is modern too. |
| 21355 | The Pre-Socratics are not simple naturalists, because they do not always 'leave the gods out' [Leroi] |
| Full Idea: The problem with making naturalism the hallmark of Pre-Socratic thought ...is that they do not always 'leave the gods out'; the Divine can usually be found lurking somewhere is their cosmologies. | |
| From: Armand Marie LeRoi (The Lagoon: how Aristotle invented science [2014], 007) | |
| A reaction: An important observation. I've been guilty of this simplistic view. We tend to ignore the religious fragments, or we possess so little that we have no idea where religion figured in their accounts. |
| 9297 | You can't understand love in terms of 'if and only if...' [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: I once began reading a philosophical article on love. The following statement soon came up: 'Bob loves Kate if and only if...' At that point I stopped reading. Such a formalized approach was unsuitable, because the actual phenomenon would be lost. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Pref) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to disagree! However, if your best friend comes to you and says, 'I can't decide whether I am really in love with Kate; what do you think?', how are you going to respond. You offer 'if and only if..', but in a warm and sympathetic way! |
| 15375 | If terms change their designations in different states, they are functions from states to objects [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: The common feature of every designating term is that designation may change from state to state - thus it can be formalized by a function from states to objects. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], 3) | |
| A reaction: Specifying the objects sounds OK, but specifying states sounds rather tough. |
| 15376 | Intensional logic adds a second type of quantification, over intensional objects, or individual concepts [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: To first order modal logic (with quantification over objects) we can add a second kind of quantification, over intensions. An intensional object, or individual concept, will be modelled by a function from states to objects. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], 3.3) |
| 15378 | Awareness logic adds the restriction of an awareness function to epistemic logic [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: Awareness logic enriched Hintikka's epistemic models with an awareness function, mapping each state to the set of formulas we are aware of at that state. This reflects some bound on the resources we can bring to bear. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], 3.6.1) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Fagin and Halpern 1988 for this] |
| 15379 | Justication logics make explicit the reasons for mathematical truth in proofs [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: In justification logics, the logics of knowledge are extended by making reasons explicit. A logic of proof terms was created, with a semantics. In this, mathematical truths are known for explicit reasons, and these provide a measure of complexity. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], 3.6.1) |
| 11026 | Classical logic is deliberately extensional, in order to model mathematics [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: Mathematics is typically extensional throughout (we write 3+2=2+3 despite the two terms having different meanings). ..Classical first-order logic is extensional by design since it primarily evolved to model the reasoning of mathematics. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], §1) |
| 11028 | λ-abstraction disambiguates the scope of modal operators [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: λ-abstraction can be used to abstract and disambiguate a predicate. De re is [λx◊P(x)](f) - f has the possible-P property - and de dicto is ◊[λxP(x)](f) - possibly f has the P-property. Also applies to □. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], §3.3) | |
| A reaction: Compare the Barcan formula. Originated with Church in the 1930s, and Carnap 1947, but revived by Stalnaker and Thomason 1968. Because it refers to the predicate, it has a role in intensional versions of logic, especially modal logic. |
| 15377 | Definite descriptions pick out different objects in different possible worlds [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: Definite descriptions pick out different objects in different possible worlds quite naturally. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: A definite description can pick out the same object in another possible world, or a very similar one, or an object which has almost nothing in common with the others. |
| 9308 | If subjective and objective begin to merge, then so do primary and secondary qualities [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: It is doubtful whether the traditional dichotomy between the strictly subjective and the strictly objective can still be maintained; if not, we must also revise the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Very perceptive. The reason why I am so keen to hang onto the primary/secondary distinction is because I want to preserve objectivity (and realism). I much prefer Locke to Hume, as empiricist spokesmen. |
| 9309 | Emotions have intentional objects, while a mood is objectless [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: An emotion normally has an intentional object, while a mood is objectless. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: It doesn't follow that the object of the emotion is clearly understood, or even that it is conscious. One may experience rising anger while struggling to see what its object is. Artistic symbolism seems to involve objects that create moods. |
| 9304 | Death appears to be more frightening the less one has lived [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: Death appears to be more frightening the less one has lived. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: [He credits Adorno with this] A good thought, which should be immediately emailed to Epicurus for comment. Which is worse - to die when you have barely started your great work (Ramsey), or dying in full flow (Schubert)? |
| 9298 | We can be unaware that we are bored [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: It is perfectly possible to be bored without being aware of the fact. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: True. Also, I sometimes mistake indecision for boredom. It becomes very hard to say for certain whether you are bored. I am certain that I am bored if I am forced to do something which has no interest for me. The big one is free-but-bored. |
| 9301 | Boredom is so radical that suicide could not overcome it; only never having existed would do it [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: Boredom is so radical that it cannot even be overcome by suicide, only by something completely impossible - not to have existed at all. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: [he cites Fernando Pessoa for this] The actor George Sanders left a suicide note saying that he was just bored. A cloud of boredom is left hanging in the air where he was. |
| 9302 | We are bored because everything comes to us fully encoded, and we want personal meaning [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: Boredom results from a lack of personal meaning, which is due to the fact that all objects and actions come to us fully encoded, while we (as descendants of Romanticism) insist on a personal meaning. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This idea justifies me categorising Boredom under Existentialism. This is an excellent idea, and perfectly captures the experience of most teenagers, for whom it is impossible to impose a personal meaning on such a vast cultural reality. |
| 9310 | The profoundest boredom is boredom with boredom [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: In the profound form of boredom, I am bored by boredom itself. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Boredom is boring, which is why I try to avoid it. Third-level boredom is a rather enchanting idea. It sounds remarkably similar to the Buddha experiencing enlightenment. |
| 9311 | We have achieved a sort of utopia, and it is boring, so that is the end of utopias [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: There can hardly be any new utopias. To the extent that we can imagine a utopia, it must already have been realised. A utopia cannot, by definition, include boredom, but the 'utopia' we are living in is boring. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 8989. Lots of people (including me) think that we have achieved a kind of liberal, democratic, individualistic 'utopia', but the community needs of people are not being met, so we still have a way to go. |
| 9303 | The concept of 'alienation' seems no longer applicable [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: I do not believe that the concept of 'alienation' is all that applicable any more. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Interesting but puzzling. If alienation is the key existential phenomenon of a capitalist society, why should it fade away if we remain capitalist? He is proposing that it has metamorphosed into boredom, which may be a different sort of alienation. |