12 ideas
| 10502 | We can rise by degrees through abstraction, with higher levels representing more things [Arnauld,A/Nicole,P] |
| Full Idea: I can start with a triangle, and rise by degrees to all straight-lined figures and to extension itself. The lower degree will include the higher degree. Since the higher degree is less determinate, it can represent more things. | |
| From: Arnauld / Nicole (Logic (Port-Royal Art of Thinking) [1662], I.5) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This attempts to explain the generalising ability of abstraction cited in Idea 10501. If you take a complex object and eliminate features one by one, it can only 'represent' more particulars; it could hardly represent fewer. |
| 18258 | We can only know the exterior world via our ideas [Arnauld,A/Nicole,P] |
| Full Idea: We can have knowledge of what is outside us only through the mediation of ideas in us. | |
| From: Arnauld / Nicole (Logic (Port-Royal Art of Thinking) [1662], p.63), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 1 'Conc' |
| 16784 | Forms make things distinct and explain the properties, by pure form, or arrangement of parts [Arnauld,A/Nicole,P] |
| Full Idea: The form is what renders a thing such and distinguishes it from others, whether it is a being really distinct from the matter, according to the Schools, or whether it is only the arrangement of the parts. By this form one must explain its properties. | |
| From: Arnauld / Nicole (Logic (Port-Royal Art of Thinking) [1662], III.18 p240), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 27.6 | |
| A reaction: If we ask 'what explains the properties of this thing' it is hard to avoid coming up with something that might be called the 'form'. Note that they allow either substantial or corpuscularian forms. It is hard to disagree with the idea. |
| 10499 | We know by abstraction because we only understand composite things a part at a time [Arnauld,A/Nicole,P] |
| Full Idea: The mind cannot perfectly understand things that are even slightly composite unless it considers them a part at a time. ...This is generally called knowing by abstraction. (..the human body, for example). | |
| From: Arnauld / Nicole (Logic (Port-Royal Art of Thinking) [1662], I.5) | |
| A reaction: This adds the interesting thought that the mind is forced to abstract, rather than abstraction being a luxury extra feature. Knowledge through analysis is knowledge by abstraction. Also a nice linking of abstraction to epistemology. |
| 10501 | A triangle diagram is about all triangles, if some features are ignored [Arnauld,A/Nicole,P] |
| Full Idea: If I draw an equilateral triangle on a piece of paper, ..I shall have an idea of only a single triangle. But if I ignore all the particular circumstances and focus on the three equal lines, I will be able to represent all equilateral triangles. | |
| From: Arnauld / Nicole (Logic (Port-Royal Art of Thinking) [1662], I.5) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] They observed that we grasp composites through their parts, and now that we can grasp generalisations through particulars, both achieved by the psychological act of abstraction, thus showing its epistemological power. |
| 10500 | No one denies that a line has width, but we can just attend to its length [Arnauld,A/Nicole,P] |
| Full Idea: Geometers by no means assume that there are lines without width or surfaces without depth. They only think it is possible to consider the length without paying attention to the width. We can measure the length of a path without its width. | |
| From: Arnauld / Nicole (Logic (Port-Royal Art of Thinking) [1662], I.5) | |
| A reaction: A nice example which makes the point indubitable. The modern 'rigorous' account of abstraction that starts with Frege seems to require more than one object, in order to derive abstractions like direction or number. Path widths are not comparatives. |
| 16362 | An identity statement aims at getting the hearer to merge two mental files [Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: The purpose of an identity statement is to get the hearer to merge these files or bodies of information into one. | |
| From: Michael Lockwood (Identity and Reference [1971], p.209), quoted by François Recanati - Mental Files 4.1 | |
| A reaction: Lockwood is a pioneer, in seeing 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' and 'Scott is the author of 'Waverley'' in terms of how the mind works. Mental files seem to me to explain a huge amount. Recanati proposes 'linking' rather than 'merging'. |
| 22971 | In moving from capitalism to communism a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is needed [Marx] |
| Full Idea: Between the capitalist and communist society lies the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Critique of the Gotha Program [1875], IV) | |
| A reaction: This hugely influential idea was catastrophic for the twentieth century, because the leaders of the proletarian dictatorship adored and abused the power, and wouldn't give it up for some feeble next stage. |
| 22000 | From each according to his ability, to each according to his need [Marx] |
| Full Idea: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Critique of the Gotha Program [1875]), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 9 | |
| A reaction: Singer says this was not original to Marx, and he placed little emphasis on it. The obvious capitalist response is to ask how you will motivate someone who has huge abilities but few needs. It implies huge inequalities of altruism. |
| 22969 | People who only have their labour power are the slaves of those permitting them to work [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The man who possesses no other property than his labour power must, in all conditions of society and culture, be the slave of other men who have made themselves the owners of the material conditions of labour. He can only work with their permission. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Critique of the Gotha Program [1875], I) | |
| A reaction: In a world of vast multinationals, the person giving the permission to work is nearly always dependent on some higher level permission. In any sort of society people can only work with the consensus of other people. |
| 22970 | Freedom is making the state subordinate to its society [Marx] |
| Full Idea: Freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed on society into one completely subordinate to it. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Critique of the Gotha Program [1875], IV) | |
| A reaction: The intermediate stage is dictatorship of the proletariat (presumably exercised by the communist leadership). No twentieth century marxist state ever got near the freedom which Marx was seeking. A liberal society might achieve it! |
| 22972 | Bourgeois 'freedom of conscience' just tolerates all sorts of religious intolerance [Marx] |
| Full Idea: Bourgeois 'freedom of conscience' is just the toleration of all possible kinds of religious unfreedom of conscience, and the workers' party should endeavour to liberate the conscience from the witchery of religion. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Critique of the Gotha Program [1875], IV) | |
| A reaction: We see this in modern 'faith' schools in the UK, which do not seem to be required to live up to the standards of freedom of belief expected in the rest of a liberal society. |