3 ideas
| 22200 | If you eliminate the impossible, the truth will remain, even if it is weird [Conan Doyle] |
| Full Idea: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. | |
| From: Arthur Conan Doyle (The Sign of Four [1890], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: A beautiful statement, by Sherlock Holmes, of Eliminative Induction. It is obviously not true, of course. Many options may still face you after you have eliminated what is actually impossible. |
| 9284 | Reasons are 'internal' if they give a person a motive to act, but 'external' otherwise [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Someone has 'internal reasons' to act when the person has some motive which will be served or furthered by the action; if this turns out not to be so, the reason is false. Reasons are 'external' when there is no such condition. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Internal and External Reasons [1980], p.101) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] An external example given is a family tradition of joining the army, if the person doesn't want to. Williams says (p.111) external reason statements are actually false, and a misapplication of the concept of a 'reason to act'. See Idea 8815. |
| 20329 | A work of art is an artifact created for the artworld [Dickie] |
| Full Idea: A work of art is an artifact of a kind created to be presented to an artworld public. | |
| From: George Dickie (The New Institutional Theory of Art [1983], p.53) | |
| A reaction: This is the culminating definition in his paper, deriving originally from Danto, and an improvement of his earlier more complex definition. Since this definition amounts to 'this is art if I say it is art', it doesn't seem to reveal much. |