Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Sign of Four', 'Things' and 'On the Nature of Moral Values'

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6 ideas

3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 1. Correspondence Truth

21750	Science is sympathetic to truth as correspondence, since it depends on observation [Quine]
	Full Idea: Science, thanks to its links with observation, retains some title to a correspondence theory of truth.
	From: Willard Quine (On the Nature of Moral Values [1978], p.63)
	A reaction: I would describe what he is affirming as a 'robust' theory of truth. An interesting aside, given his usual allegiance to disquotational, and even redundancy, accounts of truth. You can hardly rely on observations if you think they contain no truth.

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 2. Abstract Objects / c. Modern abstracta

7783	Bodies, properties, relations, events, numbers, sets and propositions are 'things' if they exist [Lowe]
	Full Idea: Not only material bodies but also properties, relations, events, numbers, sets, and propositions are—if they are acknowledged as existing—to be accounted ‘things’.
	From: E.J. Lowe (Things [1995])
	A reaction: There might be lots of borderline cases here. Is the sky a thing? Is air a thing? How is transparency a thing? Is minus-one a thing? Is an incomplete proposition a thing? Etc.

14. Science / C. Induction / 1. Induction

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.

14. Science / C. Induction / 2. Aims of Induction

21748	More careful inductions gradually lead to the hypothetico-deductive method [Quine]
	Full Idea: Our inductions become increasingly explicit and deliberate, and in the fulness of time we even rise above induction, to the hypothetico-deductive method.
	From: Willard Quine (On the Nature of Moral Values [1978], p.57)
	A reaction: This seems to defer to Hempel's account of scientific theorising. I wander what exactly 'rising above' means?

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / a. Nature of value

21749	Altruistic values concern other persons, and ceremonial values concern practices [Quine]
	Full Idea: Altruistic values attach to satisfactions of other persons, without regard to ulterior satisfactions accruing to oneself. Ceremonial values attach to practices of one's society, without regard to satisfactions accruing to oneself.
	From: Willard Quine (On the Nature of Moral Values [1978], p.58)
	A reaction: An interesting distinction, but probably as blurred and circular as (according to Quine) the analytic/synthetic distinction.

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / g. Love

21751	Love seems to diminish with distance from oneself [Quine]
	Full Idea: One cannot reasonably be called upon to love even one's neighbour quite as oneself. Is love to diminish inversely as the square of the distance? Is it to extend to other species than one's own?
	From: Willard Quine (On the Nature of Moral Values [1978], p.65)
	A reaction: Quine isn't actually saying that love is inherently egoistic, but that is the implication. The power of my love is at its most powerful when it is closest to home.