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5651
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Traditional views of truth are tautologies, and truth is empty without a subject [Kierkegaard, by Scruton]
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Full Idea:
Kierkegaard developed the idea of 'truth as subjectivity'; the traditional conceptions of truth - correspondence or coherence - he regarded as equally empty, not because false, but because tautologous; truth ceases to be empty when related to a subject.
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From:
report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.13
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A reaction:
It strikes me that the correspondence theory of truth also involves a subject. If you become too obsessed with the subject, you lose the concept of truth. You need a concept of the non-subject too. Truth concerns the contents of thought.
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18890
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Putnam smuggles essentialism about liquids into his proof that water must be H2O [Salmon,N on Putnam]
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Full Idea:
In the full exposition of Putnam's mechanism for generating the necessary truth that water is H2O, we find that the mechanism employs a certain nontrivial general principle of essentialism concerning liquid substances as a crucial premise.
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From:
comment on Hilary Putnam (The Meaning of 'Meaning' [1975]) by Nathan Salmon - Reference and Essence (1st edn) 6.23.1
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A reaction:
This charge, that Kripke and Putnam smuggle the essentialism into their semantics, rather than deriving it, is the nub of Salmon's criticism of them. It seems to me that a new world view emerged while those two where revising the semantics.
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22200
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If you eliminate the impossible, the truth will remain, even if it is weird [Conan Doyle]
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Full Idea:
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
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From:
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Sign of Four [1890], Ch. 6)
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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.
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12026
|
We say ice and steam are different forms of water, but not that they are different forms of H2O [Forbes,G on Putnam]
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Full Idea:
Putnam presumes it is correct to say that ice and steam are forms of water, rather than that ice, water and steam are three forms of H2O. If we allow the latter, then 'water is H2O' is not an identity, but elliptical for 'water is H2O in liquid state'.
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From:
comment on Hilary Putnam (The Meaning of 'Meaning' [1975]) by Graeme Forbes - The Metaphysics of Modality 8.2
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A reaction:
This nice observation seems to reveal that the word 'water' is ambiguous. I presume the ambiguity preceded the discovery of its chemical construction. Shakespeare would have hesitated over whether to say 'water is ice'. Context would matter.
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22090
|
For me time stands still, and I with it [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle]
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Full Idea:
Time flows, life is a stream, people say, and so on. I do not notice it. Time stands still, and I with it.
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From:
report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843], I:26) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 3
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A reaction:
This is from the spokesman for the aesthetic option in life, which is largely pleasure-seeking. No real choices ever occur.
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5650
|
Reason is just abstractions, so our essence needs a subjective 'leap of faith' [Kierkegaard, by Scruton]
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Full Idea:
For Kierkegaard, reason, which produces only abstractions, negates our individual essence; this essence is subjectivity, and subjectivity exists only in the 'leap of faith', whereby the individual casts in his lot with eternity.
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From:
report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.13
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A reaction:
Interesting, but this strikes me as a confusion of reason and logic. A logical life would indeed be a sort of death, and need faith as an escape, but a broad view of the rational life includes emotion, imagination and laughter. Blind faith is disaster.
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22095
|
There are aesthetic, ethical and religious subjectivity [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle]
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Full Idea:
Kierkegaard distinguishes three main types of subjectivity: aesthetic, ethical and religious. But are these types of people, or different phases of one person's life?
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From:
report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 4
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A reaction:
His picture of the religious mode holds no appeal for me. I also can't accept that the aesthetic and the moral are somewho distinct. People may discover they have slipped into one of these modes, but no one chooses them, do they?
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20747
|
What matters is not right choice, but energy, earnestness and pathos in the choosing [Kierkegaard]
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Full Idea:
In making a choice, it is not so much a question of choosing the right way as of the energy, the earnestness, and the pathos with which one chooses.
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From:
Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843], p.106), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Phenomenology'
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A reaction:
I'm struggling to identify with the experience he is describing. I can't imagine a more quintessentially existentialist remark than this. Reference to 'energy' in choosing strikes me as very romantic. Is 'the way not taken' crucial (in 'pathos')?
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11192
|
If causes are the essence of diseases, then disease is an example of a relational essence [Putnam, by Williams,NE]
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Full Idea:
Putnam takes causes to be the essence of disease kinds, and they are distinct from the diseases they cause, both in identity and in proper parthood. These are relational properties, so Putnam gives examples of natural kinds with relational essences.
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From:
report of Hilary Putnam (The Meaning of 'Meaning' [1975]) by Neil E. Williams - Putnam's Traditional Neo-Essentialism §4
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A reaction:
This seems to be a nice point, since scientific essentialism invariable takes itself to be pursuing instrinsic properties when it unravels the essences of natural kinds. Probably the best response is the Putnam has got muddled.
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