8 ideas
| 15201 | That Queen Anne is dead is a 'general fact', not a fact about Queen Anne [Prior,AN] |
| Full Idea: The fact that Queen Anne has been dead for some years is not, in the strict sense of 'about', a fact about Queen Anne; it is not a fact about anyone or anything - it is a general fact. | |
| From: Arthur N. Prior (Changes in Events and Changes in Things [1968], p.13), quoted by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 1 b | |
| A reaction: He distinguishes 'general facts' (states of affairs, I think) from 'individual facts', involving some specific object. General facts seem to be what are expressed by negative existential truths, such as 'there is no Loch Ness Monster'. Useful. |
| 19087 | The meaning or purport of a symbol is all the rational conduct it would lead to [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The entire intellectual purport of any symbol consists in the total of all modes of rational conduct which, conditionally upon all the possible different circumstances and desires, would ensue upon the acceptance of the symbol. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Issues of Pragmaticism [1905], EP ii.246), quoted by Danielle Macbeth - Pragmatism and Objective Truth p.169 n1 | |
| A reaction: Macbeth says pragmatism is founded on this theory of meaning, rather than on a theory of truth. I don't see why the causes of a symbol shouldn't be as much a part of its meaning as the consequences are. |
| 22899 | 'Thank goodness that's over' is not like 'thank goodness that happened on Friday' [Prior,AN] |
| Full Idea: One says 'thank goodness that is over', ..and it says something which it is impossible which any use of any tenseless copula with a date should convey. It certainly doesn't mean the same as 'thank goodness that occured on Friday June 15th 1954'. | |
| From: Arthur N. Prior (Changes in Events and Changes in Things [1968]), quoted by Adrian Bardon - Brief History of the Philosophy of Time 4 'Pervasive' | |
| A reaction: [Ref uncertain] This seems to be appealing to ordinary usage, in which tenses have huge significance. If we take time (with its past, present and future) as primitive, then tenses can have full weight. Did tenses mean anything at all to Einstein? |
| 21275 | Unlike a stone, the parts of a watch are obviously assembled in order to show the time [Paley] |
| Full Idea: When we come to inspect a watch we perceive (what we could not discover in a stone) that its several parts are put together for a purpose, to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day. | |
| From: William Paley (Natural Theology [1802], Ch 1) | |
| A reaction: Microscopic examination of the stone would have surprised Paley. Should we infer a geometer because the sun is spherical? Crytals look designed, but are explained by deeper chemistry. |
| 21276 | From the obvious purpose and structure of a watch we must infer that it was designed [Paley] |
| Full Idea: The inference is inevitable that the watch had a maker; that there must have existed, at some time, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer, who designed its use. | |
| From: William Paley (Natural Theology [1802], Ch 1) | |
| A reaction: It rather begs the question to refer to an ordered structure as a 'design'. Why do we think it is absurd to think the the 'purpose' of the sun is to benefit mankind? Suppose we found a freakish natural sundial in the woods. |
| 21277 | Even an imperfect machine can exhibit obvious design [Paley] |
| Full Idea: It is not necessary that a machine be perfect, in order to show with what design it was made. | |
| From: William Paley (Natural Theology [1802], Ch 1) | |
| A reaction: This encounters Hume's point that you will then have to infer that the designer contains similar imperfections. If you look at plagues, famines and mothers dying in childbirth (see Mill), you might wish the designer had never started. |
| 21278 | All the signs of design found in a watch are also found in nature [Paley] |
| Full Idea: Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature. | |
| From: William Paley (Natural Theology [1802], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: This is far from obvious. It was crucial to the watch analogy that we immediately see its one self-evident purpose. No one looks at nature and says 'Aha, I know what this is all for'. |
| 21357 | No organ shows purpose more obviously than the eyelid [Paley] |
| Full Idea: The eyelid defends the eye; it wipes it; it closes it in sleep. Are there, in any work of art whatever, purposes more evident than those which this organ fulfils? | |
| From: William Paley (Natural Theology [1802], p.24), quoted by Armand Marie LeRoi - The Lagoon: how Aristotle invented science 031 | |
| A reaction: Nice to have another example, in addition to the watch. He is not wholly wrong, because it is impossible to give an evolutionary account of the development of the eyelid without referring to some sort of teleological aspect. The eyelid has a function. |