7085
|
The main problem of philosophy is what can and cannot be thought and expressed [Wittgenstein, by Grayling]
|
|
Full Idea:
The 'Tractatus' concerns the theory of what can be expressed by propositions (and, which comes to the same thing, can be thought), and what cannot be expressed by propositions, but can only be shown; which, I believe, is the main problem of philosophy.
|
|
From:
report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Letters to Russell [1919]) by A.C. Grayling - Wittgenstein Ch.2
|
|
A reaction:
This contains what a I consider the heresy of making thought depend on language, but his main question remains, of the limits of thought. It is dramatised nicely in the 'mysterian' view of the mind-body problem (e.g. Idea 2540).
|
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.
|
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?
|