13 ideas
| 21900 | Deleuze relies on Spinoza (immanence), Bergson (duration), and difference (Nietzsche) [May] |
| Full Idea: The three tripods on which the philosophy of Deleuze stands are immanence (Spinoza), duration (Bergson), and the affirmation of difference (Nietzsche). | |
| From: Todd May (Gilles Deleuze [2006], 2.12) | |
| A reaction: [Just to begin sketching how continental philosophy sees its tradition]. |
| 9175 | We may fix the reference of 'Cicero' by a description, but thereafter the name is rigid [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: We may fix the reference of 'Cicero' by use of some descriptive phrase, such as 'author of these works'. But once we have this reference fixed, we then use the name 'Cicero' rigidly to designate the man who in fact we have identified by his authorship. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.183) | |
| A reaction: Even supposedly rigid names can shift reference, as Evans's example of 'Madagascar' shows (Idea 9041). Reference is a much more social activity than Kripke is willing to admit. There is a 'tradition' of reference (Dummett) for the name 'Cicero'. |
| 9171 | The function of names is simply to refer [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: The function of names is simply to refer. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.167) | |
| A reaction: This is Kripke reverting to the John Stuart Mill view of names. If I say "you are a right Casanova" I don't simply refer to Casanova. In notorious examples like 'Homer' reference is fine, but the object of reference is a bit elusive. |
| 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. |
| 9174 | It is necessary that this table is not made of ice, but we don't know it a priori [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: Although the statement that this table (if it exists at all) was not made of ice, is necessary, it certainly is not something that we know a priori. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.180) | |
| A reaction: One of the key thoughts in modern philosophy. Kit Fine warns against treating it as a new and exciting toy, but it is a new and exciting toy. Scientific essentialism, which I so want to be true, is built on this proposal. |
| 9172 | A 'rigid designator' designates the same object in all possible worlds [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: By 'rigid designator' I mean a term that designates the same object in all possible worlds. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971]) | |
| A reaction: I am persistently troubled by the case of objects which are slightly different in another possible world. Does 'Aristotle' refer to him as young or old? Might the very same man have had a mole on his cheek? |
| 9173 | We cannot say that Nixon might have been a different man from the one he actually was [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: It seems that we cannot say "Nixon might have been a different man from the man he in fact was", unless we mean it metaphorically. He might have been a different sort of person. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.176) | |
| A reaction: The problem is that being a 'different sort of person' could become more and more drastic, till Nixon is unrecognisable. I don't see how I can stipulate that a small and dim mouse is Richard Nixon, even in a possible world with magicians. |
| 9176 | Modal statements about this table never refer to counterparts; that confuses epistemology and metaphysics [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: Statements about the modal properties of this table never refer to counterparts. However, if someone confuses the epistemological problems and the metaphysical problems he will be well on the way to the counterpart theory of Lewis. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.184 n16) | |
| A reaction: I can't make out what we should say about a possible object which is very nearly this table. Kripke needs the table to have a clear and unwavering essence, but tables are not that sort of thing. How would Kripke define 'physical object'? |
| 9177 | Identity theorists must deny that pains can be imagined without brain states [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: The identity theorist has to hold that we are under some illusion in thinking that we can imagine that there could have been pains without brain states. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.190) | |
| A reaction: The origin of Robert Kirk's idea that there might be zombies. Kripke is wrong. Of course Kripke and his friends can imagine disembodied pains; the question is whether being able to imagine them makes them possible, which it doesn't. |
| 9178 | Pain, unlike heat, is picked out by an essential property [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: 'Heat' is a rigid designator, which is picked out by the contingent property of being felt in a certain way; pain, on the other hand, is picked out by an essential (indeed necessary and sufficient) property. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.190 n19) | |
| A reaction: Hm. I could pick out your pain by your contingent whimpering behaviour. I can spot my own potential pain by a combination of bodily damage and pain killing tablets. I suspect him of the same blunder as Descartes on this one. |
| 21898 | For existentialists the present is empty without the pull of the future and weight of the past [May] |
| Full Idea: For the existential view of lived time, the present would be empty if it were not for the pull of the future and the weight of the past that give it its character. | |
| From: Todd May (Gilles Deleuze [2006], 2.05) | |
| A reaction: Bergson seems to be important in developing this idea, though I suspect that Kierkegaard is a source. |
| 21905 | Liberal theory starts from the governed, not from the governor [May] |
| Full Idea: For liberal theory, it is the individual to be governed, not the governor, who is the starting point. | |
| From: Todd May (Gilles Deleuze [2006], 4.02) | |
| A reaction: I'm inclined to see this as the single-handed achievement of Thomas Hobbes, who starts from the need of citizens to secure their contracts. Plato's society starts from entrepreneurs, but their need for a ruler seems a priori. |
| 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? |