Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Changes in Events and Changes in Things', 'Review of Bob Hale's 'Abstract Objects'' and 'Has Philosophy Lost Contact with People?'

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6 ideas

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 3. Wisdom Deflated

9764	Inspiration and social improvement need wisdom, but not professional philosophy [Quine]
	Full Idea: Professional philosophers have no peculiar fitness for inspirational and edifying writing, or helping to get society on an even keel (though we should do what we can). Wisdom may fulfil these crying needs: 'sophia' yes, but 'philosophia' not necessarily.
	From: Willard Quine (Has Philosophy Lost Contact with People? [1979], p.193)
	A reaction: This rather startlingly says that philosophy is unlikely to lead to wisdom, which is rather odd when it is defined as love of that very thing. Does love of horticulture lead to good gardening. I can't agree. Philosophy is the best hope of 'sophia'.

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 6. Hopes for Philosophy

9763	For a good theory of the world, we must focus on our flabby foundational vocabulary [Quine]
	Full Idea: Our traditional introspective notions - of meaning, idea, concept, essence, all undisciplined and undefined - afford a hopelessly flabby and unmanageable foundation for a theory of the world. Control is gained by focusing on words.
	From: Willard Quine (Has Philosophy Lost Contact with People? [1979], p.192)
	A reaction: A very nice statement of the aim of modern language-centred philosophy, though the task offered appears to be that of an under-labourer, when the real target, even according to Quine, is supposed to be a 'theory of the world'.

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 4. Conceptual Analysis

9184	We can't presume that all interesting concepts can be analysed [Williamson]
	Full Idea: We have no prior reason to suppose that philosophically significant concepts have interesting analyses into necessary and sufficient conditions.
	From: Timothy Williamson (Review of Bob Hale's 'Abstract Objects' [1988])
	A reaction: We might think that they are either analysable or primitive, and that failure of analysis invites us to take a concept as primitive. But maybe God can analyse it and we can't.

6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 1. Mathematical Platonism / a. For mathematical platonism

9183	Platonism claims that some true assertions have singular terms denoting abstractions, so abstractions exist [Williamson]
	Full Idea: The Fregean argument for platonism is that some true assertions contain singular terms which denote abstract objects if they denote anything; since the assertions are true, the singular terms denote.
	From: Timothy Williamson (Review of Bob Hale's 'Abstract Objects' [1988])
	A reaction: I am perplexed that anyone would rest their view of reality on such an argument. The obvious comparison would be with true remarks about blatantly fictional characters, or blatantly invented concepts such as 'checkmate'.

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / b. Types of fact

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.

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / e. Tensed (A) series

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?