14 ideas
| 2676 | Didactic argument starts from the principles of the subject, not from the opinions of the learner [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Didactic arguments are those which reason from the principles appropriate to each branch of learning and not from the opinions of the answerer (for he who is learning must take things on trust). | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 165b01) |
| 2675 | Reasoning is a way of making statements which makes them lead on to other statements [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Reasoning is based on certain statements made in such a way as necessarily to cause the assertion of things other than those statements and as a result of those statements. | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 165a01) |
| 2677 | Dialectic aims to start from generally accepted opinions, and lead to a contradiction [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Dialectical arguments are those which, starting from generally accepted opinions, reason to establish a contradiction. | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 165b03) |
| 2674 | Competitive argument aims at refutation, fallacy, paradox, solecism or repetition [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Those who compete and contend in argument aim at five objects: refutation, fallacy, paradox, solecism, and the reduction of one's opponent to a state of babbling, that is, making him say the same thing over and over again. | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 165b15) |
| 16967 | 'Are Coriscus and Callias at home?' sounds like a single question, but it isn't [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If you ask 'Are Coriscus and Callias at home or not at home?', whether they are both at home or not there, the number of propositions is more than one. For if the answer is true, it does not follow that the question is a single one. | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 176a08) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Aristotle is saying that some questions should not receive a 'yes' or 'no' answer, because they are equivocal. Arthur Prior cites this passage, on 'and'. Ordinary use of 'and' need not be the logical use of 'and'. |
| 16149 | Generic terms like 'man' are not substances, but qualities, relations, modes or some such thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: 'Man', and every generic term, denotes not an individual substance but a quality or relation or mode or something of the kind. | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 179a01) | |
| A reaction: This is Aristotle's denial that species constitutes the essence of anything. I take 'man' to be a categorisation of individuals, and is ontologically nothing at all in its own right. |
| 11840 | Only if two things are identical do they have the same attributes [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is only to things which are indistinguishable and one in essence [ousia] that all the same attributes are generally held to belong. | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 179a37) | |
| A reaction: This simply IS Leibniz's Law (to which I shall from now on quietly refer to as 'Aristotle's Law'). It seems that it just as plausible to translate 'ousia' as 'being' rather than 'essence'. 'Indistinguishable' and 'one in ousia' are not the same. |
| 6417 | In 1921 Russell abandoned sense-data, and the gap between sensation and object [Russell, by Grayling] |
| Full Idea: In 'The Analysis of Mind' Russell gave up talk of 'sense-data', and ceased to distinguish between the act of sensing and what is sensed. | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (The Analysis of Mind [1921]) by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This seems to lead towards the modern 'adverbial' account of sensing, where I don't sense 'data', but where qualia (such as redness) are our particular mode of directly perceiving objects, where insects might directly perceive them in a different mode. |
| 6474 | Seeing is not in itself knowledge, but is separate from what is seen, such as a patch of colour [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Undeniably, knowledge comes through seeing, but it is a mistake to regard the mere seeing itself as knowledge; if we are so to regard it, we must distinguish the seeing from what is seen; a patch of colour is one thing, and our seeing it is another. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Analysis of Mind [1921], Lec. VIII) | |
| A reaction: This is Russell's 1921 explanation of why he adopted sense-data (but he rejects them later in this paragraph). This gives a simplistic impression of what he intended, which has three components: the object, the 'sensibile', and the sense-datum. |
| 6476 | We cannot assume that the subject actually exists, so we cannot distinguish sensations from sense-data [Russell] |
| Full Idea: If we are to avoid a perfectly gratuitous assumption, we must dispense with the subject as one of the actual ingredients of the world; but when we do this, the possibility of distinguishing the sensation from the sense-datum vanishes. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Analysis of Mind [1921], Lec. VIII) | |
| A reaction: This is the reason why Russell himself rejected sense-data. It is more normal, I think, to reject them simply as being superfluous. If the subject can simply perceive the sense-data, why can't they just perceive the object more directly? |
| 2792 | It is possible the world came into existence five minutes ago, complete with false memories [Russell] |
| Full Idea: There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Analysis of Mind [1921], p.159) | |
| A reaction: One of the great sceptical arguments! At a stroke it undermines forever any dreams that memories are totally certain. This is an extra scepticism, which arises if you decide that current experience IS totally certain. |
| 22326 | Knowledge needs more than a sensitive response; the response must also be appropriate [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Accuracy of response to stimulus does not alone show knowledge, but must be reinforced by appropriateness, i.e. suitability of realising one's purpose. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Analysis of Mind [1921], p.261), quoted by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 66 'Rel' | |
| A reaction: The aim of 'realising one's purpose' puts a very pragmatist spin on this. The point is a good one, and seems to apply particularly to Nozick's accurate 'tracking' account of knowledge. |
| 6475 | In perception, the self is just a logical fiction demanded by grammar [Russell] |
| Full Idea: In perception, the idea of the subject appears to be a logical fiction, like mathematical points and instants; it is introduced, not because observation reveals it, but because it is linguistically convenient and apparently demanded by grammar. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Analysis of Mind [1921], Lec. VIII) | |
| A reaction: In 1912, Russell had felt that both the Cogito, and the experience of meta-thought, had confirmed the existence of a non-permanent ego, but here he offers a Humean rejection. His notion of a 'logical fiction' is behaviouristic. I believe in the Self. |
| 4871 | A thing is free if it acts only by the necessity of its own nature [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: I say that a thing is free, which exists and acts solely by the necessity of its own nature. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Letter to G.H. Schaller [1674], 1674.10) | |
| A reaction: Of course, this isn't 'freedom' at all, but it seems to exactly right as an account of so-called freedom. In the case of a human being the 'necessity of our own nature' is character, and virtue and vice are the expressions of the necessities of character. |