17 ideas
23657 | The existence of tensed verbs shows that not all truths are necessary truths [Reid] |
Full Idea: If all truths were necessary truths, there would be no occasion for different tenses in the verbs by which they are expressed. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 6: Judgement [1785], 5) | |
A reaction: This really is like modern linguistic analysis. Of course the tensed verbs might only indicate times when the universal necessities have been noticed by speakers. …But then the noticing would be contingent! |
23655 | An ad hominem argument is good, if it is shown that the man's principles are inconsistent [Reid] |
Full Idea: It is a good argument ad hominem, if it can be shewn that a first principle which a man rejects, stands upon the same footing with others which he admits, …for he must then be guilty of an inconsistency. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 6: Judgement [1785], 4) | |
A reaction: Good point. You can't divorce 'pure' reason from the reasoners, because the inconsistency of two propositions only matters when they are both asserted together. …But attacking the ideas isn't quite the same as attacking the person. |
23659 | If someone denies that he is thinking when he is conscious of it, we can only laugh [Reid] |
Full Idea: If any man could be found so frantic as to deny that he thinks, while he is conscious of it, I may wonder, I may laugh, or I may pity him, but I cannot reason the matter with him. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 6: Judgement [1785], 5) | |
A reaction: An example of the influence of Descartes' Cogito running through all subsequent European philosophy. There remain the usual questions about personal identity which then arise, but Reid addresses those. |
23662 | The existence of ideas is no more obvious than the existence of external objects [Reid] |
Full Idea: If external objects be perceived immediately, we have the same reason to believe their existence as philosophers have to believe the existence of ideas. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 6: Judgement [1785], 5) | |
A reaction: He doesn't pay much attention to mirages and delusions, but in difficult conditions of perception we are confident of our experiences but doubtful about the objects they represent. |
23661 | We are only aware of other beings through our senses; without that, we are alone in the universe [Reid] |
Full Idea: We can have no communication, no correspondence or society with any created being, but by means of our senses. And, until we rely on their testimony, we must consider ourselves as being alone in the universe. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 6: Judgement [1785], 5) | |
A reaction: I'm not aware of any thinker before this so directly addressing solipsism. Even the champion of direct and common sense realism has to recognise the intermediary of our senses when accepting other minds. |
23654 | In obscure matters the few must lead the many, but the many usually lead in common sense [Reid] |
Full Idea: In matters beyond the reach of common understanding, the many are led by the few, and willingly yield to their authority. But, in matters of common sense, the few must yield to the many, when local and temporary prejudices are removed. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 6: Judgement [1785], 4) | |
A reaction: Wishful thinking in the 21st century, when the many routinely deny the authority of the expert few, and the expert few occasionally prove that the collective common sense of the many is delusional. I still sort of agree with Reid. |
23660 | The theory of ideas, popular with philosophers, means past existence has to be proved [Reid] |
Full Idea: The theory concerning ideas, so generally received by philosophers, destroys all the authority of memory. …This theory made it necessary for them to find out arguments to prove the existence of external objects …and of things past. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 6: Judgement [1785], 5) | |
A reaction: Reid was a very articulate direct realist. He seems less aware than the rest of us of the problem of delusions and false memories. Our strong sense that immediate memories are reliable is certainly inexplicable. |
23658 | Consciousness is an indefinable and unique operation [Reid] |
Full Idea: Consciousness is an operation of the understanding of its own kind, and cannot be logically defined. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 6: Judgement [1785], 5) | |
A reaction: It is interesting that has tried to define consciousness, rather than just assuming it. I note that he calls consciousness an 'operation', rather than an entity. Good. |
23656 | The structure of languages reveals a uniformity in basic human opinions [Reid] |
Full Idea: What is common in the structure of languages, indicates an uniformity of opinion in those things upon which that structure is grounded. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 6: Judgement [1785], 4) | |
A reaction: Reid was more interested than his contemporaries in the role of language in philosophy. The first idea sounds like Chomsky. I would add to this that the uniformity of common opinion reflects uniformities in the world they are talking about. |
23653 | If you can't distinguish the features of a complex object, your notion of it would be a muddle [Reid] |
Full Idea: If you perceive an object, white, round, and a foot in diameter, if you had not been able to distinguish the colour from the figure, and both from the magnitude, your senses would only give you one complex and confused notion of all these mingled together | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 6: Judgement [1785], 1) | |
A reaction: His point is that if you reject the 'abstraction' of these qualities, you still cannot deny that distinguishing them is an essential aspect of perceiving complex things. Does this mean that animals distinguish such things? |
23663 | There are axioms of taste - such as a general consensus about a beautiful face [Reid] |
Full Idea: I think there are axioms, even in matters of taste. …I never heard of any man who thought it a beauty in a human face to want a nose, or an eye, or to have the mouth on one side. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 6: Judgement [1785], 6) | |
A reaction: It is hard to disagree, but the human face may be a special case, since it is so deeply embedded in the minds of even the youngest infants. More recent artists seem able to discover beauty in very unlikely places. |
23898 | Those who say immorality is not an aesthetic criterion must show that all criteria are aesthetic [Weil] |
Full Idea: Writers and readers who cry out that immorality is not an aesthetic criterion need to prove, which they have never done, that one should apply only aesthetic criteria to literature. | |
From: Simone Weil (Literature and Morals [1941], p.146) | |
A reaction: I take the first criterion of literature that it not be boring, and I don't think that is an aesthetic matter. A lot must be achieved before a work can even be considered for aesthetic judgment. Being deeply offensive might rule it out. |
6613 | The natural kinds are objects, processes and properties/relations [Ellis] |
Full Idea: There are three hierarchies of natural kinds: objects or substances (substantive universals), events or processes (dynamic universals), and properties or relations (tropic universals). | |
From: Brian Ellis (Katzav on limitations of dispositions [2005], 91) | |
A reaction: Most interesting here is the identifying of natural kinds with universals, making universals into the families of nature. Universals are high-level sets of natural kinds. To grasp universals you must see patterns, and infer the underlying order. |
6616 | Least action is not a causal law, but a 'global law', describing a global essence [Ellis] |
Full Idea: The principle of least action is not a causal law, but is what I call a 'global law', which describes the essence of the global kind, which every object in the universe necessarily instantiates. | |
From: Brian Ellis (Katzav on limitations of dispositions [2005]) | |
A reaction: As a fan of essentialism I find this persuasive. If I inherit part of my essence from being a mammal, I inherit other parts of my essence from being an object, and all objects would share that essence, so it would look like a 'law' for all objects. |
6615 | A species requires a genus, and its essence includes the essence of the genus [Ellis] |
Full Idea: A specific universal can exist only if the generic universal of which it is a species exists, but generic universals don't depend on species; …the essence of any genus is included in its species, but not conversely. | |
From: Brian Ellis (Katzav on limitations of dispositions [2005], 91) | |
A reaction: Thus the species 'electron' would be part of the genus 'lepton', or 'human' part of 'mammal'. The point of all this is to show how individual items connect up with the rest of the universe, giving rise to universal laws, such as Least Action. |
6614 | A hierarchy of natural kinds is elaborate ontology, but needed to explain natural laws [Ellis] |
Full Idea: The hierarchy of natural kinds proposed by essentialism may be more elaborate than is strictly required for purposes of ontology, but it is necessary to explain the necessity of the laws of nature, and the universal applicability of global principles. | |
From: Brian Ellis (Katzav on limitations of dispositions [2005], 91) | |
A reaction: I am all in favour of elaborating ontology in the name of best explanation. There seem, though, to be some remaining ontological questions at the point where the explanations of essentialism run out. |
6612 | Without general principles, we couldn't predict the behaviour of dispositional properties [Ellis] |
Full Idea: It is objected to dispositionalism that without the principle of least action, or some general principle of equal power, the specific dispositional properties of things could tell us very little about how these things would be disposed to behave. | |
From: Brian Ellis (Katzav on limitations of dispositions [2005], 90) | |
A reaction: Ellis attempts to meet this criticism, by placing dispositional properties within a hierarchy of broader properties. There remains a nagging doubt about how essentialism can account for space, time, order, and the existence of essences. |