18 ideas
23392 | The Dao (Way) first means the road, and comes to mean the right way to live [Norden] |
Full Idea: The 'Dao' (tr 'Way) has five meanings: 1) path or road, 2) mode of doing something, 3) account of how to do something, 4) the right way to live, and 5) the ultimate metaphysical entity responsible for nature, and how it should be. | |
From: Bryan van Norden (Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy [2011], 1.III) | |
A reaction: [compressed] So it is essentially metaphorical, just like the English 'way to do a thing'. Number 5 seems a rather large leap from the others, and most discussion seems to centre on number 4. The Chinese hoped for consensus on the Dao. |
14767 | The demonstrations of the metaphysicians are all moonshine [Peirce] |
Full Idea: The demonstrations of the metaphysicians are all moonshine. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Concerning the Author [1897], p.2) |
14764 | I am saturated with the spirit of physical science [Peirce] |
Full Idea: I am saturated, through and through, with the spirit of the physical sciences. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Concerning the Author [1897], p.1) |
23408 | The hermeneutic circle is either within the text, or between text and biased reader [Norden] |
Full Idea: The first type of hermeneutic circle operates inside the text, studying relationships between sentences. …The second type is between the text and the reader, …who brings assumptions about what it means. | |
From: Bryan van Norden (Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy [2011], App A.I) | |
A reaction: The first kind is an essential aspect of reading well. Readers are biased, but I get very tired of those who do nothing but search for bias, and ignore the truth a text has to offer. If everything is bias, intellectual life is dead. |
23407 | Heremeneutics is either 'faith' (examining truth) or 'suspicion' (looking for hidden motives) [Norden] |
Full Idea: A 'hermeneutics of faith' treat a text as a candidate for truth. ….A 'hermeneutics of suspicion' looks not for truth but for explanations of why someone makes certain claims, …particularly to serve their ulterior interests. | |
From: Bryan van Norden (Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy [2011], App I.1) | |
A reaction: As far as I can see, the suspicious approach was a legitimate development in sociology, which studies the sources of ideas, but is absurdly offered by some philosophers as a total replacement of the faith approach. |
10633 | 'Some critics admire only one another' cannot be paraphrased in singular first-order [Linnebo] |
Full Idea: The Geach-Kaplan sentence 'Some critics admire only one another' provably has no singular first-order paraphrase using only its predicates. | |
From: Øystein Linnebo (Plural Quantification [2008], 1) | |
A reaction: There seems to be a choice of either going second-order (picking out a property), or going plural (collectively quantifying), or maybe both. |
10638 | A pure logic is wholly general, purely formal, and directly known [Linnebo] |
Full Idea: The defining features of a pure logic are its absolute generality (the objects of discourse are irrelevant), and its formality (logical truths depend on form, not matter), and its cognitive primacy (no extra-logical understanding is needed to grasp it). | |
From: Øystein Linnebo (Plural Quantification [2008], 3) | |
A reaction: [compressed] This strikes me as very important. The above description seems to contain no ontological commitment at all, either to the existence of something, or to two things, or to numbers, or to a property. Pure logic seems to be 'if-thenism'. |
10635 | Second-order quantification and plural quantification are different [Linnebo] |
Full Idea: Second-order quantification and plural quantification are generally regarded as different forms of quantification. | |
From: Øystein Linnebo (Plural Quantification [2008], 2) |
10641 | Traditionally we eliminate plurals by quantifying over sets [Linnebo] |
Full Idea: The traditional view in analytic philosophy has been that all plural locutions should be paraphrased away by quantifying over sets, though Boolos and other objected that this is unnatural and unnecessary. | |
From: Øystein Linnebo (Plural Quantification [2008], 5) |
10640 | Instead of complex objects like tables, plurally quantify over mereological atoms tablewise [Linnebo] |
Full Idea: Plural quantification can be used to eliminate the commitment of science and common sense to complex objects. We can use plural quantification over mereological atoms arranged tablewise or chairwise. | |
From: Øystein Linnebo (Plural Quantification [2008], 4.5) | |
A reaction: [He cites Hossack and van Ingwagen] |
10636 | Plural plurals are unnatural and need a first-level ontology [Linnebo] |
Full Idea: Higher-order plural quantification (plural plurals) is often rejected because plural quantification is supposedly ontological innocent, with no plural things to be plural, and because it is not found in ordinary English. | |
From: Øystein Linnebo (Plural Quantification [2008], 2.4) | |
A reaction: [Summary; he cites Boolos as a notable rejector] Linnebo observes that Icelandic contains a word 'tvennir' which means 'two pairs of'. |
10639 | Plural quantification may allow a monadic second-order theory with first-order ontology [Linnebo] |
Full Idea: Plural quantification seems to offer ontological economy. We can pay the price of a mere first-order theory and then use plural quantification to get for free the corresponding monadic second-order theory, which would be an ontological bargain. | |
From: Øystein Linnebo (Plural Quantification [2008], 4.4) | |
A reaction: [He mentions Hellman's modal structuralism in mathematics] |
10643 | We speak of a theory's 'ideological commitments' as well as its 'ontological commitments' [Linnebo] |
Full Idea: Some philosophers speak about a theory's 'ideological commitments' and not just about its 'ontological commitments'. | |
From: Øystein Linnebo (Plural Quantification [2008], 5.4) | |
A reaction: This is a third strategy for possibly evading one's ontological duty, along with fiddling with the words 'exist' or 'object'. An ideological commitment to something to which one is not actually ontologically committed conjures up stupidity and dogma. |
10637 | Ordinary speakers posit objects without concern for ontology [Linnebo] |
Full Idea: Maybe ordinary speakers aren't very concerned about their ontological commitments, and sometimes find it convenient to posit objects. | |
From: Øystein Linnebo (Plural Quantification [2008], 2.4) | |
A reaction: I think this is the whole truth about the ontological commitment of ordinary language. We bring abstraction under control by pretending it is a world of physical objects. The 'left wing' in politics, 'dark deeds', a 'huge difference'. |
14768 | Infallibility in science is just a joke [Peirce] |
Full Idea: Infallibility in scientific matters seems to me irresistibly comical. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Concerning the Author [1897], p.3) |
14765 | Association of ideas is the best philosophical idea of the prescientific age [Peirce] |
Full Idea: The doctrine of the association of ideas is, to my thinking, the finest piece of philosophical work of the prescientific ages. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Concerning the Author [1897], p.2) |
14766 | Duns Scotus offers perhaps the best logic and metaphysics for modern physical science [Peirce] |
Full Idea: The works of Duns Scotus have strongly influenced me. …His logic and metaphysics, torn away from its medievalism, …will go far toward supplying the philosophy which is best to harmonize with physical science. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Concerning the Author [1897], p.2) |
10634 | Predicates are 'distributive' or 'non-distributive'; do individuals do what the group does? [Linnebo] |
Full Idea: The predicate 'is on the table' is 'distributive', since some things are on the table if each one is, whereas the predicate 'form a circle' is 'non-distributive', since it is not analytic that when some things form a circle, each one forms a circle. | |
From: Øystein Linnebo (Plural Quantification [2008], 1.1) | |
A reaction: The first predicate can have singular or plural subjects, but the second requires a plural subject? Hm. 'The rope forms a circle'. The second is example is not true, as well as not analytic. |