12 ideas
| 22077 | Metaphysics is the lattice which makes incoming material intelligible [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics means nothing other than the range of general determinations of thought, the diamond lattice, as it were, into which we bring all material and thereby first make it intelligible. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Philosophy of Nature (Encylopedia II) [1817], §3), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - Hegel p.95 | |
| A reaction: This sounds to me like a perfect summary of Kant's transcendental view. Metaphysics is the a priori deconstruction of our conceptual scheme. But for Kant it is fixed, and for Hegel it is dynamic. |
| 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) |
| 14759 | A thing is simply a long event, linked by qualities, and spatio-temporal unity [Broad] |
| Full Idea: A thing is simply a long event, throughout the course of which there is either qualitative similarity or continuous qualitative change, together with a characteristic spatio-temporal unity. | |
| From: C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923], 10 'Duration') | |
| A reaction: At least he is trying to give some sort of principle that links the stages of the event together. |
| 11842 | If short-lived happenings like car crashes are 'events', why not long-lived events like Dover Cliffs? [Broad] |
| Full Idea: We call a lightning flash or a motor accident an event, but refuse to apply this to the cliffs of Dover. ...But quantitative differences (of time) give no good grounds for calling one bit of history an event, and refusing the name to another bit. | |
| From: C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923], p.54), quoted by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance Renewed 2.3 n13 | |
| A reaction: Wiggins calls this proposal a 'terrible absurdity', but it seems to me to demand attention. There is a case to be made for a 'process' to be the fundamental category of our ontology, with stable physical objects seen in that light. |
| 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) |
| 21756 | All revolutions result from spirit changing its categories, to achieve a deeper understanding [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: All revolutions ...originate solely from the fact that spirit, in order to understand and comprehend itself with a view to possessing itself, has changed its categories, comprehending itself more truly, more deeply, more intimately in unity with itself. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Philosophy of Nature (Encylopedia II) [1817], §246), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 01 | |
| A reaction: Some Hegelian waffle here, but it focuses on what seems important, which is how societal thinking has shifted, so that what was previously tolerated now triggers a revolution. |
| 8160 | The present and past exist, but the future does not [Broad, by Dummett] |
| Full Idea: Not only the present but also the past exist, but the future (so long as it is the future) does not. | |
| From: report of C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923]) by Michael Dummett - Thought and Reality 1 | |
| A reaction: This is quite appealing, and seems right if you believe that every truth has a truthmaker, and that there are no truths about the future. And yet the whole misery of people dying is that they cease to exist. |
| 14609 | We could say present and past exist, but not future, so that each event adds to the total history [Broad] |
| Full Idea: One theory accepts the reality of the present and the past, but holds that the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. | |
| From: C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923], II) | |
| A reaction: This is now known as Broad's 'Growing Block' view of time. It is tempting to say that neither past nor future exist, but it seems undeniable that statements about the past can be wholly true, unlike those about the future. |
| 22933 | We imagine the present as a spotlight, moving across events from past to future [Broad] |
| Full Idea: We imagine presentness moving, like the spot of light from a policeman's bulls eye traversing the fronts of houses in a street. What is illuminated is present, what was illuminated is past, and what is not yet illuminated is the future. | |
| From: C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923], II) | |
| A reaction: This is the 'moving spotlight' compromise theory, which retains the B-series eternal sequence of ordered events, but adds the A-series privileged present moment. Le Poidevin says Broad represents time twice over. |