11 ideas
| 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) |
| 14596 | Call 'nominalism' the denial of numbers, properties, relations and sets [Dorr] |
| Full Idea: Just as there are no numbers or properties, there are no relations (like 'being heavier than' or 'betweenness'), or sets. I will provisionally use 'nominalism' for the conjunction of these four claims. | |
| From: Cian Dorr (There Are No Abstract Objects [2008], 1) | |
| A reaction: If you are going to be a nominalist, do it properly! My starting point in metaphysics is strong sympathy with this view. Right now [Tues 22nd Nov 2011, 10:57 am GMT] I think it is correct. |
| 14597 | Natural Class Nominalism says there are primitive classes of things resembling in one respect [Dorr] |
| Full Idea: Natural Class Nominalists take as primitive the notion of a 'natural' class - a class of things that all resemble one another in some one respect and resemble nothing else in that respect. | |
| From: Cian Dorr (There Are No Abstract Objects [2008], 4) | |
| A reaction: Dorr rejects this view because he doesn't believe in 'classes'. How committed to classes do you have to be before you are permitted to talk about them? All vocabulary (such as 'resemble') seems metaphysically tainted in this area. |
| 14598 | Abstracta imply non-logical brute necessities, so only nominalists can deny such things [Dorr] |
| Full Idea: If there are abstract objects, there are necessary truths about these things that cannot be reduced to truths of logic. So only the nominalist, who denies that there are any such things, can adequately respect the idea that there are no brute necessities. | |
| From: Cian Dorr (There Are No Abstract Objects [2008], 4) | |
| A reaction: This is where two plates of my personal philosophy grind horribly against one another. I love nominalism, and I love natural necessities. They meet like a ring-species in evolution. I'll just call it a 'paradox', and move on (swiftly). |
| 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) |
| 335 | Do the gods also hold different opinions about what is right and honourable? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Do the gods too hold different opinions about what is right, and similarly about what is honourable and dishonourable, good and bad? | |
| From: Plato (Euthyphro [c.398 BCE], 07e) |
| 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) |
| 336 | Is what is pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because they love it? (the 'Euthyphro Question') [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Is what is pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because they love it? | |
| From: Plato (Euthyphro [c.398 BCE], 10a) | |
| A reaction: The famous Euthyphro Question, the key question about the supposed religious basis of morality. The answer of Socrates is Idea 337. |
| 337 | It seems that the gods love things because they are pious, rather than making them pious by loving them [Plato] |
| Full Idea: So things are loved by the gods because they are pious, and not pious because they are loved? It seems so. | |
| From: Plato (Euthyphro [c.398 BCE], 10e) | |
| A reaction: Socrates' answer to the Euthyphro Question (see Idea 336). The form of piety precedes the gods. |