25 ideas
| 6211 | Laughter is a sudden glory in realising the infirmity of others, or our own formerly [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: The passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Human Nature [1640], Ch.IX.13) | |
| A reaction: Laughter tends to involve something unusual. We don't just burst out with a glory of vanity whenever we meet some inferiority in another person. |
| 6947 | Metaphysics does not rest on facts, but on what we are inclined to believe [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysical systems have not usually rested upon any observed facts, or not in any great degree. They are chiefly adopted because their fundamental propositions seem 'agreeable to reason', which means that which we find ourselves inclined to believe. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.15) | |
| A reaction: This leads to Peirce's key claim - that we should allow our beliefs to be formed by something outside of ourselves. I don't share Peirce's contempt for metaphysics, which I take to be about the most abstract presuppositions of our ordinary beliefs. |
| 6937 | Reason aims to discover the unknown by thinking about the known [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The object of reasoning is to find out, from the consideration of what we already know, something else which we do not know. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p. 7) | |
| A reaction: I defy anyone to come up with a better definition of reasoning than that. The emphasis is on knowledge rather than truth, which you would expect from a pragmatist. …Actually the definition doesn't cover conditional reasoning terribly well. |
| 21492 | Realism is basic to the scientific method [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The fundamental hypothesis of the method of science is this: There are real things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinion of them. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877]), quoted by Albert Atkin - Peirce 3 'method' | |
| A reaction: He admits later that this is only a commitment and not a fact. It seems to me that when you combine this idea with the huge success of science, the denial of realism is crazy. Philosophy has a lot to answer for. |
| 6949 | If someone doubted reality, they would not actually feel dissatisfaction [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Nobody can really doubt that there are Reals, for, if he did, doubt would not be a source of dissatisfaction. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.19) | |
| A reaction: This rests on Peirce's view that all that really matters is a sense of genuine dissatisfaction, rather than a theoretical idea. So even at the end of Meditation One, Descartes isn't actually worried about whether his furniture exists. |
| 6940 | The feeling of belief shows a habit which will determine our actions [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The feeling of believing is a more or less sure indication of there being established in our nature some habit which will determine our actions. Doubt never has such an effect. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.10) | |
| A reaction: It is one thing to assert this fairly accurate observation, and another to assert that this is the essence or definition of a belief. Perhaps it is the purpose of belief, without being the phenomenological essence of it. We act in states of uncertainty. |
| 6941 | We are entirely satisfied with a firm belief, even if it is false [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: As soon as a firm belief is reached we are entirely satisfied, whether the belief be true or false. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.10) | |
| A reaction: This does not deny that the truth or falsehood of a belief is independent of whether we are satisfied with it. It is making a fair point, though, about why we believe things, and it can't be because of truth, because we don't know how to ensure that. |
| 6942 | We want true beliefs, but obviously we think our beliefs are true [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: We seek for a belief that we shall think to be true; but we think each one of our beliefs to be true, and, indeed, it is mere tautology to say so. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.11) | |
| A reaction: If, as I do, you like to define belief as 'commitment to truth', Peirce makes a rather startling observation. You are rendered unable to ask whether your beliefs are true, because you have defined them as true. Nice point… |
| 6943 | A mere question does not stimulate a struggle for belief; there must be a real doubt [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The mere putting of a proposition into the interrogative form does not stimulate the mind to any struggle after belief; there must be a real and living doubt. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.11) | |
| A reaction: This the attractive aspect of Peirce's pragmatism, that he is always focusing on real life rather than abstract theory or pure logic. |
| 6598 | We need our beliefs to be determined by some external inhuman permanency [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: It is necessary that a method should be found by which our beliefs be determined by nothing human, but by some external permanency - by something upon which our thinking has no effect. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877]), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: This very sensible and interesting remark hovers somewhere between empiricism and pragmatism. Fogelin very persuasively builds his account of knowledge on it. The key point is that we hardly ever choose what to believe. See Idea 2454. |
| 6944 | Demonstration does not rest on first principles of reason or sensation, but on freedom from actual doubt [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: It is a common idea that demonstration must rest on indubitable propositions, either first principles of a general nature, or first sensations; but actual demonstration is completely satisfactory if it starts from propositions free from all actual doubt. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.11) | |
| A reaction: Another nice example of Peirce focusing on the practical business of thinking, rather than abstract theory. I agree with this approach, that explanation and proof do not aim at perfection and indubitability, but at what satisfies a critical mind. |
| 6948 | Doubts should be satisfied by some external permanency upon which thinking has no effect [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: To satisfy our doubts it is necessary that a method should be found by which our beliefs may be determined by nothing human, but by some external permanency - by something upon which our thinking has no effect. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.18) | |
| A reaction: This may be the single most important idea in pragmatism and in the philosophy of science. See Fodor on experiments (Idea 2455). Put the question to nature. The essential aim is to be passive in our beliefs - just let reality form them. |
| 6945 | Once doubt ceases, there is no point in continuing to argue [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Some people seem to love to argue a point after all the world is fully convinced of it. But no further advance can be made. When doubt ceases, mental action on the subject comes to an end; and, if it did go on, it would be without purpose. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.11) | |
| A reaction: This is the way Peirce's pragmatism, which deals with how real thinking actually works (rather than abstract logic), deals with scepticism. However, there is a borderline where almost everyone is satisfied, but the very wise person remains sceptical. |
| 6213 | A man cannot will to will, or will to will to will, so the idea of a voluntary will is absurd [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: The will is not voluntary: for a man can no more say he will will, than he will will will, and so make an infinite repetition of the word 'will', which is absurd and insignificant. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Human Nature [1640], Ch.XII.5) | |
| A reaction: A nice simple point, allied to Nietzsche's notion that thoughts are uncontrollable (Idea 2291). Even Aquinas, who is quite a fan of free will, spotted the problem (Idea 1854). Personally I agree with Hobbes. Free will is a shibboleth. |
| 6208 | Conceptions and apparitions are just motion in some internal substance of the head [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: Conceptions and apparitions are nothing really, but motion in some internal substance of the head. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Human Nature [1640], Ch.VII.1) | |
| A reaction: Note that he carefully covers both thought in concepts and thought in images, and also that he is not saying that thought is the substance, but that it is a 'motion'. This strikes me as an excellent word, and I think Hobbes is right. |
| 6209 | There is no absolute good, for even the goodness of God is goodness to us [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: There is no such thing as absolute goodness, considered without relation: for even the goodness which we apprehend in God Almighty, is his goodness to us. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Human Nature [1640], Ch.VII.3) | |
| A reaction: Plato's view of goodness is much more absolute than that of religion, as he proposes the Good as the eternal underpinning of nature. I agree with Hobbes that if God is the source of goodness, that will prevent goodness from being truly absolute. |
| 5122 | Maybe consequentialism is a critique of ordinary morality, rather than describing it [Harman] |
| Full Idea: Consequentialism may be put forward not as an attempt to capture intuitive folk morality but rather as a critique of ordinary tuitions. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Moral Philosophy meets social psychology [1999], 10.1) | |
| A reaction: It is certainly true that most people are concerned with why an action was performed, and (after initial anger) are prepared to forgive an unintended disaster. We have no moral objections to earthquakes, which have bad consequences. |
| 6210 | Life has no end (not even happiness), because we have desires, which presuppose a further end [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: For an utmost end, in which the ancient philosophers have placed felicity, there is no such thing in this world, nor way to it: for while we live, we have desires, and desire presupposeth a further end. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Human Nature [1640], Ch.VII.6) | |
| A reaction: Kant's definition of happiness (Idea 1452) seems to be the underlying idea, and hence with the same implication (of impossibility). However, an alcoholic locked in a brewery would seem to have all that Hobbes requires for happiness. |
| 5123 | Maybe there is no such thing as character, and the virtues and vices said to accompany it [Harman] |
| Full Idea: It may be the case that there is no such thing as character, no ordinary character traits of the sort people think there are, none of the usual moral virtues and vices. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Moral Philosophy meets social psychology [1999], 10.1) | |
| A reaction: This would be a devastating fact for virtue theory, if it were true. I don't believe it. He thinks patterns of behaviour result from circumstances, but we give accurate and detailed pictures of people's characters (esp. in novels). |
| 5124 | If a person's two acts of timidity have different explanations, they are not one character trait [Harman] |
| Full Idea: If Herbert is disposed to not speak in history class (but not other subjects), and explanation of this is different from his avoidance of roller coaster rides, then these two dispositions are not special cases of a single character trait. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Moral Philosophy meets social psychology [1999], 10.2) | |
| A reaction: A basic Harman argument for denying the existence of character (and hence of virtues). I just say that character traits are more complex than his caricature of them. If I keep imagining disaster and humiliation for myself, that is a character trait. |
| 5125 | Virtue ethics might involve judgements about the virtues of actions, rather than character [Harman] |
| Full Idea: There are variants of virtue ethics that do not require character traits in the ordinary sense. For example, moral thinking might be explicated by appeal to judgements about whether particular actions are just or courageous or whatever. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Moral Philosophy meets social psychology [1999], 10.7.1.1) | |
| A reaction: A very interesting proposal (from Judith Jarvis Thomson). This would flatly reject Aristotle, and one presumes that the judgement about the virtue of the action would largely be a matter of pondering cultural conventions (or, perhaps, consequences). |
| 6212 | Lust involves pleasure, and also the sense of power in pleasing others [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: Lust consists of two appetites together, to please, and to be pleased, and the delight men take in delighting is not sensual, but a pleasure or joy of the mind consisting in the imagination of the power they have so much to please. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Human Nature [1640], Ch.IX) | |
| A reaction: Hobbes would rather burst a blood-vessel than admit any altruism. If you take pleasure in pleasing someone else, why can't that simply be because of the other person's pleasure, with which we sympathise, rather than relishing our own 'power'? |
| 6939 | What is true of one piece of copper is true of another (unlike brass) [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The guiding principle is that what is true of one piece of copper is true of another; such a guiding principle with regard to copper would be much safer than with regard to many other substances - brass, for example. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p. 8) | |
| A reaction: Peirce is so beautifully simple and sensible. This gives the essential notion of a natural kind, and is a key notion in our whole understanding of physical reality. |
| 6938 | Natural selection might well fill an animal's mind with pleasing thoughts rather than true ones [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: It is probably of more advantage to an animal to have his mind filled with pleasing and encouraging visions, independently of their truth; and thus, upon unpractical subjects, natural selection might occasion a fallacious tendency of thought. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p. 8) | |
| A reaction: Note that this is a pragmatist saying that a set of beliefs might work fine but be untrue. So Peirce does not have the highly relativistic notion of truth of some later pragmatists. Good for him. Note the early date to be thinking about Darwin. |
| 6946 | If death is annihilation, belief in heaven is a cheap pleasure with no disappointment [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: If death is annihilation, then the man who believes that he will certainly go straight to heaven when he dies, provided he have fulfilled certain simple observances in this life, has a cheap pleasure which will not be followed by the least disappointment. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.12) | |
| A reaction: This is a nicely wicked summary of one side of Pascal's options. All the problems of the argument are built into Peirce's word "cheap". Peirce goes on to talk about ostriches burying their heads. |