43 ideas
| 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. |
| 19423 | By an 'idea' I mean not an actual thought, but the resources we can draw on to think [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: What I mean by an idea is not a certain act of thinking, but a power or faculty such that we have an idea of a thing even if we are not thinking about it but know that we can think it when the occasion arises. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (What is an Idea? [1676], p.281) | |
| A reaction: 'Idea' tends to be used in the seventeenth century to mean an actual mental event. It is because Leibniz believes in the unconscious mind that he can offer this rather different, and probably superior, notion of an 'idea'. |
| 22849 | Rawls's theory cannot justify liberalism, since it presupposes free and equal participants [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: Rawls's theory presupposes that the contractors are conceived, and conceive themselves, to be free and equal persons. Consequently, the theory cannot be presented as a justificatory theory of liberalism. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 14) | |
| A reaction: Nice. If you imagine diverse groups with many strong beliefs coming together to form a society, Rawls is asking them all to become liberals before they all decide how to live together. |
| 22848 | People with strong prior beliefs would have nothing to do with a veil of ignorance [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: Why would a group of people with strong beliefs (e.g. religious beliefs) agree to debate the problem of what norms should govern their association from behind a veil of ignorance? …They would not accept the veil of ignorance as fair. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 14) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Rawls's experiment assumes liberal people with very few beliefs. No racial supremacist is going to enter a society in which they may be of a different race. Charvet says the entrants would all need to be pluralists about the good. |
| 22838 | Societies need shared values, so conservatism is right if rational discussion of values is impossible [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: Were it true that rational discussion of values is impossible, then a conservative attitude would seem to be the only viable position. Some set of common values is necessary to maintain the unity of a political society. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 07) | |
| A reaction: Better to say that the less values can be both discussed and changed the stronger is the case for a degree of conservatism. Conservatives tend to favour values asserted by authority, rather than by popular (undiscussed) consensus. |
| 22846 | The universalism of utilitarianism implies a world state [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: Utilitarianism is a universalist ethic, so the political realisation of this ethic would seem to be a world state seeking to maximise happiness for the world's population. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 12) | |
| A reaction: It certainly doesn't seem to favour the citizens of the state where it is implemented, since miserable people just across the border would have priority, and all miserable migrants must be welcomed. There is no loyalty to citizens. |
| 22835 | Liberals value freedom and equality, but the society itself must decide on its values [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: While freedom and equality are liberal values …they are fundamental regulative ideas of an independent society that is self-regulating …and decides what its own social and political arrangements should be. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 06) | |
| A reaction: So the central political activity is persuasion, not enforcement. Illiberal societies all contain liberal individuals. |
| 22831 | Modern libertarian societies still provide education and some housing [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: No society today is libertarian in the extreme sense. Even the freest economically, such as Singapore have their governments provide education services and public housing. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 05) | |
| A reaction: There is a good argument that many other services should be provided by a libertarian state, on the grounds that it is more efficient, and the services must otherwise paid for by much higher salaries. |
| 22839 | Liberalism needs people to either have equal autonomy, or everyone to have enough autonomy [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: To get a liberal society one would have to claim that either everyone possesses autonomy to an equal degree or that everyone possesses a threshold level of the capacity that entitles them to enjoy the full liberal rights. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 07) | |
| A reaction: This leaves out the more right-wing attitude that people can increase their capacity for autonomy if they are forced to stand on their own feet. A liberal society must decide how to treat persons incapable of proper autonomy. |
| 22847 | Kant places a higher value on the universal rational will than on the people asserting it [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: For Kant what is of absolute worth is the universal rational will which become an individual's actual will. Insofar as the individual fails to will the universal, they have no absolute worth, so whether or not they exist is unimportant. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 14) | |
| A reaction: A lovely demolition of the claims of Kant to be the patriarch of liberalism! Liberalism must place supreme value on each individual, not on some abstracted realm of pure reason and moral good. Liberals are motivated by love, not reason. |
| 22821 | Liberalism asserts maximum freedom, but that must be equal for all participants [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: Liberalism attaches fundamental value to leaving individuals as free as possible … - but there is another fundamental value implicit in this idea - the equal status of the participants in the practice. By this I mean that they all have the same rights. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Libertarian liberalism (e.g. Nozick) only asserts the fundament principle of freedom, but such a society swiftly deprives most of its members of those very freedoms. Egalitarian Liberalism should be our default political ideology. |
| 22834 | Egalitarian liberals prefer equality (either of input or outcome) to liberty [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: Rather than libertarianism, egalitarian liberals promote equality, either of outcomes (of happiness or of well-being), or of inputs (such as opportunities, capacities or resources), which they favour ahead of freedom. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 06) | |
| A reaction: This is my team, I think. I think I'm a liberal who thinks liberty is a bit overrated. Equal outcome according to capacity (promoted by Nussbaum) seems attractive. |
| 22822 | Liberals promote community and well-being - because all good societies need them [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: Community and well-being are not specifically liberal values. They are values any independent political society must pursue whether it is a liberal society or not. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This seems, at a stroke, to undermine the familiar debate between liberals and communitarians. I've switched to the former from the latter, because communitarians is potentially too paternalistic and conservative. Persuade individuals to be communal! |
| 22841 | Identity multiculturalism emerges from communitarianism, preferring community to humanity [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: Identity-based multiculturalism developed from communitarianism. …People come to consciousness of themselves as members of some community before they identify themselves as members of the human race. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 08) | |
| A reaction: This is 'identity politics', which Carvet sees as a problem from liberalism. Is it more important to be a woman or a Muslim or a Scot than to be a human being? It seems to create institutional antagonisms. |
| 22842 | For communitarians it seems that you must accept the culture you are born into [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: Communitarians have difficulty avoiding the relativist trap. It seems they must claim that if one is born into a liberal society one cannot but be a liberal, and if one is born into a communist society one cannot but be a communist. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 08) | |
| A reaction: Anyone who accepts the Hegelian view of history and culture seems doomed to such relativism, and Hegel is a communitarian precursor. This is a good reason for me to reject communitarianism, after a long flirtation. We can criticise our own culture. |
| 22830 | Give by ability and receive by need, rather than a free labour market [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: Only the most extreme collective socialism denies the freedom to sell one's labour power and buy that of others, under the communist slogan 'from each according to his ability, and to each according to his needs'. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 05) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Marx 'Critique of the Gotha Programme'] I would guess that this practice is not abnormal in old traditional villages, though a community would be tempted to reward highly a very successful member. |
| 22829 | Allowing defamatory speech is against society's interests, by blurring which people are trustworthy [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: The argument for restricting defamatory speech is that unrestricted speech makes it impossible, or too difficult, to distinguish between those who deserve a trustworthy reputation and those who don't - a distinction in society's best interests. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 03) | |
| A reaction: A nice example of appeal to the common good, in opposition to the normal freedoms of liberalism. An example of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Should assertion of the common good of a group be a prime value of liberalism? |
| 22836 | 'Freedom from' is an empty idea, if the freedom is not from impediments to my desires [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: Berlin's distinction of 'freedom from' and 'freedom to' is worthless …because to say that I want to be free from something for absolutely no reason makes no sense. Unfreedom is being blocked from what I want to do, which ceases if I no longer want it. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 07) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] The government could guarantee us against attacks by albatrosses, but we would hardly have a national holiday to celebrate the freedom. Still, there is freedom from incoming troubles, and freedom to output things. |
| 22837 | Positive freedom can lead to coercion, if you are forced to do what you chose to do [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: Berlin saw positive freedom as a justification for illiberal coercion. If I am positively free only in doing X, then if I am forced to do X, I will still be free. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 07) | |
| A reaction: I suppose Berlin is thinking of Russian farmers, who wanted to farm, but then found they were forced to do what they were going to do anyway. It's better than being forced to do what you didn't want to do. Forcing clearly isn't freedom. |
| 22844 | First level autonomy is application of personal values; second level is criticising them [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: First level autonomy is being able to apply one's scheme of values to one's actions and life; second level autonomy is being able to subject those values to critical evaluation. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 10) | |
| A reaction: Charvet sees this as a key issue for liberalism. How do you treat citizens who cannot advance beyond the first level? He mentions the elitism of Plato's Republic that results. |
| 22840 | Mere equality, as in two trees being the same height, has no value at all [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: That the relation of equality might be considered a value in itself is an absurdity. Would the equality of blinding the only sighted person in a blind society be good? Is it inherently good that two trees are the same height? This is nonsense. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 08) | |
| A reaction: He cites Temkin 1993 as defending the blinding example! Obviously equality is only possible in certain respects (though electrons might be equal in all respects). So the point is to identify the important respects. The rest is rhetoric. |
| 22843 | Inequalities are worse if they seem to be your fault, rather than social facts [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: Inequality is worse in a meritocracy than in a stratified society, because everyone enjoys a formal equality of status and your position in the social order is due to your merit or lack of merit, so you have only yourself to blame for being at the bottom. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 10) | |
| A reaction: This is the simple point that it is worse to lack some good if you might have possessed it, rather than it being entirely out of reach. It also makes the false assumption that people are largely responsible for their merit or lack of it (ignoring luck). |
| 22845 | Money allows unlimited inequalities, and we obviously all agree to money [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: The introduction of money allows people to accumulate wealth without limit. Since money only works through everyone's agreement …everyone can be taken to have agreed to the consequences of money in the unequal distribution of wealth. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 11) | |
| A reaction: [Locke] Presumably large inequalities of possessions and territory were possible before money, but there was at least an upper limit. The current owner of Amazon may end up with more wealth than the whole of the rest of humanity combined. |
| 22823 | The rule of law is mainly to restrict governments [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: The rule of law is directed at the restriction of the power of governments as much, if not more, then the power of private individuals. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 02) | |
| A reaction: The more powerful you are the more restricting is the rule of law. Every government is tempted to change the law to expand its powers. The UK government has just legislated to restrict public demonstrations. Law is the people's weapon against autocrats. |
| 22825 | The 1689 Bill of Rights denied the monarch new courts, or the right to sit as judge [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: The 1689 Bill of Rights said the monarch could not create new courts of law, or act as a judge at law. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 02) | |
| A reaction: The background was the abolition of the court of Star Chamber in 1641, which had been secret, severe, and controlled by the monarch. Is it possible to create a new type of court, or are we stuck with the current ones? |
| 22826 | From 1701 only parliament could remove judges, whose decisions could not be discussed [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: In 1701 UK judges were given secure tenure, being removable only by parliament which at the same time undertook to follow a convention not to discuss particular judicial decisions. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 02) | |
| A reaction: In recent years the UK Daily Mail published the pictures of three judges, and labelled them 'traitors' because of their verdict about leaving the European Union. |
| 22827 | Justice superior to the rule of law is claimed on behalf of the workers, or the will of the nation [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: Communist leaders justify themselves as the embodiment of the people's will as workers, and fascist leaders as expressing the will of the nation. Both believe their policies contain a superior justice on this basis. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 02) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] A neat summary of why the rule of law might be rejected (other than by simple tyrrany justified only by force). In modern democracies recent right-wing governments have pushed back the law and attacked justice on this basis. |
| 22828 | The rule of law mainly benefits those with property and liberties [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: A rule of law regime will primarily benefit those possessing property and liberty rights. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 02) | |
| A reaction: Important. It's no good fighting for the law if the law doesn't protect what you have got, or if you have got nothing to protect. Important steps must precede assertion of the rule of law. |
| 22832 | Welfare is needed if citizens are to accept the obligations of a liberal state [Charvet] |
| Full Idea: The welfare state provides the background conditions under which it is reasonable to expect one's fellow citizens to commit to liberal principles of interaction, even if those conditions can only be achieved through a degree of compulsion. | |
| From: John Charvet (Liberalism: the basics [2019], 05) | |
| A reaction: You cannot expect people to accept the role of 'free' citizen if that is likely to result in swift misery. A liberal state will only command loyalty if it has a safety net. Fully committed liberalism implies modest socialism. |
| 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. |