46 ideas
| 19441 | All philosophies presuppose their historical moment, and arise from it [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Every philosophy originates as a manifestation of its time; its origin presupposes its historical time. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy [1839], p.59) | |
| A reaction: There seems to be widespread agreement among continental philosophers about this idea, whereas analytic philosophers largely ignore, and treat Plato as if he were a current professor in Chicago. |
| 19442 | I don't study Plato for his own sake; the primary aim is always understanding [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Plato in writing is only a means for me; that which is primary and a priori, that which is the ground to which all is ultimately referred, is understanding. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy [1839], p.63) | |
| A reaction: It always seems to that the main aim of philosophy is understanding - which is why its central activity is explanation. |
| 9408 | Science studies phenomena, but only metaphysics tells us what exists [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Science deals with the phenomena, ..but it is metaphysics, and only metaphysics, that tells us what ultimately exists. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 01.2) |
| 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. |
| 9429 | Many forms of reasoning, such as extrapolation and analogy, are useful but deductively invalid [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: There are many forms of reasoning - extrapolation, interpolation, and other arguments from analogy - that are useful but deductively invalid. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 04.4) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Molnar for this] |
| 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. |
| 19444 | Each proposition has an antithesis, and truth exists as its refutation [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Every intellectual determination has its antithesis, its contradiction. Truth exists not in unity with, but in refutation of its opposite. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy [1839], p.72) | |
| A reaction: This appears to be a rejection of the 'synthesis' in Hegel, in favour of what strikes me as a rather more sensible interpretation of the modern dialectic. Being exists in contrast to nothingness, and truth exists in contrast to its negation? |
| 19445 | A dialectician has to be his own opponent [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: A thinker is a dialectician only insofar as he is his own opponent. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy [1839], p.72) | |
| A reaction: Quite an inspirational slogan for beginners in philosophy. How many non-philosophers are willing to be their own opponent. In law courts and the House of Commons we assign the roles to separate persons. Hence rhetoric replaces reason? |
| 19443 | Truth forges an impersonal unity between people [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: The urge to communicate is a fundamental urge - the urge for truth. ...That which is true belongs neither to me nor exclusively to you, but is common to all. The thought in which 'I' and 'You' are united is a true thought. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy [1839], p.65) | |
| A reaction: Sceptics may doubt that there are such truths, but this is certainly how we experience agreement - that there is some truth shared between us which is no longer the possession of either of us. Nice idea. |
| 9427 | For Humeans the world is a world primarily of events [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: For Humeans the world is a world primarily of events. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.6) |
| 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. |
| 19446 | To our consciousness it is language which looks unreal [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: To sensuous consciousness it is precisely language that is unreal, nothing. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy [1839], p.77) | |
| A reaction: Offered as a corrective to the view that our ontological commitments entirely concern what we are willing to say. |
| 9446 | Properties are just natural clusters of powers [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The view of properties I find most attractive is one in which they are natural clusters of, and exhausted by, powers (plus other connections to other properties). | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.6) |
| 9435 | A 'porridge' nominalist thinks we just divide reality in any way that suits us [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: A 'porridge' nominalist denies natural kinds, and thinks there are no objective divisions in reality, so concepts or words can be used by a community to divide the world up in any way that suits their purposes. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 07.3) |
| 9447 | If properties are clusters of powers, this can explain why properties resemble in degrees [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If a cluster of ten powers exhausts property F, and property G differs in respect of just one power, this might explain why properties can resemble other properties and in different degrees. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.6) | |
| A reaction: I love this. The most intractable problem about properties and universals is that of abstract reference - pink resembles red more than pink resembles green. If colours are clusters of powers, red and pink share nine out of ten of them. |
| 12248 | How can we show that a universally possessed property is an essential property? [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Essentialists fail to show how we ascend from being a property universally possessed, by all kind members, to the status of being an essential property. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 07.5) | |
| A reaction: This is precisely where my proposal comes in - the essential properties, as opposed to the accidentaly universals, are those which explain the nature and behaviour of each kind of thing (and each individual thing). |
| 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. |
| 19447 | The Absolute is the 'and' which unites 'spirit and nature' [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: The Absolute is spirit and nature. ...But what then is the Absolute? Nothing other than this 'and', that is, the unity of spirit and nature. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy [1839], p.82) | |
| A reaction: This is Feuerbach's spin on Hegel. He has been outlining idealist philosophy and the philosophy of nature in Schelling. Is this Spinoza's one substance? |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 9430 | Singular causes, and identities, might be necessary without falling under a law [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: One might have a singularist view of causation in which a cause necessitates its effect, but they need not be subsumed under a law, ..and there are identities which are metaphysically necessary without being laws of nature. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 04.5) |
| 9445 | We can give up the counterfactual account if we take causal language at face value [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If we take causal language at face value and give up reducing causal concepts to non-causal, non-modal concepts, we can give up the counterfactual dependence account. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.5) |
| 9443 | It is only properties which are the source of necessity in the world [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If laws do not give the world necessity, what does? I argue the positive case for it being properties, and properties alone, that do the job (so we might call them 'modal properties'). | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.1) |
| 9444 | There are four candidates for the logical form of law statements [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The contenders for the logical form of a law statement are 1) a universally quantified conditional, 2) a second-order relation between first-order universals, 3) a functional equivalence, and 4) a dispositional characteristic of a natural kind. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.3) |
| 9431 | Pure regularities are rare, usually only found in idealized conditions [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Pure regularities are not nearly as common as might have been thought, and are usually only to be found in simplified or idealized conditions. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 05.3) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Nancy Cartwright 1999 for this view] |
| 9441 | Regularity laws don't explain, because they have no governing role [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: A regularity-law does not explain its instances, because such laws play no role in determining or governing their instances. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 09.7) | |
| A reaction: Good. It has always seemed to me entirely vacuous to explain an event simply by saying that it falls under some law. |
| 9415 | Would it count as a regularity if the only five As were also B? [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: While it might be true that for all x, if Ax then Bx, would we really want to count it as a genuine regularity in nature if only five things were A (and all five were also B)? | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.3) |
| 9416 | Regularities are more likely with few instances, and guaranteed with no instances! [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: It seems that the fewer the instances, the more likely it is that there be a regularity, ..and if there are no cases at all, and no S is P, that is a regularity. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: [He attributes the second point to Molnar] |
| 9422 | If the best system describes a nomological system, the laws are in nature, not in the description [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If the world really does have its own nomological structure, that a systematization merely describes, why are the laws not to be equated with the nomological structure itself, rather than with the system that describes it? | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.4) |
| 9421 | The best systems theory says regularities derive from laws, rather than constituting them [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The best systems theory (of Mill-Ramsey-Lewis) says that laws are not seen as regularities but, rather, as those things from which regularities - or rather, the whole world history including the regularities and everything else - can be derived. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.4) | |
| A reaction: Put this way, the theory invites questions about ontology. Regularities are just patterns in physical reality, but axioms are propositions. So are they just features of human thought, or do these axioms actuallyr reside in reality. Too weak or too strong. |
| 9432 | Laws of nature are necessary relations between universal properties, rather than about particulars [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The core of the Dretske-Tooley-Armstrong view of the late 70s is that we have a law of nature when we have a relation of natural necessitation between universals. ..The innovation was that laws are about properties, and only indirectly about particulars. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 06.2) | |
| A reaction: It sounds as if we should then be able to know the laws of nature a priori, since that was Russell's 1912 definition of a priori knowledge. |
| 9433 | If laws can be uninstantiated, this favours the view of them as connecting universals [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If there are laws that are instantiated in no particulars, then this would seem to favour the theory that laws connect universals rather than particulars. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 06.4) | |
| A reaction: There is a dispute here between the Platonic view of uninstantiated universals (Tooley) and the Aristotelian instantiated view (Armstrong). Mumford and I prefer the dispositional account. |
| 9434 | Laws of nature are just the possession of essential properties by natural kinds [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If dispositional essentialism is granted, then there is a law of nature wherever there is an essential property of a natural kind; laws are just the havings of essential properties by natural kinds. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 07.2) | |
| A reaction: [He is expounding Ellis's view] |
| 9437 | To distinguish accidental from essential properties, we must include possible members of kinds [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Where properties are possessed by all kind members, we must distinguish the accidental from essential ones by considering all actual and possible kind members. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 07.5) | |
| A reaction: This is why we must treat possibilities as features of the actual world. |
| 9439 | The Central Dilemma is how to explain an internal or external view of laws which govern [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The Central Dilemma about laws of nature is that, if they have some governing role, then they must be internal or external to the things governed, and it is hard to give a plausible account of either view. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 09.2) | |
| A reaction: This dilemma is the basis of Mumford's total rejection of 'laws of nature'. I think I agree. |
| 9412 | You only need laws if you (erroneously) think the world is otherwise inert [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Laws are a solution to a problem that was misconceived. Only if you think that the world would be otherwise inactive or inanimate, do you have the need to add laws to your ontology. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 01.5) | |
| A reaction: This is a bold and extreme view - and I agree with it. I consider laws to be quite a useful concept when discussing nature, but they are not part of the ontology, and they don't do any work. They are metaphysically hopeless. |
| 9411 | There are no laws of nature in Aristotle; they became standard with Descartes and Newton [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Laws do not appear in Aristotle's metaphysics, and it wasn't until Descartes and Newton that laws entered the intellectual mainstream. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 01.5) | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 5470. |
| 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. |