Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Concerning the Author', 'works' and 'Philosophy'

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8 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 7. Against Metaphysics
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)
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 3. Scientism
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)
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 7. Knowledge First
Knowledge is beyond question, as an unavoidable component of thinking [Weil]
     Full Idea: The speaker refuses to pose the question of knowledge, since knowledge is a given that is mixed with thought, and that no thinking being can get away from.
     From: Simone Weil (Philosophy [1941], p.42)
     A reaction: On the whole I favour belief-first, but I take the primary purpose of minds to be navigation, and that needs facts, not hopeful beliefs. Weil's thought pushes me a bit towards the knowledge first view.
11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 3. Fallibilism
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)
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 2. Associationism
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)
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 1. Scientific Theory
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)
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 6. Artificial Thought / c. Turing Test
A fast machine could pass all behavioural tests with a vast lookup table [Block, by Rey]
     Full Idea: Ned Block proposes a machine (a 'blockhead') which could pass the Turing Test just by looking up responses in a vast look-up table.
     From: report of Ned Block (works [1984]) by Georges Rey - Contemporary Philosophy of Mind 5.3
     A reaction: Once you suspected you were talking to a blockhead, I think you could catch it out in a Turing Test. How can the lookup table keep up to date with immediate experience? Ask it about your new poem.
21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 1. Defining Art
Art (like philosophy) establishes a relation between world and self, and between oneself and others [Weil]
     Full Idea: Isn't true art a method for establishing a certain relation between the world and the self, and between oneself and others, and isn't that the equivalent of philosophy?
     From: Simone Weil (Philosophy [1941], p.38)
     A reaction: I hope the definition of 'true' art doesn't have to conform to achieving this relation. I suppose each good work of art shows you a distinctive way of relating to the world. An interesting thought (as so often with this thinker).