Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Concerning the Author', 'A Matter of Principle' and 'The Individual, the State, and the Common Good'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts


7 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 / 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)
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 6. Liberalism / g. Liberalism critique
Liberalism may fail because it neglects the shared nature of what we pursue and protect [Haldane]
     Full Idea: I am interested in the claim that liberalism fails inasmuch as it neglects, and cannot accommodate, the fact that some or all of the goods we pursue, and which a system of rights is concerned to protect, are goods possessed in common.
     From: John Haldane (The Individual, the State, and the Common Good [1996], III)
     A reaction: It depends how individualistic we take liberalism to be. Extreme individualism (Nozick) strikes me as crazy. If 'we' erect a statue to some dubious politicians, it might be presented as a common good, but actually be despised by many.
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 4. Taxation
If we assess what people would buy in an imaginary insurance market, our taxes could copy it [Dworkin, by Kymlicka]
     Full Idea: If we can make sense of a hypothetical insurance market, and find a determinate answer to the question of what insurance people would buy in it, then we could use the tax system to duplicate the results.
     From: report of Ronald Dworkin (A Matter of Principle [1985]) by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) 2.4.b
     A reaction: This is a nice alternative from Dworkin to Rawls's 'veil of ignorance' approach.