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All the ideas for 'The Fixation of Belief', 'Impossible Objects: interviews' and 'Intro to Positive Philosophy'

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38 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 1. History of Ideas
Our knowledge starts in theology, passes through metaphysics, and ends in positivism [Comte]
     Full Idea: Our principal conceptions, each branch of our knowledge, passes in succession through three different theoretical states: the theological or fictitious state, the metaphysical or abstract state, and the scientific or positive state.
     From: Auguste Comte (Intro to Positive Philosophy [1830], Ch.1)
     A reaction: See Idea 5077 for the abstraction step. The idea that there is a 'law' here, as Comte thinks, is daft, but something of what he describes is undeniable. I suspect, though, that science rests on abstractions, so the last part is wrong.
All ideas must be understood historically [Comte]
     Full Idea: No idea can be properly understood apart from its history.
     From: Auguste Comte (Intro to Positive Philosophy [1830], Ch.1)
     A reaction: This is somewhat dubious. Comte is preparing the ground for asserting positivism by rejecting out-of-date theology and metaphysics. The history is revealing, but can be misleading, when a meaning shifts. Try 'object' in logic.
1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 2. Ancient Philosophy / b. Pre-Socratic philosophy
Philosophy really got started as the rival mode of discourse to tragedy [Critchley]
     Full Idea: The pre-Socratics are interesting, but philosophy really begins in drama; it's a competitive discourse to tragedy. Which is why Plato's 'Republic' excludes the poets: they're the competition; gotta get rid of them.
     From: Simon Critchley (Impossible Objects: interviews [2012], 6)
     A reaction: That's an interesting and novel perspective. So what was the 'discourse' of tragedy saying, and why did that provoke the new rival? Was it too fatalistic?
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / d. Philosophy as puzzles
Philosophy begins in disappointment, notably in religion and politics [Critchley]
     Full Idea: I claim that philosophy begins in disappointment, and there are two forms of disappointment that interest me: religious and political disappointment
     From: Simon Critchley (Impossible Objects: interviews [2012], 2)
     A reaction: You are only disappointed by reality if you expected something better. To be disappointed by the failures of religion strikes me as rather old-fashioned, which Critchley sort of admits. Given the size and tumult of modern states, politics isn't promising.
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 3. Metaphysical Systems
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.
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 6. Metaphysics as Conceptual
Metaphysics is just the oversubtle qualification of abstract names for phenomena [Comte]
     Full Idea: The development of positivism was caused by the concept of metaphysical agents gradually becoming so empty through oversubtle qualification that all right-minded persons considered them to be only the abstract names of the phenomena in question.
     From: Auguste Comte (Intro to Positive Philosophy [1830], Ch.1)
     A reaction: I have quite a lot of sympathy with this thesis, but not couched in this negative way. I take abstraction to be essential to scientific thought, and wisdom to occur amongst the higher reaches of the abstractions.
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 2. Positivism
Positivism is the final state of human intelligence [Comte]
     Full Idea: The positive philosophy represents the true final state of human intelligence.
     From: Auguste Comte (Intro to Positive Philosophy [1830], Ch.1)
     A reaction: This is the sort of remark which made Comte notorious, and it looks a bit extravagant now, but the debate about his view is still ongoing. I am certainly sympathetic to his general drift.
Positivism gives up absolute truth, and seeks phenomenal laws, by reason and observation [Comte]
     Full Idea: In the positive state, the human mind, recognizing the impossibility of obtaining absolute truth, gives up the search for hidden and final causes. It endeavours to discover, by well-combined reasoning and observation, the actual laws of phenomena.
     From: Auguste Comte (Intro to Positive Philosophy [1830], Ch.1)
     A reaction: [compressed] Positivism attempted to turn the Humean regularity view of laws into a semi-religion. It is striking how pessimistic Comte was (as was Hume) about the chances of science revealing deep explanations. He would be astoundeds.
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 3. Scientism
Science can drown in detail, so we need broad scientists (to keep out the metaphysicians) [Comte]
     Full Idea: Getting lost in a mass of detail is the weak side of positivism, where partisans of theology and metaphysics may attack with some hope of success. ...We must train scientists who will consider all the different branches of positive science.
     From: Auguste Comte (Intro to Positive Philosophy [1830], Ch.1)
     A reaction: This would be Comte's answer now to those who claim there is still a role for metaphysics within the scientific world view. I would say that metaphysics not only takes an overview, but also deals with higher generalisations than Comte's general scientist.
Only positivist philosophy can terminate modern social crises [Comte]
     Full Idea: We may look upon the positive philosophy as constituting the only solid basis for the social reorganisation that must terminate the crisis in which the most civilized nations have found themselves for so long.
     From: Auguste Comte (Intro to Positive Philosophy [1830], Ch.1)
     A reaction: He is proposing not only to use positivist methods to solve social problems (he coined the word 'sociology'), but is also proposing that positivism itself should act as the unifying belief-system for future society. Science will be our religion.
Science gives us an excessively theoretical view of life [Critchley]
     Full Idea: One of the problems with the scientific worldview is that it leads human beings to have an overwhelmingly theoretical relationship to the world.
     From: Simon Critchley (Impossible Objects: interviews [2012], 2)
     A reaction: Critchley is defending phenomenology, but this also supports its cousin, existentialism. I keep meeting bright elderly men who have immersed themselves in the study of science, and they seem very remote from the humanist culture I love.
1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 2. Phenomenology
Phenomenology uncovers and redescribes the pre-theoretical layer of life [Critchley]
     Full Idea: Phenomenology is a philosophical method that tries to uncover the pre-theoretical layer of human experience and redescribe it.
     From: Simon Critchley (Impossible Objects: interviews [2012], 2)
     A reaction: I would be delighted if someone could tell me what this means in practice. I have the impression of lots of talk about phenomenology, but not much doing of it. Clearly I must enquire further.
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 4. Aims of Reason
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.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism
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.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
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.
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / c. Aim of beliefs
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.
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.
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.
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…
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 4. Pro-Empiricism
All real knowledge rests on observed facts [Comte]
     Full Idea: All competent thinkers agree with Bacon that there can be no real knowledge except that which rests upon observed facts.
     From: Auguste Comte (Intro to Positive Philosophy [1830], Ch.1)
     A reaction: Are there any unobservable facts? If so, can we know them? The only plausible route is to add 'best explanation' to the positivist armoury. With positivism, empiricism became - for a while - a quasi-religion.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 2. Pragmatic justification
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.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / b. Basic beliefs
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.
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 1. External Justification
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.
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 6. Scepticism Critique
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.
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 1. Observation
We must observe in order to form theories, but connected observations need prior theories [Comte]
     Full Idea: There is a difficulty: the human mind had to observe in order to form real theories; and yet it had to form theories of some sort before it could apply itself to a connected series of observations.
     From: Auguste Comte (Intro to Positive Philosophy [1830], Ch.1)
     A reaction: Comte's view is that we get started by forming a silly theory (religion), and then refine the theory once the observations get going. Note that Comte has sort of anticipated the Quine-Duhem thesis.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
Positivism explains facts by connecting particular phenomena with general facts [Comte]
     Full Idea: In positivism the explanation of facts consists only in the connection established between different particular phenomena and some general facts, the number of which the progress of science tends more and more to diminish.
     From: Auguste Comte (Intro to Positive Philosophy [1830], Ch.1)
     A reaction: This seems to be the ancestor of Hempel's more precisely formulated 'covering law' account, which became very fashionably, and now seems fairly discredited. It is just a fancy version of Humeanism about laws.
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 3. Limits of Introspection
Introspection is pure illusion; we can obviously observe everything except ourselves [Comte]
     Full Idea: The pretended direct contemplation of the mind by itself is a pure illusion. ...It is clear that, by an inevitable necessity, the human mind can observe all phenomena directly, except its own.
     From: Auguste Comte (Intro to Positive Philosophy [1830], Ch.1)
     A reaction: I recently heard of a university psychology department which was seeking skilled introspectors to help with their researches. I take introspection to be very difficult, but partially possible. Read Proust.
21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 8. The Arts / b. Literature
Wallace Stevens is the greatest philosophical poet of the twentieth century in English [Critchley]
     Full Idea: Wallace Stevens is the greatest philosophical poet of the twentieth century in the English language - full stop - in my humble opinion.
     From: Simon Critchley (Impossible Objects: interviews [2012], 6)
     A reaction: I include this because I tend to agree, and love Stevens. Hear recordings of him reading. I once mentioned Stevens in a conversation with Ted Hughes, and he just shrugged and said Stevens 'wasn't much of a poet'. Wrong.
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
Interesting art is always organised around ethical demands [Critchley]
     Full Idea: I don't think that art can be unethical. I think that interesting art is always ethical. It is organised around ethical demands.
     From: Simon Critchley (Impossible Objects: interviews [2012], 8)
     A reaction: It is a struggle to make this fit instrumental music. Critchley likes punk rock, so he might not see the problem. How to compare Bachian, Mozart, Beethovenian and Debussyian ethics? Not impossible.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / d. Ethical theory
The problems is not justifying ethics, but motivating it. Why should a self seek its good? [Critchley]
     Full Idea: The issue is not so much justification as motivation, that in virtue of which the self can be motivated to act on some conception of the good. ...How does a self bind itself to whatever it determines as its good?
     From: Simon Critchley (Impossible Objects: interviews [2012], 2)
     A reaction: That is a bold and interesting idea about the starting point for ethics. It is always a problem for Aristotle, that he can offer no motivation for the quest for virtue. Contractarians start from existing motivations, but that isn't impressive.
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 2. Anarchism
Anarchism used to be libertarian (especially for sexuality), but now concerns responsibility [Critchley]
     Full Idea: Anarchism in the 1960s was libertarian and organised around issues of sexual liberation. That moment has passed. People are and should be organising around responsibility.
     From: Simon Critchley (Impossible Objects: interviews [2012], 3)
     A reaction: So there are two types of anarchism, focused on freedom or on responsibility. An organisation like Greenpeace might represent the latter.
The state, law, bureaucracy and capital are limitations on life, so I prefer federalist anarchism [Critchley]
     Full Idea: I begin with the ontological premise that the state is a limitation on human existence. I am against the state, law, bureaucracy, and capital. I see anarchism as the only desirable way of organising, politically. ...Its political form is federalist.
     From: Simon Critchley (Impossible Objects: interviews [2012], 3)
     A reaction: Hm. Some sympathy, but caution. All systems, even federalist anarchism, are limitations on our lives, so which limitations do we prefer? The law aspires to a calm egalitarian neutrality, which seems promising to me.
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 3. Conservatism
Belief that humans are wicked leads to authoritarian politics [Critchley]
     Full Idea: If you think human beings are wicked, you turn to an authoritarian conception of politics, the Hobbesian-Machiavellian-Straussian lie.
     From: Simon Critchley (Impossible Objects: interviews [2012], 3)
     A reaction: Right-wingers also tend to believe in free will, so they can blame and punish. Good people are more inspired by a great leader than bad people are? (Later, Critchley says authoritarians usually believe in original sin).
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 2. Defining Kinds
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.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 7. Eliminating causation
The search for first or final causes is futile [Comte]
     Full Idea: We regard the search after what are called causes, whether first or final, as absolutely inaccessible and unmeaning.
     From: Auguste Comte (Intro to Positive Philosophy [1830], Ch.1)
     A reaction: This remark lies behind Russell's rejection of the notion of cause in scientific thinking. Personally it seems to me indispensable, even if we accept that the pursuit of 'final' causes is fairly hopeless. We don't know where the quest will lead.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / e. Anti scientific essentialism
We can never know origins, purposes or inner natures [Comte]
     Full Idea: The inner nature of objects, or the origin and purpose of all phenomena, are the most insoluble questions.
     From: Auguste Comte (Intro to Positive Philosophy [1830], Ch.1)
     A reaction: I take it that this Humean pessimism about science ever penetrating below the surface is precisely what is challenged by modern science, and that 'scientific essentialism' is catching up with what has happened. 'Inner' is knowable, bottom level isn't.
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
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.
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / d. Pascal's Wager
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.