45 ideas
| 3879 | Philosophy aims to provide a theory of everything [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy studies everything: it tries to provide a theory of the whole of things. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: Good, but you can't avoid value-judgements about which things are important; philosophers place more value on moral theories than on theories about glacier movement. There is a tension in philosophy between human and eternal concerns. |
| 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. |
| 3891 | If p entails q, then p is sufficient for q, and q is necessary for p [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: If p entails q, then p is sufficient for q, and q is necessary for p. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 15.7) |
| 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. |
| 3894 | We may define 'good' correctly, but then ask whether the application of the definition is good [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The 'open question' argument is clearly invalid. A question remains open just so long as our ignorance permits. …It may be an open question whether promoting happiness is good, even though this is what 'good' means. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 20.1) | |
| A reaction: A nice objection. Like small children, we can keep asking questions forever. Whether there is a question to be asked about a thing is not a property of that thing, but of us who ask it. |
| 3883 | A true proposition is consistent with every other true proposition [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: A true proposition is consistent with every other true proposition: no truth is contradicted by another. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 9.1) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. It resembles the rule that if you always tell the truth you don't need to remember what you said. Close to the heart of the concept of truth. Coherence and correspondence. |
| 3884 | The pragmatist does not really have a theory of truth [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The pragmatist does not really have a theory of truth. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 9.4) |
| 3907 | Could you be intellectually acquainted with numbers, but unable to count objects? [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Could someone have a perfect intellectual acquaintance with numbers, but be incapable of counting a flock of sheep? | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 26.6) |
| 3908 | If maths contains unprovable truths, then maths cannot be reduced to a set of proofs [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: If there can be unprovable truths of mathematics, then mathematics cannot be reduced to the proofs whereby we construct it. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 26.7) |
| 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. |
| 3906 | If possible worlds are needed to define properties, maybe we should abandon properties [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: If the only way of defining properties involves quantifying over possible worlds, this could be taken as another reason for abandoning properties altogether. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 26.4) |
| 3888 | Hume assumes that necessity can only be de dicto, not de re [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: It was one of the assumptions of Hume's empiricism that all necessities are de dicto: i.e. they are artefacts of language. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 13.5) |
| 3903 | The conceivable can't be a test of the possible, if there are things which are possible but inconceivable [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: If there are things which are possible but inconceivable, we must abandon the view, which has had a considerable following since Descartes, that the conceivable is a test of the possible. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 25) |
| 3897 | Epistemology is about the justification of belief, not the definition of knowledge [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: In my view the concept of knowledge is of no very great interest in epistemology, which actually concerns the justification of belief. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 22) | |
| A reaction: I think this is an excellent thought. I see knowledge as slippery, and partially contextual, and I don't care whether someone precisely 'knows' something. I just want to know why they believe it. |
| 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. |
| 3881 | In the Cogito argument consciousness develops into self-consciousness [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: In the course of the argument the first person has acquired a character; he is not merely conscious, but self-conscious. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 4) |
| 3887 | Maybe our knowledge of truth and causation is synthetic a priori [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: 'Every event has a cause' and 'truth is correspondence to facts' are candidates for being synthetic a priori knowledge. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 13.2) |
| 3901 | Touch only seems to reveal primary qualities [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Touch seems to deliver a purely primary-quality account of the world. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 24) | |
| A reaction: Interesting, though a little over-confident. It seems occasionally possible for touch to be an illusion. |
| 3885 | We only conceive of primary qualities as attached to secondary qualities [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Bradley argued that we cannot conceive of primary qualities except as attached to secondary qualities. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 10.1) |
| 3910 | If primary and secondary qualities are distinct, what has the secondary qualities? [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: If primary and secondary qualities are distinct, what do secondary qualities inhere in? | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], Ch.10 n) | |
| A reaction: What is the problem? A pin causes me pain, but I know the pain isn't in the pin. It is the same with colour. It is a mental property, if you like, triggered by a wavelength of radiation. |
| 3899 | The representational theory says perceptual states are intentional states [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The representational theory is the unsurprising view that perceptual states are intentional, like beliefs, emotions and desires. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 23.3) |
| 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. |
| 3898 | My belief that it will rain tomorrow can't be caused by its raining tomorrow [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible that my present belief that it will rain tomorrow is caused by its raining tomorrow. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 22.4) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't demolish a causal account of belief. It would be very surprising if I were to believe it was going to rain tomorrow for no cause whatsoever. That would be irrational. |
| 3880 | Logical positivism avoids scepticism, by closing the gap between evidence and conclusion [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: If the evidence for p is q, and that is the only evidence there is or can be, then 'p' means q. Hence there is no gap between evidence and conclusion, and the sceptical problem does not arise. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 3.2) |
| 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. |
| 3878 | Why should you believe someone who says there are no truths? [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is 'merely relative', is asking you not to believe him. So don't. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 1.1) |
| 16002 | The self is a combination of pairs of attributes: freedom/necessity, infinite/finite, temporal/eternal [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: A human being is essentially spirit, but what is spirit? Spirit is to be a self. But what is the Self? In short, it is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Sickness unto Death [1849], p.59) | |
| A reaction: The dense language of his first paragraph was to poke fun at fashionable Hegelian writing. The book gets very lucid afterwards! [SY] |
| 3892 | Every event having a cause, and every event being determined by its cause, are not the same [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: To say that every event has a cause is one thing; to say that every event is determined by its cause is quite another thing. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 17.1) |
| 3911 | The very concept of a substance denies the possibility of mutual interaction and dependence [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: It is often held to be a consequence of the rationalist conception of substance, that separate substances cannot interact (since causal interaction is a form of mutual dependence). | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], Ch.16 n) | |
| A reaction: Yes, substances seem incapable of interaction, just as Leibniz argues that perfections could never interact. They are too pure. |
| 3882 | Wittgenstein makes it impossible to build foundations from something that is totally private [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Wittgenstein's point is that if I search for foundations in what can only be known to me, then the belief that I have discovered those foundations will also fall victim to Descartes' demon. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: Why should foundations based in wider society or a language community fare any better? Getting a lot of people to agree won't trouble the demon too much. Flat earthers. |
| 3896 | Any social theory of morality has the problem of the 'free rider', who only pretends to join in [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Any attempt to provide a social justification of morality runs the risk of the 'free rider' - one who pretends to play the game in order to enjoy the fruits of it. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 20.6) |
| 3886 | Membership is the greatest source of obligation [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Membership is the greatest source of obligation. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 11.2) | |
| A reaction: An interesting and rather Aristotelian idea. The alternative is individual debt or obligation. |
| 3895 | The categorical imperative is not just individual, but can be used for negotiations between strangers [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The categorical imperative is also an instrument of negotiation and compromise between strangers, through which they can rise out of enmity and confront each other as equals. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 20.6) |
| 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. |
| 3890 | 'Cause' used to just mean any valid explanation [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Traditionally (before Leibniz and Spinoza) the world 'cause' signified any valid explanation. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 14) |
| 3904 | Measuring space requires no movement while I do it [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: I can measure the length of something only if I know that it has not moved between the moment when I locate one end of it and the moment when I locate the other. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 25.3) | |
| A reaction: A nice example of how even simple propositions have many presuppositions. |
| 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. |
| 3905 | 'Existence' is not a predicate of 'man', but of the concept of man, saying it has at least one instance [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: When I say that a man exists, Frege argues, I do not predicate existence of a man, but rather of the concept man: I say the concept has at least one instance (and existence is a predicate of predicates). | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 26.2) |
| 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. |