5 ideas
| 13190 | I don't admit infinite numbers, and consider infinitesimals to be useful fictions [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Notwithstanding my infinitesimal calculus, I do not admit any real infinite numbers, even though I confess that the multitude of things surpasses any finite number, or rather any number. ..I consider infinitesimal quantities to be useful fictions. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Masson [1716], 1716) | |
| A reaction: With the phrase 'useful fictions' we seem to have jumped straight into Harty Field. I'm with Leibniz on this one. The history of mathematics is a series of ingenious inventions, whenever they seem to make further exciting proofs possible. |
| 17722 | The concept 'red' is tied to what actually individuates red things [Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: The possession conditions for the concept 'red' of the colour red are tied to those very conditions which individuate the colour red. | |
| From: Christopher Peacocke (Explaining the A Priori [2000], p.267), quoted by Carrie Jenkins - Grounding Concepts 2.5 | |
| A reaction: Jenkins reports that he therefore argues that we can learn something about the word 'red' from thinking about the concept 'red', which is his new theory of the a priori. I find 'possession conditions' and 'individuation' to be very woolly concepts. |
| 22331 | Moral statements are imperatives rather than the avowals of emotion - but universalisable [Hare, by Glock] |
| Full Idea: According to Hare's universal prescriptivism, moral statements are closer to imperatives than to avowals of emotion; their purpose is to guide action. But unlike imeperatives they are universalisable. | |
| From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963]) by Hans-Johann Glock - What is Analytic Philosophy? 2.9 | |
| A reaction: Why isn't 'everyone ought to support West Ham' a moral judgement? |
| 22484 | Universalised prescriptivism could be seen as implying utilitarianism [Hare, by Foot] |
| Full Idea: Hare has suggested that a fairly tight form of utilitarianism can be obtained from universalised prescriptivism. | |
| From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963]) by Philippa Foot - Does Moral Subjectivism Rest on a Mistake? p.191 | |
| A reaction: All the benefits of Bentham, Kant and Hume, in one neat package! Since I take all three of them to be wrong about ethics, that counts against this idea. |
| 6449 | The categorical imperative leads to utilitarianism [Hare, by Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Hare has proposed that utilitarianism is the ultimate standard to which we are led by the categorical imperative. | |
| From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963], p.123-4) by Thomas Nagel - Equality and Partiality | |
| A reaction: It seems to me better to say that Kant starts (unwittingly) from something like utilitarianism, that is, an assumption that human happiness and welfare have some sort of intrinsic value that cannot be demonstrated. Otherwise evil can be universalised. |