|
8216
|
Deconstruction is not neutral; it intervenes [Derrida]
|
|
Full Idea:
Deconstruction, I have insisted, is not neutral. It intervenes.
|
|
From:
Jacques Derrida (Positions [1971], p.76)
|
|
A reaction:
This, I think, is because there is in Derrida, as in most French philosophers, a strong streak of Marxism, and a desire to change the world, rather than merely understanding it. Idea 8213 shows the sort of thing he wants to change.
|
|
8213
|
I try to analyse certain verbal concepts which block and confuse the dialectical process [Derrida]
|
|
Full Idea:
I have tried to analyse certain marks in writing which are undecidables, false verbal properties, which inhabit philosophical opposition, resisting and disorganising it, without ever constituting a third term, withour ever leaving room for a solution.
|
|
From:
Jacques Derrida (Positions [1971], p.40)
|
|
A reaction:
[I have simplified his sentence!] Much of Derrida seems to be a commentary on the Hegelian dialectic, and the project is presumably to figure out why philosophy is not advancing in the way we would like. Interesting...
|
|
18284
|
Particulars can be verified or falsified, but general statements can only be falsified (conclusively) [Popper]
|
|
Full Idea:
Whereas particular reality statements are in principle completely verifiable or falsifiable, things are different for general reality statements: they can indeed be conclusively falsified, they can acquire a negative truth value, but not a positive one.
|
|
From:
Karl Popper (Two Problems of Epistemology [1932], p.256), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 18 'Laws'
|
|
A reaction:
This sounds like a logician's approach to science, but I prefer to look at coherence, where very little is actually conclusive, and one tinkers with the theory instead.
|