21 ideas
| 5182 | Claims about 'the Absolute' are not even verifiable in principle [Ayer on Bradley] |
| Full Idea: Such a metaphysical pseudo-proposition as 'the Absolute enters into, but is itself incapable of, evolution and progress' (F.H.Bradley) is not even in principle verifiable. | |
| From: comment on F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by A.J. Ayer - Language,Truth and Logic Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: One may jeer at the Verification Principle for either failing to be precise, or for failing to pass its own test, but Ayer still has a point here. When we drift off into sustained abstractions, we must keeping asking if we are still saying anything real. |
| 6864 | Metaphysics is finding bad reasons for instinctive beliefs [Bradley] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an instinct. | |
| From: F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]), quoted by Robin Le Poidevin - Interview with Baggini and Stangroom p.165 | |
| A reaction: A famous and very nice remark. The idea of believing things on instinct sounds more like David Hume than an idealist. Personally I am not so pessimistic about the enterprise. I think metaphysics is capable of changing what we believe. |
| 10999 | Names need a means of reidentifying their referents [Bradley, by Read] |
| Full Idea: Unless a name has associated with it a means of reidentifying its referent, we cannot use it. | |
| From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by Stephen Read - Thinking About Logic Ch.4 | |
| A reaction: Brilliant! This point is totally undeniable. It is not enough that someone be 'baptised'. We need to hang onto both the name and what it refers to, and how are we going to do that? |
| 6422 | Internal relations are said to be intrinsic properties of two terms, and of the whole they compose [Bradley, by Russell] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine of internal relations held that every relation between two terms expresses, primarily, intrinsic properties of the two terms and, in ultimate analysis, a property of the whole which the two compose. | |
| From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by Bertrand Russell - My Philosophical Development Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: Russell's first big campaign was to reject this view, and his ontology from then on included relations among the catalogue of universals. The coherence theory of truth also gets thrown out at the same time. Russell seems right. |
| 7966 | Relations must be linked to their qualities, but that implies an infinite regress of relations [Bradley] |
| Full Idea: If a relation between qualities is to be something, then clearly we will now require a new connecting relation. The links are united by a link, and this link has two ends, which require a fresh link to connect them to the old. | |
| From: F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893], p.28), quoted by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things Ch.6 | |
| A reaction: That is: external relations generates an infinite regress, so relations must be internal. Russell launched his own philosophy with an attack on Bradley's idea. Personally I take how two things 'relate' to one another as one of the deepest of mysteries. |
| 6404 | British Idealists said reality is a single Mind which experiences itself [Bradley, by Grayling] |
| Full Idea: The idealism of Green and Bradley, both of whom were much influenced by the German Idealists, espoused the thesis that the universe ultimately consists of a single Mind which, so to speak, experiences itself. | |
| From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This looks now like the last (extreme) throw by the religious view of the world, which collapsed in the face of the empirical realism of Russell and Moore. It is all Kant's fault, for cutting us off from his 'noumenon'. |
| 22299 | Bradley's objective idealism accepts reality (the Absolute), but says we can't fully describe it [Bradley, by Potter] |
| Full Idea: Objective idealists such as Bradley (rather than Berkeley's subjective view) accepted the substantial existence of reality (which they called the 'Absolute') but held that thought cannot fully describe it. | |
| From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 23 'Abs' | |
| A reaction: That thought can't 'fully' describe it seems obvious, so I suspect Bradley's view are stronger than that. This sounds like modern strong and weak anti-realists; strong ones deny reality, but weak ones just deny we know where the joints are. |
| 21343 | Qualities and relations are mere appearance; the Absolute is a single undifferentiated substance [Bradley, by Heil] |
| Full Idea: In Bradley's view, qualities and relations belong to the realm of appearance. We are left with a single, undifferentiated substance: the Absolute. | |
| From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by John Heil - Relations 'Internal' | |
| A reaction: I've not read Bradley, but I can't distinguish this proposal from Parmenides's belief in The One. Or maybe Spinoza's monist view of God and Nature (but that is 'differentiated'). It doesn't sound like Hegel. |
| 2705 | How can intuitionists distinguish universal convictions from local cultural ones? [Hare] |
| Full Idea: There are convictions which are common to most societies; but there are others which are not, and no way is given by intuitionists of telling which are the authoritative data. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.454) | |
| A reaction: It seems unfair on intuitionists to say they haven't given a way to evaluate such things, given that they have offered intuition. The issue is what exactly they mean by 'intuition'. |
| 2712 | You can't use intuitions to decide which intuitions you should cultivate [Hare] |
| Full Idea: If it comes to deciding what intuitions and dispositions to cultivate, we cannot rely on the intuitions themselves, as intuitionists do. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.461) | |
| A reaction: Makes intuitionists sound a bit dim. Surely Hume identifies dispositions (such as benevolence) which should be cultivated, because they self-evidently improve social life? |
| 2706 | Emotivists mistakenly think all disagreements are about facts, and so there are no moral reasons [Hare] |
| Full Idea: Emotivists concluded too hastily that because naturalism and intuitionism are false, you cannot reason about moral questions, because they assumed that the only questions you can reason about are factual ones. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.455) | |
| A reaction: Personally I have a naturalistic view of ethics (based on successful functioning, as indicated by Aristotle), so not my prob. Why can't we reason about expressive emotions? We reason about art. |
| 2709 | Prescriptivism sees 'ought' statements as imperatives which are universalisable [Hare] |
| Full Idea: Universal prescriptivists hold that 'ought'-judgements are prescriptive like plain imperatives, but differ from them in being universalisable. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.457) | |
| A reaction: Sounds a bit tautological. Which comes first, the normativity or the universalisability? |
| 2704 | If morality is just a natural or intuitive description, that leads to relativism [Hare] |
| Full Idea: Non-descriptivists (e.g. prescriptivists) reject descriptivism in its naturalist or intuitionist form, because they are both destined to collapse into relativism. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.453) | |
| A reaction: I'm not clear from this why prescriptism would not also turn out to be relativist, if it includes evaluations along with facts. |
| 2703 | Descriptivism say ethical meaning is just truth-conditions; prescriptivism adds an evaluation [Hare] |
| Full Idea: Ethical descriptivism is the view that ethical sentence-meaning is wholly determined by truth-conditions. …Prescriptivists think there is a further element of meaning, which expresses prescriptions or evaluations or attitudes which we assent to. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.452) | |
| A reaction: Not sure I understand either of these. If all meaning consists of truth-conditions, that will apply to ethics. If meaning includes evaluations, that will apply to non-ethics. |
| 2707 | If there can be contradictory prescriptions, then reasoning must be involved [Hare] |
| Full Idea: Prescriptivists claim that there are rules of reasoning which govern non-descriptive as well as descriptive speech acts. The standard example is possible logical inconsistency between contradictory prescriptions. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.455) | |
| A reaction: The example doesn't seem very good. Inconsistency can appear in any area of thought, but that isn't enough to infer full 'rules of reasoning'. I could desire two incompatible crazy things. |
| 2708 | An 'ought' statement implies universal application [Hare] |
| Full Idea: In any 'ought' statement there is implicit a principle which says that the statement applies to all precisely similar situations. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.456) | |
| A reaction: No two situations can ever be 'precisely' similar. Indeed, 'precisely similar' may be an oxymoron (at least for situations). Kantians presumably like this idea. |
| 2711 | Prescriptivism implies a commitment, but descriptivism doesn't [Hare] |
| Full Idea: Prescriptivists hold that moral judgements commit the speaker to motivations and actions, but non-moral facts by themselves do not do this. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.459) | |
| A reaction: Surely hunger motivates to action? I suppose the key word is 'commit'. But lazy people are allowed to make moral judgements. |
| 541 | Virtue comes more from habit than character [Critias] |
| Full Idea: More men are good through habit than through character. | |
| From: Critias (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE], B09), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 3.29.41 |
| 2710 | Moral judgements must invoke some sort of principle [Hare] |
| Full Idea: To make moral judgements is implicitly to invoke some principle, however specific. | |
| From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.458) |
| 6406 | Reality is one, because plurality implies relations, and they assert a superior unity [Bradley] |
| Full Idea: Reality is one. It must be simple because plurality, taken as real, contradicts itself. Plurality implies relations, and, through its relations it unwillingly asserts always a superior unity. | |
| From: F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893], p.519), quoted by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This argument depends on a belief in 'internal' relations, which Russell famously attacked. If an internal feature of every separate item was its relation to other things, then I suppose Bradley would be right. But it isn't, and he isn't. |
| 542 | Fear of the gods was invented to discourage secret sin [Critias] |
| Full Idea: When the laws forbade men to commit open crimes of violence, and they began to do them in secret, a wise and clever man invented fear of the gods for mortals, to frighten the wicked, even if they sin in secret. | |
| From: Critias (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE], B25), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Professors (six books) 9.54 |