19 ideas
| 23449 | Interpreting a text is representing it as making sense [Morris,M] |
| Full Idea: Interpreting a text is a matter of making sense of it. And to make sense of a text is to represent it as making sense. | |
| From: Michael Morris (Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus [2008], Intro.2) | |
| A reaction: 'Making sense' is obviously not a very precise or determinate concept. It is probably better to say that the process is 'trying' to make sense of the text, because most texts don't totally make sense. |
| 8368 | A correct definition is what can be substituted without loss of meaning [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: A definition of a word is correct if the definition can be substituted for the word being defined in an assertion without in the least changing the meaning which the assertion is felt to have. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §1) | |
| A reaction: This sounds good, but a very bland and uninformative rephrasing would fit this account, without offering anything very helpful. The word 'this' could be substituted for a lot of object words. A 'blade' is 'a thing always attached to a knife handle'. |
| 23484 | Bipolarity adds to Bivalence the capacity for both truth values [Morris,M] |
| Full Idea: According to the Principle of Bipolarity, every meaningful sentence must be capable both of being true and of being false. It is not enough merely that every sentence must be either true or false (which is Bivalence). | |
| From: Michael Morris (Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus [2008], 3D) | |
| A reaction: It is said that early Wittgenstein endorses this. That is, in addition to being true, the sentence must be capable of falsehood (and vice versa). This seems to be flirting with the verification principle. I presume it is 'affirmative' sentences. |
| 23494 | Conjunctive and disjunctive quantifiers are too specific, and are confined to the finite [Morris,M] |
| Full Idea: There are two problems with defining the quantifiers in terms of conjunction and disjunction. The general statements are unspecific, and do not say which things have the properties, and also they can't range over infinite objects. | |
| From: Michael Morris (Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus [2008], 5C) | |
| A reaction: That is, the universal quantifier is lots of ands, and the existential is lots of ors. If there only existed finite objects, then naming them all would be universal, and the infinite wouldn't be needed. |
| 23451 | Counting needs to distinguish things, and also needs the concept of a successor in a series [Morris,M] |
| Full Idea: Just distinguishing things is not enough for counting (and hence arithmetic). We need the crucial extra notion of the successor in a series of some kind. | |
| From: Michael Morris (Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus [2008], Intro.5) | |
| A reaction: This is a step towards the Peano Axioms of arithmetic. The successors could be fingers and toes, taken in a conventional order, and matched one-to-one to the objects. 'My right big toe of cows' means 16 cows (but non-verbally). |
| 23460 | To count, we must distinguish things, and have a series with successors in it [Morris,M] |
| Full Idea: Distinguishing between things is not enough for counting. …We need the crucial extra notion of a successor in a series of a certain kind. | |
| From: Michael Morris (Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus [2008], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This is the thinking that led to the Dedekind-Peano axioms for arithmetic. E.g. each series member can only have one successor. There is an unformalisable assumption that the series can then be applied to the things. |
| 23452 | Discriminating things for counting implies concepts of identity and distinctness [Morris,M] |
| Full Idea: The discrimination of things for counting needs to bring with it the notion of identity (and, correlatively, distinctness). | |
| From: Michael Morris (Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus [2008], Intro.5) | |
| A reaction: Morris is exploring how practices like counting might reveal necessary truths about the world. |
| 23491 | There must exist a general form of propositions, which are predictabe. It is: such and such is the case [Morris,M] |
| Full Idea: The existence of a general propositional form is proved by the fact that there cannot be a proposition whose form could not have been foreseen (i.e. constructed). The general form of the proposition is: Such and such is the case. | |
| From: Michael Morris (Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus [2008], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: [last bit in Ogden translation] LW eventually expresses this symbolically. We could just say a proposition is an assertion. This strikes as either a rather empty claim, or an unfounded one. |
| 19896 | It is not a law if not endorsed by the public [Hooker,R] |
| Full Idea: Laws they are not which public approbation hath not made so. | |
| From: Richard Hooker (Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity [1593], I s.10), quoted by John Locke - Second Treatise of Government 134 n1 | |
| A reaction: Margaret Thatcher's Poll Tax, rejected by public rebellion, illustrates the point. |
| 19891 | Rule of law is superior to autonomy, because citizens can see what is expected [Hooker,R] |
| Full Idea: Men saw that to live by one man's will became the cause of all men's misery. This contrained them to come unto laws wherein all men might see their duty beforehand, and know the penalties of transgressing them. | |
| From: Richard Hooker (Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity [1593], I s.10), quoted by John Locke - Second Treatise of Government 111 n1 | |
| A reaction: One British school has a single rule, that pupils 'shall always treat other people with respect'. Presumably the rulers, as well as the pupils, must decide when this is transgressed. The rule of law may be preferable. |
| 19897 | Human laws must accord with the general laws of Nature [Hooker,R] |
| Full Idea: Laws human must be made according to the general laws of Nature. | |
| From: Richard Hooker (Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity [1593], III s.9), quoted by John Locke - Second Treatise of Government | |
| A reaction: The point simply seems to be that they won't get assent from the public if they are not in accord with natural justice. Positivists say you can make any damned law you like. |
| 8367 | Causation is defined in terms of a single sequence, and constant conjunction is no part of it [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: The correct definition of the causal relation is to be framed in terms of one single case of sequence, and constancy of conjunction is therefore no part of it. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This is the thesis of Ducasse's paper. I immediately warm to it. I take constant conjunction to be a consequence and symptom of causation, not its nature. There is a classic ontology/epistemology confusion to be avoided here. |
| 8372 | We see what is in common between causes to assign names to them, not to perceive them [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: The part of a generalization concerning what is common to one individual concrete event and the causes of certain other events of the same kind is involved in the mere assigning of a name to the cause and its effect, but not in the perceiving them. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §5) | |
| A reaction: A nice point, that we should keep distinct the recognition of a cause, and the assigning of a general name to it. Ducasse is claiming that we can directly perceive singular causation. |
| 8369 | Causes are either sufficient, or necessary, or necessitated, or contingent upon [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: There are four causal connections: an event is sufficient for another if it is its cause; an event is necessary for another if it is a condition for it; it is necessitated by another if it is an effect; it is contingent upon another if it is a resultant. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §2) | |
| A reaction: An event could be a condition for another without being necessary. He seems to have missed the indispensable aspect of a necessary condition. |
| 8373 | When a brick and a canary-song hit a window, we ignore the canary if we are interested in the breakage [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: If a brick and the song of a canary strike a window, which breaks....we can truly say that the song of the canary had nothing to do with it, that is, in so far as what occurred is viewed merely as a case of breakage of window. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §5) | |
| A reaction: This is the germ of Davidson's view, that causation is entirely dependent on the mode of description, rather than being an actual feature of reality. If one was interested in the sound of the breakage, the canary would become relevant. |
| 8370 | A cause is a change which occurs close to the effect and just before it [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: The cause of the particular change K was such particular change C as alone occurred in the immediate environment of K immediately before. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §3) | |
| A reaction: The obvious immediately difficulty would be overdetermination, as when it rains while I am watering my garden. The other problem would coincidence, as when I clap my hands just before a bomb goes off. |
| 8371 | Recurrence is only relevant to the meaning of law, not to the meaning of cause [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: The supposition of recurrence is wholly irrelevant to the meaning of cause: that supposition is relevant only to the meaning of law. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §4) | |
| A reaction: This sounds plausible, especially if our notion of laws of nature is built up from a series of caused events. But we could just have an ontology of 'similar events', out of which we build laws, and 'causation' could drop out (á la Russell). |
| 8374 | We are interested in generalising about causes and effects purely for practical purposes [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: We are interested in causes and effects primarily for practical purposes, which needs generalizations; so the interest of concrete individual facts of causation is chiefly an indirect one, as raw material for generalizations. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §6) | |
| A reaction: A nice explanation of why, if causation is fundamentally about single instances, people seem so interested in generalisations and laws. We want to predict, and we want to explain, and we want to intervene. |
| 17005 | Natural things observe certain laws, and things cannot do otherwise if they retain their forms [Hooker,R] |
| Full Idea: Things natural …do so necessarily observe their certain laws, that as long as they keep those forms which give them their being they cannot possibly be apt or inclinable to do otherwise than they do. | |
| From: Richard Hooker (Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity [1593], 1.3.4), quoted by Marc Lange - Laws and Lawmakers 1.2 | |
| A reaction: Cited by some as the beginnings of the idea of 'laws of nature', but it is striking that Hooker says the laws are controlled by 'forms' (which are Aristotelian essences). This is an essentialist view of laws, not a regularity or divine power one. |