7 ideas
| 20947 | Thoughts are learnt through words, so language shows the limits and shape of our knowledge [Herder] |
| Full Idea: If it is true that we cannot think without thoughts, and that we learn to think through words: then language gives the whole of human knowledge its limits and outline. | |
| From: Johann Gottfried Herder (On Recent German Literature. Fragments [1767], p.373), quoted by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy | |
| A reaction: Deomonstrating that Frege's famous 1884 'linguistic turn', immortalised by Dummett, was actually the continuation of a long focus on language in German philosophy. Non-verbal animals very obviously think. |
| 8568 | A property is merely a constituent of laws of nature; temperature is just part of thermodynamics [Mellor] |
| Full Idea: Being a constituent of probabilistic laws of nature is all there is to being a property. There is no more to temperature than the thermodynamics and other laws they occur in. | |
| From: D.H. Mellor (Properties and Predicates [1991], 'Props') | |
| A reaction: How could thermodynamics be worked out without a prior concept of temperature? I think it is at least plausible to deny that there are any 'laws' of nature. But even Quine can't deny that some things are too hot to touch. |
| 8564 | There is obviously a possible predicate for every property [Mellor] |
| Full Idea: To every property there obviously corresponds a possible predicate applying to all and only those particulars with that property. | |
| From: D.H. Mellor (Properties and Predicates [1991], 'Intro') | |
| A reaction: This doesn't strike me as at all obvious. If nature dictates the properties, there may be vastly more than any human language could cope with. It is daft to say that a property can only exist if humanity can come up with a predicate for it. |
| 8566 | We need universals for causation and laws of nature; the latter give them their identity [Mellor] |
| Full Idea: I take the main reason for believing in contingent universals to be the roles they play in causation and in laws of nature, and those laws are what I take to give those universals their identity. | |
| From: D.H. Mellor (Properties and Predicates [1991], 'Props') | |
| A reaction: He agrees with Armstrong. Sounds a bit circular - laws are built on universals, and universals are identified by laws. It resembles a functionalist account of mental events. I think it is wrong. A different account of laws will be needed... |
| 8565 | If properties were just the meanings of predicates, they couldn't give predicates their meaning [Mellor] |
| Full Idea: One reason for denying that properties just are the meanings of our predicates is that, if they were, they could not give our predicates their meanings. | |
| From: D.H. Mellor (Properties and Predicates [1991], 'Props') | |
| A reaction: Neither way round sounds quite right to me. Predicate nominalism is wrong, but what is meant by a property 'giving' a predicate its meaning? It doesn't seem to allow room for error in our attempts to name the properties. |
| 22824 | Magna Carta forbids prison without trial, and insists on neutral and correct process [-, by Charvet] |
| Full Idea: The Magna Carta forbids the King to imprison indefinitely without trial, and also binds the King to follow due process in his courts and not allow the justice provided to be for sale. | |
| From: report of - (Magna Carta [1215]) by John Charvet - Liberalism: the basics 02 | |
| A reaction: Very exasperating for a medieval monarch. In current times British law is exceedingly slow (so long imprisonment before trial), and the necessary effective advocates cost vastly too much for all but a tiny minority. So it's going badly. |
| 8567 | Singular causation requires causes to raise the physical probability of their effects [Mellor] |
| Full Idea: Singular causation entails physical probabilities or chances. ...Causal laws require causes to raise their effects' chances, as when fires have a greater chance of occurring when explosions do. | |
| From: D.H. Mellor (Properties and Predicates [1991], 'Props') | |
| A reaction: It seems fairly obvious that a probability can be increased without actually causing something. Just after a harmless explosion is a good moment for arsonists, especially if Mellor will be the investigating officer. |