6 ideas
| 22419 | 'I' is a subject in 'I am in pain' and an object in 'I am bleeding' [Wittgenstein, by McGinn] |
| Full Idea: 'I' is used as a subject in 'I am in pain', ....and used as an object in 'I am bleeding'. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (The Blue and Brown Notebooks [1936], pp. 66-7) by Colin McGinn - Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals 4 | |
| A reaction: How about 'my wound is painful'? Does that have the logical form of a conversation? This idea is incorrect. Shoemaker (1968) suggests that the subjective use is immune to error, unlike the object use. |
| 14802 | Physical and psychical laws of mind are either independent, or derived in one or other direction [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The question about minds is whether 1) physical and psychical laws are independent (monism, my neutralism), 2) the psychical laws derived and physical laws primordial (materialism), 3) physical law is derived, psychical law primordial (idealism). | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Architecture of Theories [1891], p.321) | |
| A reaction: I think you are already in trouble when you start proposing that there are two quite distinct sets of laws, and then worry about how they are related. Assume unity, and only separate them when the science forces you to (which it won't). |
| 6318 | The doctrine of indeterminacy of translation seems implied by the later Wittgenstein [Wittgenstein, by Quine] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps the doctrine of indeterminacy of translation will have little air of paradox for readers familiar with Wittgenstein's latter-day remarks on meaning. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (The Blue and Brown Notebooks [1936], II.§16 n) by Willard Quine - Word and Object II.§16 n | |
| A reaction: This may be right, and I am inclined to link the names of Wittgenstein and Quine among those who led philosophy up a relativistic and sceptical cul-de-sac for many years. You can think too hard, you know. |
| 468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
| Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice. | |
| From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 14800 | The world is full of variety, but laws seem to produce uniformity [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Exact law obviously never can produce heterogeneity out of homogeneity; and arbitrary heterogeneity is the feature of the universe the most manifest and characteristic. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Architecture of Theories [1891], p.319) | |
| A reaction: This is the view of laws of nature now associated with Nancy Cartwright, but presumably you can explain the apparent chaos in terms of the intersection of vast numbers of 'laws'. Or, better, there aren't any laws. |
| 14801 | Darwinian evolution is chance, with the destruction of bad results [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Darwinian evolution is evolution by the operation of chance, and the destruction of bad results. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Architecture of Theories [1891], p.320) | |
| A reaction: The 'destruction of bad results' is a much better slogan for Darwin that Spencer's 'survival of the fittest'. It is, of course, a rather unattractive God who makes progress by endlessly destroying huge quantities of failed (but living) experiments. |