89 ideas
| 2512 | Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Philosophical problems are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have already known. Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §109), quoted by Jerrold J. Katz - Realistic Rationalism Int.xi | |
| A reaction: A philosophical dispute can be settled by a piece of information, which may be already known to you, but new to me. Philosophical discussion can also point to a scientific research programme - i.e. a need for new information. I like the first sentence. |
| 4148 | What is your aim in philosophy? - To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: What is your aim in philosophy? - To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §309) | |
| A reaction: Ridiculous. Trying to think about thought is not a pointless buzzing - it is an attempt by humans to become like gods. |
| 22490 | Bring words back from metaphysics to everyday use [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], 116), quoted by Philippa Foot - Natural Goodness 7 n16 | |
| A reaction: A germ of ordinary language philosophy. It is wrong to think that metaphysics must be studied in the usages of ordinary language, but I strongly believe that words like 'essence' or 'objectivity' should retain their normal meaning when philosophising. |
| 17663 | If you know what it is, investigation is pointless. If you don't, investigation is impossible [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Paradox of Analysis:if we ask what sort of thing an X is, then either we know what an X is or we do not. If we know then there is no need to ask the question. If we do not know then there is no way to begin the investigation. It's pointless or impossible | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 01.2) | |
| A reaction: [G.E. Moore is the source of this, somewhere] Plato worried that to get to know something you must already know it. Solving this requires the concept of a 'benign' circularity. |
| 6566 | The problem is to explain the role of contradiction in social life [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: When a contradiction appears, we say: "I didn't mean it like that"; the civil status of a contradiction, or its status in civil life: there is the philosophical problem. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §125), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: The point is that logical concepts such as contradiction are conventional, and not all-or-nothing, so we might agree that you didn't really contradict yourself (when perhaps you uttered a witty ironic paradox). I don't see the problem as philosophical. |
| 18743 | Wittgenstein says we want the grammar of problems, not their first-order logical structure [Wittgenstein, by Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| Full Idea: For the later Wittgenstein what we should be after is the grammatical structure of philosophical problems, not the first-order logical structure of such problems. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952]) by Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R - Mathematical Methods in Philosophy 2 | |
| A reaction: This is the most sympathetic spin I have ever seen put on the apparent rather anti-philosophical later Wittgenstein. I nurse doubts about highly formal approaches to philosophy, and maybe 'grammar' (whatever that is) is our target. |
| 4139 | Naming is a preparation for description [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Naming is a preparation for description. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §049) | |
| A reaction: Something has to be the starting point for a description. And yet a description could turn out to be an elaborate name. |
| 4946 | A name is not determined by a description, but by a cluster or family [Wittgenstein, by Kripke] |
| Full Idea: According to Wittgenstein (and Searle) the referent of a name is determined not by a single description but by some cluster or family. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §079) by Saul A. Kripke - Naming and Necessity lectures Lecture 1 | |
| A reaction: It is because of this characteristically woolly, indeterminate and relativist view of Wittgenstein that I (and most people) find Kripke's notion of a 'baptism' so refreshing. It cuts throught the fog of language, and connects to reality. |
| 17688 | Negative facts are supervenient on positive facts, suggesting they are positive facts [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Negative facts appear to be supervenient upon the positive facts, which suggests that they are nothing more than the positive facts. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 10.3) |
| 17691 | Nothing is genuinely related to itself [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: I believe that nothing is genuinely related to itself. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 10.7) |
| 17679 | All instances of some property are strictly identical [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: A property ...is something which is strictly identical, strictly the same, in all its different instances. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 06.2) | |
| A reaction: Some is gravitation one property, or an infinity of properties, for each of its values? What is the same between objects of different mass. I sort of believe in all the masses, but I'm not sure what 'mass' is. Abstraction, say I. |
| 12677 | Armstrong holds that all basic properties are categorical [Armstrong, by Ellis] |
| Full Idea: I am against Armstrong's strong categoricalism, that is, the thesis that all basic properties are categorical. | |
| From: report of David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983]) by Brian Ellis - The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism 3 | |
| A reaction: I certainly agree with this, as I cannot see where the power would come from to get the whole thing off the ground. Armstrong depends on universals to necessitate what happens, which I find very peculiar. |
| 17666 | Actualism means that ontology cannot contain what is merely physically possible [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Actualism ...debars us from admitting into our ontology the merely possible, not only the merely logically possible, but also the merely physically possible. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 01.3) | |
| A reaction: This is the big metaphysical question for fans (like myself) of 'powers' in nature. Armstrong declares himself an Actualist. I take it as obvious that the actual world contains powers, but how are we to characterise them? |
| 17667 | Dispositions exist, but their truth-makers are actual or categorical properties [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: It is not denied that statements attributing dispositions and/or powers to objects are often true. But the truth-makers or ontological ground for such statements must always be found in the actual, or categorical, properties of the objects involved. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 01.3) | |
| A reaction: This is the big debate in the topic of powers. I love powers, but you always think there must be 'something' which has the power. Could reality entirely consist of powers? See Fetzer. |
| 17687 | If everything is powers there is a vicious regress, as powers are defined by more powers [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: I believe reducing all universals to powers is involved in vicious regress. The power is what it is by the sort of actualisations it gives rise to in suitable sorts of circumstances. But they themselves can be nothing but powers... | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 08.3) | |
| A reaction: [compressed wording] I don't see this problem. Anything postulated as fundamental is going to be baffling. Why are categorical properties superior to powers? Postulate basic powers (or basic empowered stuff), then build up. |
| 17678 | Universals are just the repeatable features of a world [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Universals can be brought into the spatio-temporal world, becoming simply the repeatable features of that world. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 06.2) | |
| A reaction: I wish Armstrong wouldn't use the word 'universal', which has so much historical baggage. The world obviously has repeatable features, but does that mean that our ontology must include things called 'features'? Hm. |
| 17669 | Realist regularity theories of laws need universals, to pick out the same phenomena [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: A Realistic version of a Regularity theory of laws will have to postulate universals. How else will it be possible to say that the different instances of a certain uniformity are all instances of objectively the same phenomenon? | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 02.4) | |
| A reaction: I disagree. We may (or may not) need properties, but they can be have a range. We just need stable language. We use one word 'red', even when the shade of redness varies. Non-realists presumably refer to sense-data. |
| 15442 | Universals are abstractions from their particular instances [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Armstrong takes universals generally, and structural universals along with the rest, to be abstractions from their particular instances. | |
| From: report of David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], p.83-4) by David Lewis - Against Structural Universals 'The pictorial' | |
| A reaction: To me, 'abstracted' implies a process of human psychology, a way of thinking about the instances. I don't see how there can be an 'abstracted' relation which is a part of the external world. That makes his laws of nature human creations. |
| 17686 | Universals are abstractions from states of affairs [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Universals are abstractions from states of affairs. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 7) | |
| A reaction: I'm getting confused about Armstrong's commitments. He bases his whole theory on the existence of universals (repeatable features), but now says those are 'abstracted' from something else. Abstracted by us? |
| 17677 | Past, present and future must be equally real if universals are instantiated [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Past, present and future I take to be all and equally real. A universal need not be instantiated now. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 06.2) | |
| A reaction: This is the price you must pay for saying that you only believe in universals which are instantiated. |
| 17668 | It is likely that particulars can be individuated by unique conjunctions of properties [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: For each particular it is likely that there exists at least one individuating conjunction of properties, that is, a conjunction of properties such that the particular instantiates this conjunction and nothing else does. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 02.3) | |
| A reaction: Armstrong commits to a famous Leibniz view, but I don't see his grounds for it. There is nothing incoherent about nature churning out perfect replicas of things, such as quarks and electrons. Would we care if two pens were perfectly identical? |
| 15106 | Essence is expressed by grammar [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Essence is expressed by grammar. ...Grammar tells us what kind of object anything is. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §371-3) | |
| A reaction: Enigmatic, as usual. The second part seems to imply sortal essentialism, though the emphasis on grammar seems to make it highly conventional, rather than a reflection of 'real' sorts. |
| 17680 | The identity of a thing with itself can be ruled out as a pseudo-property [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: There is reason to rule out as pseudo-properties such things as the identity of a thing with itself. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 06.2) | |
| A reaction: Good on you, David. |
| 17693 | The necessary/contingent distinction may need to recognise possibilities as real [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: It may be that the necessary/contingent distinction is tied to a metaphysics which recognises possibility as a real something wider than actuality. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 11.2) | |
| A reaction: Armstrong responds by trying to give an account of possibility in terms of 'combinations' from actuality. I think powers offer a much better strategy. |
| 6600 | The belief that fire burns is like the fear that it burns [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: The belief that fire will burn me is of the same kind as the fear that it will burn me. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §473) | |
| A reaction: Most of our beliefs are forced on us, rather than chosen, and this nice remark gives an indication of the reason. It dovetails with Peirce's pragmatic approach to be belief (e.g. Idea 6598), which is well developed by Robert Fogelin. |
| 4153 | Are sense-data the material of which the universe is made? [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Are sense-data the material of which the universe is made? | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §401) | |
| A reaction: Presumably the question is meant to be absurd, and to a realist it is. You can't serious think that a filing cabinet is made of sensations. |
| 6501 | As sense-data are necessarily private, they are attacked by Wittgenstein's objections [Wittgenstein, by Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Sense-data are usually conceived as necessarily private to individual observers, so the final crisis for the empiricist conception of perception was Wittgenstein's famous polemic against such private objects. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952]) by Howard Robinson - Perception IV.1 | |
| A reaction: Personally I remain unconvinced by Wittgenstein's very elusive argument, but I think there are plenty of other reasons for doubting whether the idea of sense-data throws much light on our understanding of the processes of perception. |
| 11079 | How do I decide when to accept or obey an intuition? [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: If intuition is an inner voice - how do I know how I am to obey it? And how do I know that it doesn't mislead me? For if it can guide me right, it can also guide me wrong. ((Intuition an unnecessary shuffle)) | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], 213) | |
| A reaction: Presumably the last point, in brackets, means that you still have to evaluate the intuition, with which I would agree. I take judgement to occur in the space of reasons, to which intuition is a major contributor. Only a fool would just accept intuition. |
| 4160 | One can mistrust one's own senses, but not one's own beliefs [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: One can mistrust one's own senses, but not one's own beliefs. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], II.x) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, because we don't choose our beliefs. We don't even choose whether to believe a sensation - we just focus harder until belief does or doesn't occur. |
| 17685 | Induction aims at 'all Fs', but abduction aims at hidden or theoretical entities [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Many philosophers of science have distinguished between 'simple induction' - the argument from observed Fs to all Fs - and the argument to hidden or theoretical entities (Peirce's 'abduction'). | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 06.7) | |
| A reaction: 'Abduction' is (roughly) the same is inference to the best explanation, of which I am a great fan. |
| 17683 | Science suggests that the predicate 'grue' is not a genuine single universal [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: It is plausible to say, on the basis of total science, that 'grue' is a predicate to which no genuine, that is, unitary, universal corresponds. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 06.7) |
| 17675 | Unlike 'green', the 'grue' predicate involves a time and a change [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: The predicate 'grue' involves essential reference to a particular time, which 'green' does not. Also on the 'grue' hypothesis a change occurs in emeralds in a way that change does not occur on the 'green' hypothesis. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 04.5) | |
| A reaction: I'm inclined to think that comparing 'grue' with 'green' is a category mistake. 'Grue' is a behaviour. Armstrong says this is no objection, because Goodman's argument is purely formal. |
| 17674 | The raven paradox has three disjuncts, confirmed by confirming any one of them [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: We could rewrite the generalisation as For all x, ((x is a raven and x is black) v (x is not a raven and x is black) v (x is not a raven and x is not black)). Instances of any one of the three disjuncts will do as confirmation. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 04.3) | |
| A reaction: A nice clarification. |
| 17672 | A good reason for something (the smoke) is not an explanation of it (the fire) [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: A good reason for P is not necessarily an explanation of P. The presence of smoke is a good reason for thinking that fire is present. But it is not an explanation of the presence of fire. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 04.2) | |
| A reaction: This may be an equivocation on 'the reason for'. Smoke is a reason for thinking there is a fire, but no one would propose it as a reason for the fire. If the reason for the fire was arson, that would seem to explain it as well. |
| 17684 | To explain observations by a regular law is to explain the observations by the observations [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Given the Regularity theory, the explanatory element seems to vanish. For to say that all the observed Fs are Gs because all the Fs are Gs involves explaining the observations in terms of themselves. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 06.7) | |
| A reaction: This point cries out, it is so obvious (once spotted). Tigers are ferocious because all tigers are ferocious (see?). |
| 17676 | Best explanations explain the most by means of the least [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: The best explanation explains the most by means of the least. Explanation unifies. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 05.4) | |
| A reaction: To get unification, you need to cite the diversity of what is explained, and not the mere quantity. The force of gravity unifies because it applies to such a diversity of things. |
| 19273 | I don't have the opinion that people have minds; I just treat them as such [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: My attitude towards him is an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the 'opinion' that he has a soul. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], II.iv) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be precisely Dennett's 'intentional stance', where we conjure up minds in things like chess-playing computers, irrespective of whether we believe they are conscious. |
| 5663 | It is irresponsible to generalise from my own case of pain to other people's [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word 'pain' means - must I not say the same of other people too? And how can I generalise from the one case so irresponsibly? | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §293) | |
| A reaction: This is the best known objection to Mill's Argument from Analogy for other minds. It appears to be induction from a single instance. The better approach seems to be ABduction (best explanation), in which my own case is just some evidence. |
| 19272 | To imagine another's pain by my own, I must imagine a pain I don't feel, by one I do feel [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: If one has to imagine someone else's pain on the model of one's own, this is none too easy a thing to do: for I have to imagine pain which I do not feel on the model of pain which I do not feel. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §302) | |
| A reaction: I just don't feel a deep problem here. Wittgenstein didn't know about mirror neurons, which trigger in me a reaction like the one causing your behaviour. |
| 4161 | If a lion could talk, we could not understand him [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: If a lion could talk, we could not understand him. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], II.xi) | |
| A reaction: How does he know these things?! We could at least know whether they talked or merely grunted, by studying their correlated behaviour. Cf. dolphins. I think he is wrong. All talk is understandable to a degree, even God's. |
| 7392 | If a lion could talk, it would be nothing like other lions [Dennett on Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: I think that if a lion could talk, that lion would have a mind so different from the general run of lion minds, that although we could understand him just fine, we would learn little about ordinary lions from him. | |
| From: comment on Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], II.xi) by Daniel C. Dennett - Consciousness Explained 14.2 | |
| A reaction: This is rather more sensible than Wittgenstein's famous enigmatic utterance. |
| 5676 | To say that I 'know' I am in pain means nothing more than that I AM in pain [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: As the word is normally used, it can't be said of me at all that I 'know' I am in pain; what is it supposed to mean - except perhaps that I am in pain? | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §246) | |
| A reaction: This raises the question of whether self-consciousness implies self-knowledge, and suggests that it doesn't. All our normal talk of knowledge requires some sort of reliable justification of beliefs, and we can't drop that in the case of self-knowledge. |
| 4154 | Why are we not aware of the huge gap between mind and brain in ordinary life? [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Why does the feeling of an unbridgeable gulf between consciousness and brain-process not come into the considerations of our ordinary life? | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §412) | |
| A reaction: Nice question. Presumably Wittgenstein has a quasi-behaviouristic answer. People don't now ignore it? They retreat into crazy spiritualism. |
| 6165 | Every course of action can either accord or conflict with a rule, so there is no accord or conflict [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Paradox: no course of action could be determined by a rule, because every course of action can be made out to accord with the rule. Answer: if everything can accord with the rule, then everything can conflict with it, so there is no accord or conflict. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §201) | |
| A reaction: This is a very interesting claim which goes beyond the private language question. It seems to imply, for example, Dancy's 'Particularism' about morality, which is a general rejection of rules and principles in moral thought. |
| 4143 | One cannot obey a rule 'privately', because that is a practice, not the same as thinking one is obeying [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: 'Obeying a rule' is a practice. And to think one is obeying a rule is not to obey a rule. Hence it is not possible to obey a rule 'privately': otherwise thinking one was obeying a rule would be the same thing as obeying it. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §202) | |
| A reaction: The core of the Private Language argument. But if I drive on the right erroneously thinking it is the law, I can still make progress until I meet someone. |
| 7092 | If individuals can't tell if they are following a rule, how does a community do it? [Grayling on Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: The problem facing a putative private language-user - namely, that he cannot tell whether he is, or only thinks he is, following a rule - also faces the community as a whole; how does the community tell whether it is following a rule? | |
| From: comment on Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §580) by A.C. Grayling - Wittgenstein Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: Nice question. If you really get into the sceptical frame of mind that Wittgenstein reached about rules, almost everything seems impossible. How can I move? How can I speak? How can one instant follow another? How can I understand a word? |
| 4158 | An 'inner process' stands in need of outward criteria [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: An 'inner process' stands in need of outward criteria. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §580) | |
| A reaction: Why do processes need 'criteria'? I have never understood why I can't have private criteria, or at least private modifications of public criteria. |
| 4138 | Is white simple, or does it consist of the colours of the rainbow? [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Is white simple, or does it consist of the colours of the rainbow? | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §047) | |
| A reaction: A nice challenge to externalism. White remains simple long after experts have told us it is complex. |
| 7055 | Externalist accounts of mental content begin in Wittgenstein [Wittgenstein, by Heil] |
| Full Idea: The roots of externalist accounts of mental content lie in Wittgenstein. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952]) by John Heil - From an Ontological Point of View 18.2 n1 | |
| A reaction: This points to the key idea being that content involves the whole language community, rather than that it involves the physical stuffs of the world, such as water. I suspect that Wittgenstein is right, but Putnam is wrong. |
| 12576 | Possessing a concept is knowing how to go on [Wittgenstein, by Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: Wittgenstein implies that which concepts a thinker is capable of possessing depends on the ways in which he is capable of finding a natural way to go on. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952]) by Christopher Peacocke - A Study of Concepts 1.2 | |
| A reaction: This doesn't seem to amount to much. Presumably someone who failed to grasp a concept would demonstrate the fact by going on in a silly way, and whether or not it was silly might not be obvious. A genius may go on in a quirky way. |
| 4157 | Concepts direct our interests and investigations, and express those interests [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Concepts lead us to make investigations; are the expression of our interest, and direct our interest. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §570) | |
| A reaction: This presumably points to the evolutionary origin of our concept-creating capacity, though I am not sure that it defines what a concept actually is. |
| 12606 | Man learns the concept of the past by remembering [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Man learns the concept of the past by remembering. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], II.13) | |
| A reaction: [quoted by Peacocke] Is it the case that we learn all of our concepts by doing? Obviously not, since we can be taught them. Could you have no long-term memories (head trauma), and be taught the concept of the past by someone else? |
| 4141 | Various games have a 'family resemblance', as their similarities overlap and criss-cross [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: I shall say 'games' form a family, with a 'family resemblance', for the resemblances within a family - build, eyes, temperament etc. - overlap and criss-cross in the same way. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §067) | |
| A reaction: A very helpful idea for the nominalist view of universals, particularly for showing how concepts shade off indeterminately at the edges. |
| 17664 | Each subject has an appropriate level of abstraction [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: To every subject, its appropriate level of abstraction. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 01.2) | |
| A reaction: Mathematics rises through many levels of abstraction. Economics can be very concrete or very abstract. It think it is clearer to talk of being 'general', rather than 'abstract'. |
| 23450 | Wittgenstein rejected his earlier view that the form of language is the form of the world [Wittgenstein, by Morris,M] |
| Full Idea: Wittgenstein's later work rejects the central thesis of the Tractatus's philosophy of language, that the form of language is the same as the form of the world. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952]) by Michael Morris - Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus Intro.4 | |
| A reaction: I associate the earlier view with the stoic belief that nature is wholly rational, and that our reasoning can match it. I take it for granted that language largely matches the world, but we must explain why so many people believe absurdities. |
| 4150 | Asking about verification is only one way of asking about the meaning of a proposition [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Asking whether and how a proposition can be verified is only a particular way of asking 'How do you mean?' The answer is a contribution to the grammar of the proposition. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §353) | |
| A reaction: 'How' a proposition is verified seems utterly irrelevant. What situation in reality provides the verification must have something to do with the meaning. Cat-on-mat is what counts, not whether you see it, hear it or smell it. |
| 4137 | In the majority of cases the meaning of a word is its use in the language [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: For a large class of cases - though not for all - the meaning of a word is its use in the language. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §043) | |
| A reaction: Defended by Paul Horwich, but I don't like this. If "swordfish" is a password, its meaning and its use are miles apart. Meaning connects to reality, but use doesn't. |
| 6567 | For Wittgenstein, words are defined by their use, just as chess pieces are [Wittgenstein, by Fogelin] |
| Full Idea: For Wittgenstein, just as pieces in a game such as chess are defined by the rules that govern their moves, the meanings of words are similarly defined by the rules that govern their employment. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: Fogelin's note points out that it is more complex than this. It is hard to dispute the chess case, but while words like 'and' and 'not' may be given entirely functional definitions, others don't work like that: John, run, red, solid, pain, ow! …. |
| 6169 | We do not achieve meaning and understanding in our heads, but in the world [Wittgenstein, by Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: For Wittgenstein, meaning and understanding are not things that we do or achieve in our heads; they are things we achieve in the world. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §202) by Mark Rowlands - Externalism Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: Can't we achieve anything in our heads? Mental arithmetic seems to be fairly mental, unless we are going to be absurdly behaviouristic. If we can achieve some things in our heads, why not lots of things? |
| 4155 | We all seem able to see quite clearly how sentences represent things when we use them [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: It it be asked, "How do sentences manage to represent?" the answer might be, "Don't you know? You certainly see it when you use them." For nothing is concealed. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §435) | |
| A reaction: A tool isn't its use, even though it becomes obvious how a tool works when it is used. It has a use because it has a certain nature or property. |
| 4142 | To understand a sentence means to understand a language [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: To understand a sentence means to understand a language. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §198) | |
| A reaction: Does this make learning a language logically impossible? Helen Keller only knew one word at the beginning. |
| 4149 | We don't have 'meanings' in our minds in addition to verbal expressions [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: When I think in language, there aren't 'meanings' going through my mind in addition to the verbal expressions. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §329) | |
| A reaction: No, but words have properties, like being meaningful, or long, or beautiful. They are not abstractions, or empty counters which can be used for anything. |
| 4156 | Make the following experiment: say "It's cold here" and mean "It's warm here" [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Make the following experiment: say "It's cold here" and mean "It's warm here". | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §510) | |
| A reaction: A lovely experiment, whatever it proves. It is easier if the meaning is the truth, rather than the words. I try to weld a new word onto my experience. |
| 4145 | How do words refer to sensations? [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: How do words refer to sensations? | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §244) | |
| A reaction: A very nice question, to be remembered when discussing how we refer to beauty, gold, water or the present King of France. |
| 4140 | The standard metre in Paris is neither one metre long nor not one metre long [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: There is one thing of which one can say neither that it is one metre long, nor that it is not one metre long, and that is the standard metre in Paris. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §050) | |
| A reaction: The remark which inspired Kripke's causal theory. Clearly W. is wrong, because it is one metre long, but why is it that length? |
| 4136 | To imagine a language means to imagine a form of life [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: To imagine a language means to imagine a form of life. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §019) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be about the transparency of language, but it supports meaning as truth conditions, rather than as use. |
| 6166 | Was Wittgenstein's problem between individual and community, or between occasions for an individual? [Rowlands on Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: There are two interpretations of Wittgenstein here: the community interpretation sees error in a rule between the individual and the community, where the individual interpretation sees the problem between repeated occasions in the use of a sign. | |
| From: comment on Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §202) by Mark Rowlands - Externalism Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: Rowlands brings out how a lot hangs on which of these two interpretations we opt for, but also that if the individual has a problem, this may logically imply the same problem for the community. The individual interpretation would be a deeper problem. |
| 7875 | If a brilliant child invented a name for a private sensation, it couldn't communicate it [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Let's assume the child is a genius and itself invents a name for the sensation! - But then, of course, he couldn't make himself understood when he used the word. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §257) | |
| A reaction: [His example is a sensation with no behaviour] Sensations are not just related to behaviour; they are related to external objects, and to parts of the body. We doubt the sensations of others if they can't name the object or the body part. |
| 4146 | We cannot doublecheck mental images for correctness (or confirm news with many copies of the paper) [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: If the mental image of a train timetable cannot itself be tested for correctness, how can it confirm the correctness of the first memory? (As if someone were to buy several copies of the morning paper to assure himself that what it said was true). | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §265) | |
| A reaction: An important point for the epistemological sceptic. Could God do an infinite regress of checks on the truth of his mental images? |
| 4147 | If we only named pain by our own case, it would be like naming beetles by looking in a private box [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: If someone says he only knows what pain is from his own case, suppose everyone had a box with something in it (a 'beetle'). We can't see into other boxes, so we say what a beetle is by looking in our own box. The contents of each box could be different. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §293) | |
| A reaction: But pain is private. Children must guess the meaning of parts of the language that refer to inner experience, like 'sad' or 'hopeful'. Body language brings our private concepts together, but error seems possible. |
| 5659 | If the reference is private, that is incompatible with the sense being public [Wittgenstein, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Wittgenstein's claim is that the assumption that the reference is private (being observable to one person alone) is incompatible with the hypothesis that the sense is public. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §293) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.19 | |
| A reaction: An illuminating summary, showing the link between the private language argument and modern 'externalism' about the meaning of concepts (e.g. Idea 4099). I still don't find Wittgenstein's claim conclusive. Something is definitely private. |
| 4152 | Getting from perceptions to words cannot be a private matter; the rules need an institution of use [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: I could not apply any rules to a private transition from what is seen to words. Here the rules really would hang in the air; for the institution of their use is lacking. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §380) | |
| A reaction: That puts the argument nicely. In studying art or wine you learn what to say about your private experiences. |
| 4144 | Common human behaviour enables us to interpret an unknown language [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: The common behaviour of mankind is the system of reference by means of which we interpret an unknown language. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §206) | |
| A reaction: This is a behaviourist spin on the idea of charity, but it leads to Davidson's assumption that most alien beliefs must be true. |
| 11049 | To communicate, language needs agreement in judgment as well as definition [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: If language is to be a means of communication there must be agreement not only in definitions but also (queer as this may sound) in judgments. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §242) | |
| A reaction: If someone is locked into a highly alien viewpoint, then communication with them does seem to be virtually impossible. Amenability to reason, and consensus on elementary facts, seems to be the sine qua non of communication. |
| 6658 | What is left over if I subtract my arm going up from my raising my arm? [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: What is left over if I subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raise my arm? | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §621) | |
| A reaction: Wittgenstein's implication seems to be that nothing is left over, but I would have thought that the will was the thing left over when you decide to raise your arm, but then discover that you are paralysed. |
| 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? |
| 17692 | We can't deduce the phenomena from the One [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: No serious and principled deduction of the phenomena from the One has ever been given, or looks likely to be given. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 11) | |
| A reaction: This seems to pick out the best reason why hardly anybody (apart from Jonathan Schaffer) takes the One seriously. |
| 17689 | Absences might be effects, but surely not causes? [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Lacks and absences could perhaps by thought of as effects, but we ought to be deeply reluctant to think of them as causes. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: Odd. So we allow that they exist (as effects), but then deny that they have any causal powers? |
| 17662 | Science depends on laws of nature to study unobserved times and spaces [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: The scientist trying to establish the geography and history of the unobserved portion of the universe must depend upon what he takes to be the laws of the universe. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 01.1) | |
| A reaction: This does seem to be the prime reason why we wish to invoke 'laws', but we could just as well say that we have to rely on induction. Spot patterns, then expect more of the same. Spot necessities? Mathematics is very valuable here, of course. |
| 17682 | A universe couldn't consist of mere laws [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: A universe could hardly consist of laws and nothing else. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 06.4) | |
| A reaction: Hm. Discuss. How does a universe come into existence, if there are no laws to guide its creation? |
| 17690 | Oaken conditional laws, Iron universal laws, and Steel necessary laws [Armstrong, by PG] |
| Full Idea: Three degress of law: 1) 'Oaken laws' where all Fs that aren't Hs are Gs; 2) 'Iron' laws where all Fs are Gs; and 3) 'Steel' laws where all Fs must be Gs. | |
| From: report of David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 10.4) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: [My summary of Armstrong's distinction] One response is to say that all laws are actually Oaken - see Mumfor and Mumford/Lill Anjum. It's all ceteris paribus. |
| 17670 | Newton's First Law refers to bodies not acted upon by a force, but there may be no such body [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Newton's First Law of Motion tells us what happens to a body which is not acted upon by a force. Yet it may be that the antecedent of the law is never instantiated. It may be that every body that there is, is acted upon by some force. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 02.7) |
| 8582 | Regularities are lawful if a second-order universal unites two first-order universals [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Armstrong's theory holds that what makes certain regularities lawful are second-order states of affairs N(F,G) in which the two ordinary first-order universals F and G are related by a certain dyadic second-order universal N. | |
| From: report of David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983]) by David Lewis - New work for a theory of universals 'Laws and C' | |
| A reaction: [see Lewis's footnote] I take the view (from Shoemaker and Ellis) that laws of nature are just plain regularities which arise from the hierarchy of natural kinds. We don't need a commitment to 'universals'. |
| 17671 | A naive regularity view says if it never occurs then it is impossible [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: It is a Humean uniformity that no race of ravens is white-feathered. Hence, if the Naive Regularity analysis of law is correct, it is a law that no race of ravens is white-feathered, that is, such a race is physically impossible. A most unwelcome result. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 02.6) | |
| A reaction: Chapters 2-4 of Armstrong are a storming attack on the regularity view of laws of nature, and this idea is particularly nice. Laws must refer to what could happen, not what happens to happen. |
| 17681 | The laws of nature link properties with properties [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: There is an utterly natural idea that the laws of nature link properties with properties. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 06.3) | |
| A reaction: Put it this way: given that properties are expressions of invariant powers, the interaction of two properties will (ceteris paribus) be invariant, and laws are just invariances in natural behaviour. |
| 16246 | Rather than take necessitation between universals as primitive, just make laws primitive [Maudlin on Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: My own view is simple: the laws of nature ought to be accepted as ontologically primitive. …They are preferable in point of familiarity to such necessitation relations between universals. | |
| From: comment on David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983]) by Tim Maudlin - The Metaphysics within Physics 1.4 | |
| A reaction: I think you make natures of things primitive, and reduce laws to regularities and universals to resemblances. Job done. Natures are even more 'familiar' as primitives than laws are. |
| 9480 | Armstrong has an unclear notion of contingent necessitation, which can't necessitate anything [Bird on Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: The two criticisms levelled against Armstrong are that it is unclear what his relation of contingent necessitation is, and that it is unclear how it is able to necessitate anything. | |
| From: comment on David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983]) by Alexander Bird - Nature's Metaphysics 3.1.2 | |
| A reaction: I suppose someone has to explore the middle ground between the mere contingencies of Humean regularities and the strong necessities of scientific essentialism. The area doesn't, however, look promising. |
| 4151 | Grammar tells what kind of object anything is - and theology is a kind of grammar [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Grammar tells what kind of object anything is. (Theology as grammar) | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §373) | |
| A reaction: A classic twentieth century blunder, originating in Frege and culminating in Quine, of thinking that the analysis of language is the last word in ontology. |
| 4159 | The human body is the best picture of the human soul [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: The human body is the best picture of the human soul. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], II.iv) | |
| A reaction: Nice. How did we imagine the soul before reading that remark? My soul requires fingernails and eyelids in order to fulfil its essential nature. |