Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Apriority and Existence' and 'Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity''

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

16 ideas

4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 4. Alethic Modal Logic
8859 The main modal logics disagree over three key formulae [Yablo]
     Full Idea: Lewis's different systems of modal logic differed about such formulae as □P implies □□P; ◊□P implies □P; and ◊S implies □◊S
     From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §06)
     A reaction: Yablo's point is that the various version don't seem to make much difference to our practices in logic, mathematics and science. The problem, says Yablo, is deciding exactly what you mean by 'necessarily' and 'possibly'.
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / a. Numbers
8865 If 'the number of Democrats is on the rise', does that mean that 50 million is on the rise? [Yablo]
     Full Idea: If someone says 'the number of Democrats is on the rise', he or she wants to focus on Democrats, not numbers. If the number is 50 million, is 50 million really on the rise?
     From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §14)
     A reaction: This is a very nice warning from Yablo, against easy platonism, or any sort of platonism at all. We routinely say that numbers are 'increasing', but the real meaning needs entangling. Here it refers to people joining a party.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 4. Mathematical Empiricism / b. Indispensability of mathematics
8863 We must treat numbers as existing in order to express ourselves about the arrangement of planets [Yablo]
     Full Idea: It is only by making as if to countenance numbers that one can give expression in English to a fact having nothing to do with numbers, a fact about stars and planets and how they are numerically proportioned.
     From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §13)
     A reaction: To avoid the phrase 'numerically proportioned', he might have alluded to the 'pattern' of the stars and planets. I'm not sure which -ism this is, but it seems to me a good approach. The application is likely to precede the theory.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 9. Fictional Mathematics
8862 Platonic objects are really created as existential metaphors [Yablo]
     Full Idea: The means by which platonic objects are simulated is existential metaphor. Numbers are conjured up as metaphorical measures of cardinality.
     From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §12)
     A reaction: 'Fictional' might be a better word than 'metaphorical', since the latter usually implies some sort of comparison.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 7. Fictionalism
8864 We quantify over events, worlds, etc. in order to make logical possibilities clearer [Yablo]
     Full Idea: It is not that the contents of sentences are inexpressible without quantifying over events, worlds, etc. (they aren't). But the logical relations become much more tractable if we represent them quantificationally.
     From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §13)
     A reaction: Yablo is explaining why we find ourselves committed to abstract objects. It is essentially, as I am beginning to suspect, a conspiracy of logicians. What on earth is 'the empty set' when it is at home? What's it made of?
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 1. Nominalism / c. Nominalism about abstracta
8858 Philosophers keep finding unexpected objects, like models, worlds, functions, numbers, events, sets, properties [Yablo]
     Full Idea: There's a tradition in philosophy of finding 'unexpected objects' in truth-conditions, such as countermodels, possible worlds, functions, numbers, events, sets and properties.
     From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §02)
     A reaction: This is a very nice perspective on the whole matter of abstract objects. If we find ourselves reluctantly committed to the existence of something which is ontologically peculiar, we should go back to the philosophical drawing-board.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / a. Rationality
19451 When absorbed in deep reflection, is your reason in control, or is it you? [Feuerbach]
     Full Idea: When, submerged in deep reflection, you forget both yourself and your surroundings, is it you who controls reason, or is it rather reason that controls and absorbs you?
     From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], I)
     A reaction: A delightful question, even if it looks like a false dichotomy. I'm not sure what to make of 'me', if my reason can be subtracted from it. Aquinas was one the same wavelength here.
19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / d. Metaphor
8861 Hardly a word in the language is devoid of metaphorical potential [Yablo]
     Full Idea: There is hardly a word in the language - be it an adverb, preposition, conjunction, or what have you - that is devoid of metaphorical potential.
     From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §12)
     A reaction: Yablo goes on to claim that metaphor is at the heart of all of our abstract thinking. 'Dead metaphors' (like the "mouth" of a river) sink totally into literal language. I think Yablo is on the right lines.
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
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?
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / b. Types of good
19450 Reason, love and will are the highest perfections and essence of man - the purpose of his life [Feuerbach]
     Full Idea: Reason, love and power of will are perfections of man; they are his highest powers, his absolute essence in so far as he is man, the purpose of his existence. Man exists in order to think, love and will.
     From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], I)
     A reaction: Feuerbach was a notable atheist, but adopts a religious style of language which modern atheists would find rather alien. Personally I love talk of ideals and perfections. Ideals have been discredited in modern times, but need a revival.
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 5. Species
19448 Consciousness is said to distinguish man from animals - consciousness of his own species [Feuerbach]
     Full Idea: What constitutes the essential difference between man and animal? The most simple, general, and most widely held answer to this question is consciousness. Consciousness is given only in the case of a being to whom his species ...is an object of thought.
     From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], I)
     A reaction: Rather speculative. Since other species cohabit and breed only with their fellow species members, one might have thought they were aware of them.
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / b. Euthyphro question
19454 A God needs justice, kindness and wisdom, but those concepts don't depend on the concept of God [Feuerbach]
     Full Idea: The concept of God depends on the concepts of justice, kindness and wisdom - a God who is not kind, not just, and not wise is no God. But these concepts do not depend on the concept of God. That a quality is possessed by God does not make it divine.
     From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], II)
     A reaction: This is part of Feuerbach's argument for atheism, but if you ask for the source of our human concepts of justice, kindness and wisdom, no one, I would have thought, could cite God for the role.
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 4. God Reflects Humanity
19452 The nature of God is an expression of human nature [Feuerbach]
     Full Idea: God is the manifestation of man's inner nature, his expressed self.
     From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], II)
     A reaction: Even if you are a deeply committed theist, you have to concede some of this point. The perfections attributed to God are usually of human qualities. Leibniz, though, says that God has an infinity of perfection, mostly unknown to us.
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
19453 If love, goodness and personality are human, the God who is their source is anthropomorphic [Feuerbach]
     Full Idea: If love, goodness, and personality are human determinations, the being which constitutes their source and ...their presupposition is also an anthropomorphism; so is the existence of God.
     From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], II)
     A reaction: It is certainly a struggle for the imagination to grasp a being which is characterised by idealised versions of human virtues, and yet has an intrinsic nature which is utterly different from humanity.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / a. Religious Belief
19449 Religion is the consciousness of the infinite [Feuerbach]
     Full Idea: Religion is the consciousness of the infinite.
     From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], I)
19455 Today's atheism will tomorrow become a religion [Feuerbach]
     Full Idea: What is regarded as atheism today will be religion tomorrow.
     From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], II)
     A reaction: Modern critics of atheism frequently accuse it of being a new religion. I doubt whether Feuerbach is right, but it is a nice provocative idea.