Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'That Politics may be reduced to a Science', 'Propositions' and 'The Tragic Sense of Life'

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14 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 5. Truth Bearers
13941 Are the truth-bearers sentences, utterances, ideas, beliefs, judgements, propositions or statements? [Cartwright,R]
     Full Idea: What is it that is susceptible of truth or falsity? The answers suggested constitute a bewildering variety: sentences, utterances, ideas, beliefs, judgments, propositions, statements.
     From: Richard Cartwright (Propositions [1962], 01)
     A reaction: Carwright's answer is 'statements', which seem to be the same as propositions.
13942 Logicians take sentences to be truth-bearers for rigour, rather than for philosophical reasons [Cartwright,R]
     Full Idea: The current fashion among logicians of taking sentences to be the bearers of truth and falsity indicates less an agreement on philosophical theory than a desire for rigor and smoothness in calculative practice.
     From: Richard Cartwright (Propositions [1962], 01)
     A reaction: A remark close to my heart. Propositions are rejected first because language offers hope of answers, then because they seem metaphysically odd, and finally because you can't pin them down rigorously. But the blighters won't lie down and die.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 4. Type Identity
13945 A token isn't a unique occurrence, as the case of a word or a number shows [Cartwright,R]
     Full Idea: We cannot take a token of a word to be an occurrence of it. Suppose there is exactly one occurrence of the word 'etherized' in the whole of English poetry? Exactly one 'token'? This sort of occurrence is like the occurrence of a number in a sequence.
     From: Richard Cartwright (Propositions [1962], Add 2)
     A reaction: This remark is in an addendum to his paper, criticising his own lax use of the idea of 'token' in the actual paper. The example nicely shows that the type/token distinction isn't neat and tidy - though I consider it very useful.
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 1. Meaning
13948 For any statement, there is no one meaning which any sentence asserting it must have [Cartwright,R]
     Full Idea: It does have to be acknowledged, I think, that every statement whatever is such that there is no one meaning which any sentence used to assert it must have.
     From: Richard Cartwright (Propositions [1962], 11)
     A reaction: This feels to me like a Gricean move - that what we are really interested in is communicating one mental state to another mental state, and there are all sorts of tools that can do that one job.
13950 People don't assert the meaning of the words they utter [Cartwright,R]
     Full Idea: No one ever asserts the meaning of the words he utters.
     From: Richard Cartwright (Propositions [1962], 12)
     A reaction: Cartwright is using this point to drive a wedge between sentence meaning and the assertion made by the utterance. Hence he defends propositions. Presumably people utilise word-meanings, rather than asserting them. Meanings (not words) are tools.
19. Language / D. Propositions / 1. Propositions
13944 We can pull apart assertion from utterance, and the action, the event and the subject-matter for each [Cartwright,R]
     Full Idea: We need to distinguish 1) what is asserted, 2) that assertion, 3) asserting something, 4) what is predicated, 5) what is uttered, 6) that utterance, 7) uttering something, 8) the utterance token, and 9) the meaning.
     From: Richard Cartwright (Propositions [1962], 05-06)
     A reaction: [summary of his overall analysis in the paper] It is amazingly hard to offer a critical assessment of this sort of analysis, but it gives you a foot in the door for thinking about the issues with increasing clarity.
13947 'It's raining' makes a different assertion on different occasions, but its meaning remains the same [Cartwright,R]
     Full Idea: A person who utters 'It's raining' one day does not normally make the same statement as one who utters it the next. But these variations are not accompanied by corresponding changes of meaning. The words 'It's raining' retain the same meaning throughout.
     From: Richard Cartwright (Propositions [1962], 10)
     A reaction: This is important, because it shows that a proposition is not just the mental shadow behind a sentence, or a mental shadow awaiting a sentence. Unlike a sentence, a proposition can (and possibly must) include its own context. Very interesting!
19. Language / D. Propositions / 4. Mental Propositions
13943 We can attribute 'true' and 'false' to whatever it was that was said [Cartwright,R]
     Full Idea: We do sometimes say of something to which we have referred that it is true (or false). Are we not ordinarily doing just this when we utter such sentences as 'That's true' and 'What he said was false'?
     From: Richard Cartwright (Propositions [1962], 03)
     A reaction: This supports propositions, but doesn't clinch the matter. One could interpret this phenomenon as always being (implicitly) the reference of one sentence to another. However, I remember what he said, but I can't remember how he said it.
13946 To assert that p, it is neither necessary nor sufficient to utter some particular words [Cartwright,R]
     Full Idea: In order to assert that p it is not necessary to utter exactly those words. ...Clearly, also, in order to assert that p, it is not sufficient to utter the words that were actually uttered.
     From: Richard Cartwright (Propositions [1962], 07)
     A reaction: I take the first point to be completely obvious (you can assert one thing with various wordings), and the second seems right after a little thought (the words could be vague, ambiguous, inaccurate, contextual)
19. Language / F. Communication / 2. Assertion
13951 Assertions, unlike sentence meanings, can be accurate, probable, exaggerated, false.... [Cartwright,R]
     Full Idea: Whereas what is asserted can be said to be accurate, exaggerated, unfounded, overdrawn, probable, improbable, plausible, true, or false, none of these can be said of the meaning of a sentence.
     From: Richard Cartwright (Propositions [1962], 12)
     A reaction: That fairly firmly kicks into touch the idea that the assertion is the same as the meaning of the sentence.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 4. External Goods / d. Friendship
21093 Friendship without community spirit misses out on the main part of virtue [Hume]
     Full Idea: A man who is only susceptible of friendship, without public spirit or a regard to the community, is deficient in the most material part of virtue.
     From: David Hume (That Politics may be reduced to a Science [1750], p.21)
     A reaction: I think this is aimed at the epicureans. If the highest virtues are focused on one's friends that can easily lead to injustice, because it can tolerate prejudice against people who are very unlike one's friends.
24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 1. A People / a. Human distinctiveness
20740 Maybe humans are distinguished from other animals by feelings, rather than reason [Unamuno]
     Full Idea: Man is said to be a reasoning animal. I do not know why he has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal. Perhaps that which differentiates him from other animals is feeling rather than reason.
     From: Miguel de Unamuno (The Tragic Sense of Life [1912], p.3), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Problem'
     A reaction: Perfectly plausible, given that we presume that our feelings are startlingly different from other animals - even if we feel far more community with other mammals than we did in Unamuno's day.
24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 3. Constitutions
21091 It would be absurd if even a free constitution did not impose restraints, for the public good [Hume]
     Full Idea: A republican and free form of government would be an obvious absurdity, if the particular checks and controls, provided by the constitution, had really no influence, and made it not the interest, even of bad men, to act for the public good.
     From: David Hume (That Politics may be reduced to a Science [1750], p.14)
     A reaction: Presumably if you attain absolute power you can write any old constitution you like (Clause 1: the presidency is for life). But there does seem much point in doing it - unless it is to facilitate the use of the law for persecutions.
24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 2. Leaders / d. Elites
21092 Nobility either share in the power of the whole, or they compose the power of the whole [Hume]
     Full Idea: A nobility may possess power in two different ways. Either every nobleman shares the power as part of the whole body, or the whole body enjoys the power as composed of parts, which each have a distinct power and authority.
     From: David Hume (That Politics may be reduced to a Science [1750], p.15)
     A reaction: He says the first type is found in Venice, and is preferable to the second type, which is found in Poland. Presumably in the shared version there is some restraint on depraved nobles. The danger is each noble being an autocrat.