Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Demonstratives', 'Experience First (and reply)' and 'Philosophy of Nature (Encylopedia II)'

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7 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 6. Metaphysics as Conceptual

22077	Metaphysics is the lattice which makes incoming material intelligible [Hegel]
	Full Idea: Metaphysics means nothing other than the range of general determinations of thought, the diamond lattice, as it were, into which we bring all material and thereby first make it intelligible.
	From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Philosophy of Nature (Encylopedia II) [1817], §3), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - Hegel p.95
	A reaction: This sounds to me like a perfect summary of Kant's transcendental view. Metaphysics is the a priori deconstruction of our conceptual scheme. But for Kant it is fixed, and for Hegel it is dynamic.

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding

19542	It is nonsense that understanding does not involve knowledge; to understand, you must know [Dougherty/Rysiew]
	Full Idea: The proposition that understanding does not involve knowledge is widespread (for example, in discussions of what philosophy aims at), but hardly withstands scrutiny. If you do not know how a jet engine works, you do not understand how it works.
	From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (Experience First (and reply) [2014], p.24)
	A reaction: This seems a bit disingenuous. As in 'Theaetetus', knowing the million parts of a jet engine is not to understand it. More strongly - how could knowledge of an infinity of separate propositional truths amount to understanding on their own?

19543	To grasp understanding, we should be more explicit about what needs to be known [Dougherty/Rysiew]
	Full Idea: An essential prerequisite for useful discussion of the relation between knowledge and understanding is systematic explicitness about what is to be known or understood.
	From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (Experience First (and reply) [2014], p.25)
	A reaction: This is better. I say what needs to be known for understanding is the essence of the item under discussion (my PhD thesis!). Obviously understanding needs some knowledge, but I take it that epistemology should be understanding-first. That is the main aim.

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 7. Knowledge First

19541	Rather than knowledge, our epistemic aim may be mere true belief, or else understanding and wisdom [Dougherty/Rysiew]
	Full Idea: If we say our cognitive aim is to get knowledge, the opposing views are the naturalistic view that what matters is just true belief (or just 'getting by'), or that there are rival epistemic goods such as understanding and wisdom.
	From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (Experience First (and reply) [2014], p.17)
	A reaction: [compressed summary] I'm a fan of understanding. The accumulation of propositional knowledge would relish knowing the mass of every grain of sand on a beach. If you say the propositions should be 'important', other values are invoked.

19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 10. Two-Dimensional Semantics

14894	Indexicals have a 'character' (the standing meaning), and a 'content' (truth-conditions for one context) [Kaplan, by Macià/Garcia-Carpentiro]
	Full Idea: Kaplan distinguished two different semantic features of indexical expressions: a 'character' that captures the standing meaning of the expression, and a 'content' that consists of their truth-conditional contribution in particular contexts.
	From: report of David Kaplan (Demonstratives [1989]) by Macià/Garcia-Carpentiro - Introduction to 'Two-Dimensional Semantics' 1
	A reaction: This seems so clearly right that there isn't much to dispute. You can't understand the word 'I' or 'now' if you don't understand both its general purpose, and what it is doing in a particular utterance. But will this generalise to other semantics?

14700	'Content' gives the standard modal profile, and 'character' gives rules for a context [Kaplan, by Schroeter]
	Full Idea: Kaplan sees two aspects of meaning, the 'content', reflecting a thing's modal profile, which is modelled by standard possible worlds semantics, and 'character', giving rules for different contexts. Proper names have constant character; indexicals vary.
	From: report of David Kaplan (Demonstratives [1989]) by Laura Schroeter - Two-Dimensional Semantics 1.1.1
	A reaction: This gives rise to 2-D matrices for representing meaning, and the possible worlds are used twice, for evaluating meaning and then for evaluating context of use. I've always been struck by the two-dimensional semantics of passwords.

24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 4. Changing the State / c. Revolution

21756	All revolutions result from spirit changing its categories, to achieve a deeper understanding [Hegel]
	Full Idea: All revolutions ...originate solely from the fact that spirit, in order to understand and comprehend itself with a view to possessing itself, has changed its categories, comprehending itself more truly, more deeply, more intimately in unity with itself.
	From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Philosophy of Nature (Encylopedia II) [1817], §246), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 01
	A reaction: Some Hegelian waffle here, but it focuses on what seems important, which is how societal thinking has shifted, so that what was previously tolerated now triggers a revolution.