6 ideas
| 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. |
| 14979 | Being alone doesn't guarantee intrinsic properties; 'being alone' is itself extrinsic [Lewis, by Sider] |
| Full Idea: The property of 'being alone in the world' is an extrinsic property, even though it has had by an object that is alone in the world. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Extrinsic Properties [1983]) by Theodore Sider - Writing the Book of the World 01.2 | |
| A reaction: I always choke on my cornflakes whenever anyone cites a true predicate as if it were a genuine property. This is a counterexample to Idea 14978. Sider offers another more elaborate example from Lewis. |
| 15454 | Extrinsic properties come in degrees, with 'brother' less extrinsic than 'sibling' [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Properties may be more or less intrinsic; being a brother has more of an admixture of intrinsic structure than being a sibling does, yet both are extrinsic. | |
| From: David Lewis (Extrinsic Properties [1983], I) | |
| A reaction: I suppose the point is that a brother is intrinsically male - but then a sibling is intrinsically human. A totally extrinsic relation would be one between entities which shared virtually no categories of existence. |
| 15455 | Total intrinsic properties give us what a thing is [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: The way something is is given by the totality of its intrinsic properties. | |
| From: David Lewis (Extrinsic Properties [1983], I) | |
| A reaction: No. Some properties are intrinsic but trivial. The 'important' ones fix the identity (if the identity is indeed 'fixed'). |
| 18424 | If two people can have phenomenally identical experiences, they can't involve the self [Brogaard] |
| Full Idea: It is plausible that you and I can have perceptual experiences with the same phenomenology of two trees at different distances from us (perhaps at different times). ..So our perceptual experiences cannot contain you or me in the content of representation. | |
| From: Berit Brogaard (Perceptual Content and Monadic Truth [2009], p.223), quoted by Cappelen,H/Dever,Josh - The Inessential Indexical 08.2 | |
| A reaction: If you accept the example, which seems reasonable, then that pretty conclusively shows that perception is not inherently indexical. |
| 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. |