20 ideas
| 6848 | Humour is practically enacted philosophy [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: Humour, for me, is practically enacted philosophy. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.198) | |
| A reaction: This may be overstating it, as the funniest jokes may be the least philosophical, and remarks may be faintly amusing but very profound. Lear and his Fool make up a single worldview together. |
| 6847 | Humour can give a phenomenological account of existence, and point to change [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: Humour provides an oblique phenomenology of ordinary life; it is a way of describing the situation of our existence, and, at its best, it indicates how we might change that situation. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.198) | |
| A reaction: The trouble is that this leads us to relentlessly political standup comedians who aren't very funny. Critichley may have a problem with remarks which are very funny precisely because they are so politically incorrect. I sympathise, though. |
| 6844 | Scientism is the view that everything can be explained causally through scientific method [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: Scientism is the belief that all phenomena can be explained through the methodology of the natural sciences, and the belief that, therefore, all phenomena are capable of a causal explanation. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.196) | |
| A reaction: He links two ideas together, but I tend to subscribe fully to the second idea, but less fully to the first. Scientific method, if there is such a thing (Idea 6804), may not be the best way to lay bare the causal network of reality. |
| 6835 | German idealism aimed to find a unifying principle for Kant's various dualisms [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: In his Third Critique Kant established a series of dualisms (pure/practical reason, nature/freedom, epistemology/ethics) but failed to provide a unifying principle; German idealism can be seen as an attempt to provide this principle. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.187) | |
| A reaction: He cites 'subject', 'spirit', 'art', 'will to power', 'praxis' and 'being' as candidates. This is a helpful overview for someone struggling to get to grips with that tradition. |
| 6837 | Since Hegel, continental philosophy has been linked with social and historical enquiry. [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: In continental philosophy from Hegel onwards, systematic philosophical questions have to be linked to socio-historical enquiry, and the distinctions between philosophy, history and society begin to fall apart. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.188) | |
| A reaction: I have a strong sales resistance to this view of philosophy, just as I would if it was said about mathematics. It seems to imply a bogus view that history exhibits direction and purpose (the 'Whig' view). There are pure reasons among the prejudices. |
| 6836 | Continental philosophy fights the threatened nihilism in the critique of reason [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: If reason must criticise itself (in Kant) how does one avoid total scepticism? In my view, the problem that has animated the continental tradition since Jacobi (early 19th cent) is the threat of nihilism. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.188) | |
| A reaction: As an outsider to 'continental' philosophy, this is the most illuminating remark I have read about it. It is not only a plausible account of the movement, but also a very worth aim, which should be taken seriously by analytical philosophers. |
| 6838 | Continental philosophy is based on critique, praxis and emancipation [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: The basic map of the continental tradition can be summarised in three terms: critique, praxis and emancipation. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.189) | |
| A reaction: I wince at 'emancipation', which seems to take freedom as of unquestionably high value, instead of being one of the principles up for question in social philosophy. There are more presuppositions in Marxist than in analytical philosophy. |
| 6845 | Continental philosophy has a bad tendency to offer 'one big thing' to explain everything [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: In continental philosophy there is a pernicious tendency to explain everything in terms of 'one big thing', such as the 'death drive' (Freud), 'being' (Heidegger), 'the real' (Lacan), 'power' (Foucault), 'the other' (Levinas), or 'différance' (Derrida). | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.197) | |
| A reaction: From a fan of this type of philosophy, this is a refreshing remark, because if pinpoints a very off-putting feature. Each of these 'big things' should be up for question, not offered as axiomatic assumptions that explain everything else. |
| 6846 | Phenomenology is a technique of redescription which clarifies our social world [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: Phenomenology (as in the later Husserl) is for me a way of assembling reminders which clarify the social world in which we exist; it is a technique of redescription. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.198) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure if I can identify with this as a target for philosophy, but it is interesting and sound worthy of effort. Critchley offers this as the best strand in 'continental' philosophy, rather than the big explanatory ideas. |
| 4975 | A thought can be split in many ways, so that different parts appear as subject or predicate [Frege] |
| Full Idea: A thought can be split up in many ways, so that now one thing, now another, appears as subject or predicate | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (On Concept and Object [1892], p.199) | |
| A reaction: Thus 'the mouse is in the box', and 'the box contains the mouse'. A simple point, but important when we are trying to distinguish thought from language. |
| 9949 | There is the concept, the object falling under it, and the extension (a set, which is also an object) [Frege, by George/Velleman] |
| Full Idea: For Frege, the extension of the concept F is an object, as revealed by the fact that we use a name to refer to it. ..We must distinguish the concept, the object that falls under it, and the extension of the concept, which is the set containing the object. | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (On Concept and Object [1892]) by A.George / D.J.Velleman - Philosophies of Mathematics Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This I take to be the key distinction needed if one is to grasp Frege's account of what a number is. When we say that Frege is a platonist about numbers, it is because he is committed to the notion that the extension is an object. |
| 18995 | Frege mistakenly takes existence to be a property of concepts, instead of being about things [Frege, by Yablo] |
| Full Idea: Frege's theory treats existence as a property, not of things we call existent, but of concepts instantiated by those things. 'Biden exists' says our Biden-concept has instances. That is certainly not how it feels! We speak of the thing, not of concepts. | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (On Concept and Object [1892]) by Stephen Yablo - Aboutness 01.4 | |
| A reaction: Yablo's point is that you must ask what the sentence is 'about', and then the truth will refer to those things. Frege gets into a tangle because he thinks remarks using concepts are about the concepts. |
| 10317 | It is unclear whether Frege included qualities among his abstract objects [Frege, by Hale] |
| Full Idea: Expositors of Frege's views have disagreed over whether abstract qualities are to be reckoned among his objects. | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (On Concept and Object [1892]) by Bob Hale - Abstract Objects Ch.2.II | |
| A reaction: [he cites Dummett 1973:70-80, and Wright 1983:25-8] There seems to be a danger here of a collision between Fregean verbal approaches to ontological commitment and the traditional views about universals. No wonder they can't decide. |
| 10535 | Frege's 'objects' are both the referents of proper names, and what predicates are true or false of [Frege, by Dummett] |
| Full Idea: Frege's notion of an object plays two roles in his semantics. Objects are the referents of proper names, and they are equally what predicates are true and false of. | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (On Concept and Object [1892]) by Michael Dummett - Frege Philosophy of Language (2nd ed) Ch.4 | |
| A reaction: Frege is the source of a desperate desire to turn everything into an object (see Idea 8858!), and he has the irritating authority of the man who invented quantificational logic. Nothing but trouble, that man. |
| 9839 | Frege equated the concepts under which an object falls with its properties [Frege, by Dummett] |
| Full Idea: Frege equated the concepts under which an object falls with its properties. | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (On Concept and Object [1892], p.201) by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics Ch.8 | |
| A reaction: I take this to be false, as objects can fall under far more concepts than they have properties. I don't even think 'being a pencil' is a property of pencils, never mind 'being my favourite pencil', or 'not being Alexander the Great'. |
| 4973 | As I understand it, a concept is the meaning of a grammatical predicate [Frege] |
| Full Idea: As I understand it, a concept is the meaning of a grammatical predicate. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (On Concept and Object [1892], p.193) | |
| A reaction: All the ills of twentieth century philosophy reside here, because it makes a concept an entirely linguistic thing, so that animals can't have concepts, and language is cut off from reality, leading to relativism, pragmatism, and other nonsense. |
| 9167 | Frege felt that meanings must be public, so they are abstractions rather than mental entities [Frege, by Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Frege felt that meanings are public property, and identified concepts (and hence 'intensions' or meanings) with abstract entities rather than mental entities. | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (On Concept and Object [1892]) by Hilary Putnam - Meaning and Reference p.150 | |
| A reaction: This is the germ of Wittgenstein's private language argument. I am inclined to feel that Frege approached language strictly as a logician, and didn't really care that he got himself into implausible platonist ontological commitments. |
| 4974 | For all the multiplicity of languages, mankind has a common stock of thoughts [Frege] |
| Full Idea: For all the multiplicity of languages, mankind has a common stock of thoughts. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (On Concept and Object [1892], p.196n) | |
| A reaction: Given the acknowledgement here that two very different sentences in different languages can express the same thought, he should recognise that at least some aspects of a thought are non-linguistic. |
| 7667 | There are two sides to men - the pleasantly social, and the violent and creative [Diderot, by Berlin] |
| Full Idea: Diderot is among the first to preach that there are two men: the artificial man, who belongs in society and seeks to please, and the violent, bold, criminal instinct of a man who wishes to break out (and, if controlled, is responsible for works of genius. | |
| From: report of Denis Diderot (works [1769], Ch.3) by Isaiah Berlin - The Roots of Romanticism | |
| A reaction: This has an obvious ancestor in Plato's picture (esp. in 'Phaedrus') of the two conflicting sides to the psuché, which seem to be reason and emotion. In Diderot, though, the suppressed man has virtues, which Plato would deny. |
| 6843 | Perceiving meaninglessness is an achievement, which can transform daily life [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: If nihilism is the threat of the collapse of meaning, then my position is that one has to accept meaninglessness as an achievement, as an accomplishment that permits a transformed relation to everyday life. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.193) | |
| A reaction: This sounds cheerfully upbeat and life-enhancing, but I don't quite see how it works. One could easily end up laughing at the most appalling tragedies, and that seems to me to be an inappropriate (Aristotelian word) way to respond to tragedy. |