Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'works', 'Protocol Sentences' and 'Emergent Evolution'

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4 ideas

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / c. Significance of supervenience

16051	Life has a new supervenient relation, which alters its underlying physical events [Morgan,L]
	Full Idea: When some new kind of relatedness is supervenient (say at the level of life), the way in which the physical events which are involved run their course is different in virtue of its presence.
	From: Lloyd Morgan (Emergent Evolution [1923], pp.15-16), quoted by Terence Horgan - From Supervenience to Superdupervenience 1
	A reaction: This is a clear assertion of 'downward causation' at the first introduction of 'supervenience', supporting 'emergentism' about life and mind. That is, the newly-emerged feature has new causal powers that affect the physical system from outside. Wrong!

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / f. Foundationalism critique

10486	If we are rebuilding our ship at sea, we should jettison some cargo [Boolos on Neurath]
	Full Idea: If we are sailors rebuilding our ship plank by plank on the open sea, then I know of some cargo we might want to jettison.
	From: comment on Otto Neurath (Protocol Sentences [1932]) by George Boolos - Must We Believe in Set Theory? p.128
	A reaction: This may just be an assertion of Ockham's Razor, but the interest is that the Neurath image demands internal standards of economy etc, whereas reality itself seems to be a right mess.

8485	We must always rebuild our ship on the open sea; we can't reconstruct it properly in dry-dock [Neurath]
	Full Idea: We are like sailors who must rebuild their ship out on the open sea, never able to dismantle it in a dry-dock and reconstruct it there out of the best materials.
	From: Otto Neurath (Protocol Sentences [1932]), quoted by Alex Orenstein - W.V. Quine Ch.8
	A reaction: This is the classic statement of the anti-foundationalist picture of knowledge. It is often quoted by Quine. A tricky issue. I have a lot of sympathy with Bonjour's rationalist foundationalism.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature

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.