11 ideas
| 23881 | All thought about values is philosophical, and thought about anything else is not philosophy [Weil] |
| Full Idea: All reflections bearing on the notion of value and on the hierarchy of values is philosophical; all efforts of thought bearing on anything other than value are, if one examines them closely, foreign to philosophy. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.30) | |
| A reaction: If nothing else proves that Weil is a platonist, this does. She, of course, has a transcendent and religious view of values, whereas I just see them as concepts which embody what is important. That said, I'm not far off agreeing with this. |
| 23885 | Philosophy aims to change the soul, not to accumulate knowledge [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy does not consist in accumulating knowledge, as science does, but in changing the whole soul. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.33) | |
| A reaction: I agree, roughly. In the sense that philosophy is a much more personal matter than any pure pursuit of knowledge, such as geology. Though a life in geology could change your soul. Not just any old change, of course…. |
| 23886 | Systems are not unique to each philosopher. The platonist tradition is old and continuous [Weil] |
| Full Idea: People believe that every philosopher has a system that contradicts all the others! But there is a tradition, genuinely philosophical, that is as old as humanity itself. …Plato is the most perfect representative of this tradition. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.33) | |
| A reaction: I see roughly two traditions. If you believe in transcendence you follow Plato, like Simone. If you are a naturalist (like me) you follow Aristotle. A third tradition might be much more sceptical. |
| 23884 | Truth is a value of thought [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Truth is a value of thought. The word 'truth' cannot have any other meaning. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.32) | |
| A reaction: This makes a nice change from truth being a mere predicate. I would call truth the criterion of success in thought, and that counts as a value, so she is right. |
| 13768 | Validity can preserve certainty in mathematics, but conditionals about contingents are another matter [Edgington] |
| Full Idea: If your interest in logic is confined to applications to mathematics or other a priori matters, it is fine for validity to preserve certainty, ..but if you use conditionals when arguing about contingent matters, then great caution will be required. | |
| From: Dorothy Edgington (Conditionals [2001], 17.2.1) |
| 13770 | There are many different conditional mental states, and different conditional speech acts [Edgington] |
| Full Idea: As well as conditional beliefs, there are conditional desires, hopes, fears etc. As well as conditional statements, there are conditional commands, questions, offers, promises, bets etc. | |
| From: Dorothy Edgington (Conditionals [2001], 17.3.4) |
| 13764 | Are conditionals truth-functional - do the truth values of A and B determine the truth value of 'If A, B'? [Edgington] |
| Full Idea: Are conditionals truth-functional - do the truth values of A and B determine the truth value of 'If A, B'? Are they non-truth-functional, like 'because' or 'before'? Do the values of A and B, in some cases, leave open the value of 'If A,B'? | |
| From: Dorothy Edgington (Conditionals [2001], 17.1) | |
| A reaction: I would say they are not truth-functional, because the 'if' asserts some further dependency relation that goes beyond the truth or falsity of A and B. Logical ifs, causal ifs, psychological ifs... The material conditional ⊃ is truth-functional. |
| 13765 | 'If A,B' must entail ¬(A & ¬B); otherwise we could have A true, B false, and If A,B true, invalidating modus ponens [Edgington] |
| Full Idea: If it were possible to have A true, B false, and If A,B true, it would be unsafe to infer B from A and If A,B: modus ponens would thus be invalid. Hence 'If A,B' must entail ¬(A & ¬B). | |
| From: Dorothy Edgington (Conditionals [2001], 17.1) | |
| A reaction: This is a firm defence of part of the truth-functional view of conditionals, and seems unassailable. The other parts of the truth table are open to question, though, if A is false, or they are both true. |
| 23882 | Ends, unlike means, cannot be defined, which is why people tend to pursue means [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Everything that can be taken as an end cannot be defined. Means, such as power and money, are easily defined, and that is why people orient themselves exclusively towards the acquisition of means. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.31) | |
| A reaction: Nice, but too neat, because so many activities can be treated either as means or as ends, and often as both. It makes sense that people pursue what is clear to them. |
| 23883 | Minds essentially and always strive towards value [Weil] |
| Full Idea: For the mind essentially and always, in whatever manner it is disposed, strives towards value. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.31) | |
| A reaction: A typically platonist thought. If you accept my view that values identify what is important, the thought is plausible. We might distinguish between what the mind pointlessly entertains, and what it 'strives' for. |
| 22395 | Moral judgements are hypothetical, because they depend on interests and desires [Foot] |
| Full Idea: Moral judgements are hypothetical imperatives in the sense that they give reasons for acting only in conjunction with interests and desires. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Reply to Professor Frankena [1975], p.177) | |
| A reaction: This is a splendid claim, which points to a more sensibly naturalistic ethics. There seem to be occasions for moral behaviour where I have no interests or desires, such as when a stranger asks me for a favour and I'm feeling tired. |