Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Conditionals', '72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions' and 'On the Essence of Human Freedom'

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6 ideas

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / a. Conditionals

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)

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / b. Types of conditional

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)

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / c. Truth-function conditionals

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.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / g. Will to power

20956	Ultimately, all being is willing. The nature of primal being is the same as the nature of willing [Schelling]
	Full Idea: In the last and highest instance there is no other being but willing. Willing is primal being, and all the predicates of primal being only fit willing: groundlessness, eternity, being independent of time, self-affirmation.
	From: Friedrich Schelling (On the Essence of Human Freedom [1809], I.7.350), quoted by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 5 'Reason'
	A reaction: Insofar as this says that 'primal being' must be active in character, I love this idea. Not the rest of the idea though! Bowie says this essay clearly influenced Schopenhauer. It looks as if Nietzsche must be read it too.

28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / e. Miracles

5974	People report seeing through rocks, or over the horizon, or impossibly small works [Plutarch]
	Full Idea: It is said that Lynceus could see through rock and tree, and a lookout in Sicily saw Carthaginian ships a day and a half away, and Callicrates and Myrmecides are said to fashion carriages canopied with the wings of fly, and write on sesame seeds.
	From: Plutarch (72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions [c.85], 1083e)
	A reaction: A warning from Plutarch against believing everything you hear!