15 ideas
| 10355 | Facts can't make claims true, because they are true claims [Brandom, by Kusch] |
| Full Idea: Brandom says that facts do not make claims true, because facts simply are true claims. | |
| From: report of Robert B. Brandom (Making It Explicit [1994], p.327) by Martin Kusch - Knowledge by Agreement Ch.18 | |
| A reaction: Nice. Notoriously, anyone defending the correspondence theory of truth in terms of facts had better say what they mean by a 'fact'. Personally I take a fact to be a non-verbal, mind-independent situation in the world, so I disagree with Brandom. |
| 7720 | Two things can only resemble one another in some respect, and that may reintroduce a universal [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: A problem for resemblance nominalism is that in saying that two particulars 'resemble' one another, it is necessary to specify in what respect they do so (e.g. colour, shape, size), and this threatens to reintroduce what appears to be talk of universals. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: We see resemblance between faces instantly, long before we can specify the 'respects' of the resemblance. This supports the Humean hard-wired view of resemblance, rather than some appeal to Platonic universals. |
| 7712 | On substances, Leibniz emphasises unity, Spinoza independence, Locke relations to qualities [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Later philosophers emphasised different strands of Aristotle's concept of substances: Leibniz (in his theory of monads) emphasised their unity; Spinoza emphasised their ontological independence; Locke emphasised their role in relation to qualities. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: Note that this Aristotelian idea had not been jettisoned in the late seventeenth century, unlike other Aristotelianisms. I think it is only with the success of atomism in chemistry that the idea of substance is forced to recede. |
| 7710 | Perception is a mode of belief-acquisition, and does not involve sensation [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: According to one school of thought, perception is simply a mode of belief-acquisition,and there is no reason to suppose that any element of sensation is literally involved in perception. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Blindsight would be an obvious supporting case for this view. I think this point is crucial in understanding what is wrong with Jackson's 'knowledge argument' (involving Mary, see Idea 7377). Sensation gives knowledge, so it can't be knowledge. |
| 7711 | Science requires a causal theory - perception of an object must be an experience caused by the object [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Only a causal theory of perception will respect the facts of physiology and physics ...meaning a theory which maintains that for a subject to perceive a physical object the subject should enjoy some appropriate perceptual experience caused by the object. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: If I hallucinate an object, then presumably I am not allowed to say that I 'perceive' it, but that seems to make the causal theory an idle tautology. If we are in virtual reality then there aren't any objects. |
| 7714 | Personal identity is a problem across time (diachronic) and at an instant (synchronic) [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: There is the question of the identity of a person over or across time ('diachronic' personal identity), and there is also the question of what makes for personal identity at a time ('synchronic' personal identity). | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me to be the first and most important distinction in the philosophy of personal identity, and they regularly get run together. Locke, for example, has an account of synchronic identity, which is often ignored. It applies to objects too. |
| 7715 | Mentalese isn't a language, because it isn't conventional, or a means of public communication [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: 'Mentalese' would be neither conventional nor a means of public communication so that even to call it a language is seriously misleading. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: It is, however, supposed to contain symbolic representations which are then used as tokens for computation, so it seems close to a language, if (for example) symbolic logic or mathematics were accepted as languages. But who understands it? |
| 7722 | If meaning is mental pictures, explain "the cat (or dog!) is NOT on the mat" [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If meaning is a private mental picture, what does 'the cat is NOT on the mat' mean, and how does it differ from 'the dog is not on the mat?'. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: Not insurmountable. We picture an empty mat, combined with a cat (or whatever) located somewhere else. A mental 'picture' of something shouldn't be contrued as a single image in a neat black frame. |
| 8122 | True works of art transmit completely new feelings [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: Only that is a true work of art which transmits fresh feelings not previously experienced by man. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898], Ch.9) | |
| A reaction: I think a great composer will probably not have any new feelings at all, but will discover new expressions which contain feelings by which even they are surprised (e.g. the Tristan chord). |
| 8121 | Art is when one man uses external signs to hand on his feelings to another man [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: Art is a human activity in which one man consciously by means of external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and other are infected by those feelings, and also experience them. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: Such definitions always work better for some art forms than for others. This may fit 'Anna Karenin' quite well, but probably not Bach's 'Art of Fugue'. Writing obscenities on someone's front door would fit this definition. |
| 8124 | The highest feelings of mankind can only be transmitted by art [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: The highest feelings to which mankind has attained can only be transmitted from man to man by art. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898], Ch.17) | |
| A reaction: We are much more nervous these days of talking about 'highest' feelings. Tolstoy obviously considers religion to be an ingredient of the highest feelings, but that prevents us from judging them purely as feelings. Music is the place to rank feelings. |
| 8123 | The purpose of art is to help mankind to evolve better, more socially beneficial feelings [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: The evolution of feeling proceeds by means of art - feelings less kind and less necessary for the well-being of mankind being replaced by others kinder and more needful for that end. That is the purpose of art. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898], Ch.16) | |
| A reaction: Underneath his superficially expressivist view of art, Tolstoy is really an old-fashioned moralist about it, like Dr Johnson. This is the moralism of the great age of the nineteenth century novel (which was, er, the greatest age of the novel!). |
| 22710 | People estimate art according to their moral values [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: The estimation of the value of art …depends on men's perception of the meaning of life; depends on what they hold to be the good and evil of life. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898]), quoted by Iris Murdoch - The Sublime and the Good p.206 | |
| A reaction: [No ref given] This is put to the test by the insightful depiction of wickedness. We condemn the wickedness and admire the insight. Every reading of a novel is a moral journey, though I'm not sure how the true psychopath reads a novel. |
| 8125 | The upper classes put beauty first, and thus freed themselves from morality [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: The people of the upper class, more and more frequently encountering the contradictions between beauty and goodness, put the ideal of beauty first, thus freeing themselves from the demands of morality. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898], Ch.17) | |
| A reaction: The rich are a great deal freer to pursue the demands of beauty than are the poor. They also have a tradition of 'immorality' (such as duels and adultery) which was in place long before they discovered art. |
| 8064 | We separate the concept of beauty from goodness, unlike the ancients [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: The ancients had not that conception of beauty separated from goodness which forms the basis and aim of aesthetics in our time. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: This is written at around the time of the Aesthetic Movement, but Tolstoy's own novels are intensely moral. This separation makes abstract painting possible. |