9987
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An aggregate in which order does not matter I call a 'set' [Bolzano]
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Full Idea:
An aggregate whose basic conception renders the arrangement of its members a matter of indifference, and whose permutation therefore produces no essential difference, I call a 'set'.
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From:
Bernard Bolzano (Paradoxes of the Infinite [1846], §4), quoted by William W. Tait - Frege versus Cantor and Dedekind IX
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A reaction:
The idea of 'sets' was emerging before Cantor formalised it, and clarified it by thinking about infinite sets. Nowadays we also have 'ordered' sets, which rather contradicts Bolzano, and we also expect the cardinality to be determinate.
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23692
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Good and bad are a matter of actions, not of internal dispositions [Foot]
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Full Idea:
Some philosophers insist that dispositions, motives and other 'internal' elements are the primary determinants of moral goodness and badness. I have never been a 'virtue ethicist' is this sense. For me it is what is done that stands in this position.
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From:
Philippa Foot (Rationality and Goodness [2004], p.2), quoted by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought 4 'Virtue'
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A reaction:
[She mentions Hursthouse, Slote, Swanton] I'm quite struck by this. Aristotle insists that morality concerns actions. It doesn't seem that a person could be a saint by having wonderful dispositions, but doing nothing. Paraplegics?
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