15 ideas
| 2510 | Traditionally philosophy is an a priori enquiry into general truths about reality [Katz] |
| Full Idea: The traditional conception of philosophy is that it is an a priori enquiry into the most general facts about reality. | |
| From: Jerrold J. Katz (Realistic Rationalism [2000], Int.xi) | |
| A reaction: I think this still defines philosophy, though it also highlights the weakness of the subject, which is over-confidence about asserting necessary truths. How could the most god-like areas of human thought be about anything else? |
| 23367 | Even pointing a finger should only be done for a reason [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy says it is not right even to stretch out a finger without some reason. | |
| From: Epictetus (fragments/reports [c.57], 15) | |
| A reaction: The key point here is that philosophy concerns action, an idea on which Epictetus is very keen. He rather despise theory. This idea perfectly sums up the concept of the wholly rational life (which no rational person would actually want to live!). |
| 2516 | Most of philosophy begins where science leaves off [Katz] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy, or at least one large part of it, is subsequent to science; it begins where science leaves off. | |
| From: Jerrold J. Katz (Realistic Rationalism [2000], Int.xxi) | |
| A reaction: In some sense this has to be true. Without metaphysics there couldn't be any science. Rationalists should not forget, though, the huge impact which Darwin's science has (or should have) on fairly abstract philosophy (e.g. epistemology). |
| 2521 | 'Real' maths objects have no causal role, no determinate reference, and no abstract/concrete distinction [Katz] |
| Full Idea: Three objections to realism in philosophy of mathematics: mathematical objects have no space/time location, and so no causal role; that such objects are determinate, but reference to numbers aren't; and that there is no abstract/concrete distinction. | |
| From: Jerrold J. Katz (Realistic Rationalism [2000], Int.xxix) |
| 2513 | We don't have a clear enough sense of meaning to pronounce some sentences meaningless or just analytic [Katz] |
| Full Idea: Linguistic meaning is not rich enough to show either that all metaphysical sentences are meaningless or that all alleged synthetic a priori propositions are just analytic a priori propositions. | |
| From: Jerrold J. Katz (Realistic Rationalism [2000], Int.xx) |
| 2522 | Experience cannot teach us why maths and logic are necessary [Katz] |
| Full Idea: The Leibniz-Kant criticism of empiricism is that experience cannot teach us why mathematical and logical facts couldn't be otherwise than they are. | |
| From: Jerrold J. Katz (Realistic Rationalism [2000], Int.xxxi) |
| 24008 | Reference to a person's emotions is often essential to understanding their actions [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: The reference to a man's emotions has a significance for our understanding of his moral sincerity, not as a substitute for or addition to how he acts, but as, on occasion, underlying our understanding of how he acts. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.223) | |
| A reaction: Williams aims to rescue emotion from the emotivists, and replace it at the centre of traditional modes of moral judgement. I suppose we could assess one rogue robot as behaving 'badly' in a community of robots. |
| 24009 | Moral education must involve learning about various types of feeling towards things [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: If moral education does not revolve around what to fear, to be angry about, to despise, and where to draw the line between kindness and a stupid sentimentality - I do not know what it is. (Though there are principles, of truth-telling and justice). | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.225) | |
| A reaction: He cites Aristotle as the obvious source of this correct idea. The examples of principle both require us to place a high value on truth and justice, and not just follow rules in the style of arithmetic. |
| 2517 | Structuralists see meaning behaviouristically, and Chomsky says nothing about it [Katz] |
| Full Idea: In linguistics there are two schools of thought: Bloomfieldian structuralism (favoured by Quine) conceives of sentences acoustically and meanings behaviouristically; and Chomskian generative grammar (which is silent about semantics). | |
| From: Jerrold J. Katz (Realistic Rationalism [2000], Int.xxiv) | |
| A reaction: They both appear to be wrong, so there is (or was) something rotten in the state of linguistics. Are the only options for meaning either behaviourist or eliminativist? |
| 2519 | It is generally accepted that sense is defined as the determiner of reference [Katz] |
| Full Idea: There is virtually universal acceptance of Frege's definition of sense as the determiner of reference. | |
| From: Jerrold J. Katz (Realistic Rationalism [2000], Int.xxvi) | |
| A reaction: Not any more, since Kripke and Putnam. It is one thing to say sense determines reference, and quite another to say that this is the definition of sense. |
| 2520 | Sense determines meaning and synonymy, not referential properties like denotation and truth [Katz] |
| Full Idea: Pace Frege, sense determines sense properties and relations, like meaningfulness and synonymy, rather than determining referential properties, like denotation and truth. | |
| From: Jerrold J. Katz (Realistic Rationalism [2000], Int.xxvi) | |
| A reaction: This leaves room for Fregean 'sense', after Kripke has demolished the idea that sense determines reference. |
| 2518 | Sentences are abstract types (like musical scores), not individual tokens [Katz] |
| Full Idea: Sentences are types, not utterance tokens or mental/neural tokens, and hence sentences are abstract objects (like musical scores). | |
| From: Jerrold J. Katz (Realistic Rationalism [2000], Int.xxvi) | |
| A reaction: If sentences are abstract types, then two verbally indistinguishable sentences are the same sentence. But if I say 'I am happy', that isn't the same as you saying it. |
| 24007 | Emotivism saw morality as expressing emotions, and influencing others' emotions [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Emotivism held that there were two purposes of moral judgements: to express the emotions of the speaker, and to influence the emotions of his hearers. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.209) | |
| A reaction: I take Ayer to be typical of the first project, and Hare of the second. The theory is much more plausible when the second aim is added. Would we ever utter a moral opinion if we didn't hope to influence someone? |
| 24010 | An admirable human being should have certain kinds of emotional responses [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: One's conception of an admirable human being implies that he should be disposed to certain kinds of emotional response, and not to others. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.225) | |
| A reaction: So are the good emotions an indicator of being a good person, or is that what their goodness consists of? The goodness must be cashed out in actions, and presumably good emotions both promise good actions, and motivate them. |
| 24012 | Kant's love of consistency is too rigid, and it even overrides normal fairness [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: There is a certain moral woodenness or even insolence in Kant's blank regard for consistency. It smacks of Keynes's Principle of Unfairness - that if you can't do a good turn to everybody, you shouldn't do it to anybody. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.226) | |
| A reaction: He says it also turns each of us into a Supreme Legislator, which deifies man. It is clearly not the case that morality consists entirely of rules and principles, but Williams recognises their role, in truth-telling for example. |