Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Problem of Natural Laws' and 'Logical Investigations'

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6 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined

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!).

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 2. Phenomenology

15570	Phenomenology is the science of essences - necessary universal structures for art, representation etc. [Husserl, by Polt]
	Full Idea: For Husserl, phenomenology must seek the essential aspects of phenomena - necessary, universal structures, such as the essence of art or the essence of representation. He sought a science of these essences.
	From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900]) by Richard Polt - Heidegger: an introduction 2 'Dilthey'

7614	Bracketing subtracts entailments about external reality from beliefs [Husserl, by Putnam]
	Full Idea: In effect, the device of bracketing subtracts entailments from the ordinary belief locution (the entailments that refer to what is external to the thinker's mind).
	From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900]) by Hilary Putnam - Reason, Truth and History Ch.2
	A reaction: This seems to leave phenomenology as pure introspection, or as a phenomenalist description of sense-data. It is also a refusal to explain anything. That sounds quite appealing, like Keats's 'negative capability'.

6893	Phenomenology aims to describe experience directly, rather than by its origins or causes [Husserl, by Mautner]
	Full Idea: Phenomenology, in Husserl, is an attempt to describe our experience directly, as it is, separately from its origins and development, independently of the causal explanations that historians, sociologists or psychologists might give.
	From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900]) by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.421
	A reaction: In this simple definition the concept sounds very like the modern popular use of the word 'deconstruction', though that is applied more commonly to cultural artifacts than to actual sense experience.

12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 2. Self-Evidence

21216	Husserl says we have intellectual intuitions (of categories), as well as of the senses [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol]
	Full Idea: The novelty of Husserl is to describe that we have intellectual intuitions, intuitions of categories as we have intuitions of sense objects.
	From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900], II.VI.24) by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 2.4.4
	A reaction: This is 'intuitions' in Kant's sense, of something like direct apprehensions. This idea is an axiom of phenomenology, because all mental life must be bracketed, and not just the sense experience part.

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 3. Laws and Generalities

4800	Natural laws result from eliminative induction, where enumerative induction gives generalisations [Cohen,LJ, by Psillos]
	Full Idea: Cohen contends that statements that express laws of nature are the products of eliminative induction, where accidentally true generalisations are the products of enumerative induction.
	From: report of L. Jonathan Cohen (The Problem of Natural Laws [1980], p.222) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §7.1
	A reaction: The idea is that enumerative induction only offers the support of positive instances, where eliminative induction involves attempts to falsify a range of hypotheses. This still bases laws on observed regularities, rather than essences or mechanisms.