20 ideas
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!). |
2557 | Analytical philosophy seems to have little interest in how to tell a good analysis from a bad one [Rorty] |
Full Idea: There is nowadays little attempt to bring "analytic philosophy" to self-consciousness by explaining how to tell a successful from an unsuccessful analysis. | |
From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 4.1) |
2556 | Rational certainty may be victory in argument rather than knowledge of facts [Rorty] |
Full Idea: We can think of "rational certainty" as a matter of victory in argument rather than relation to an object known. | |
From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 3.4) |
4726 | Rorty seems to view truth as simply being able to hold one's view against all comers [Rorty, by O'Grady] |
Full Idea: Rorty seems to view truth as simply being able to hold one's view against all comers. | |
From: report of Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980]) by Paul O'Grady - Relativism Ch.4 | |
A reaction: This may be a caricature of Rorty, but he certainly seems to be in the business of denying truth as much as possible. This strikes me as the essence of pragmatism, and as a kind of philosophical nihilism. |
2549 | For James truth is "what it is better for us to believe" rather than a correct picture of reality [Rorty] |
Full Idea: Truth is, in James' phrase, "what it is better for us to believe", rather than "the accurate representation of reality". | |
From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], Intro) |
15797 | All structures are dispositional, objects are dispositions sets, and events manifest dispositions [Fetzer] |
Full Idea: I propose a dispositional ontology for the physical world, according to which a) every structural property is a dispositional one, b) a physical object is an ordered set of dispositions, and c) every event manifests a dispositional property of the world. | |
From: J.H. Fetzer (A World of Dispositions [1977], Intro) | |
A reaction: Mumford says this is consistent with ontology as a way of describing the world, rather than being facts about the world. I like Fetzer's sketch, which sounds to have a lot in common with 'process philosophy'. |
15800 | All events and objects are dispositional, and hence all structural properties are dispositional [Fetzer] |
Full Idea: Every atomic event in the world's history is a manifestation of some dispositional property of the world and every physical object is an instantiation of some set of dispositions; hence, every structural property is dispositional in kind. | |
From: J.H. Fetzer (A World of Dispositions [1977], 5) | |
A reaction: I quite like this drastic view, but there remains the intuition that there must always be something which has the disposition. That may be because I have not yet digested the lessons of modern physics. |
2548 | If knowledge is merely justified belief, justification is social [Rorty] |
Full Idea: If we have a Deweyan conception of knowledge, as what we are justified in believing, we will see "justification" as a social phenomenon. | |
From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], Intro) | |
A reaction: I find this observation highly illuminating (though I probably need to study Dewey to understand it). There just is no absolute about whether someone is justified. How justified do you want to be? |
6599 | Knowing has no definable essence, but is a social right, found in the context of conversations [Rorty] |
Full Idea: If we see knowing not as having an essence, described by scientists or philosophers, but rather as a right, by current standards, to believe, then we see conversation as the ultimate context within which knowledge is to be understood. | |
From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], Ch.5), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.5 | |
A reaction: This teeters towards ridiculous relativism (e.g. what if the conversation is among a group of fools? - Ah, there are no fools! Politically incorrect!). However, knowledge can be social, provided we are healthily elitist. Scientists know more than us. |
2566 | You can't debate about whether to have higher standards for the application of words [Rorty] |
Full Idea: The decision about whether to have higher than usual standards for the application of words like "true" or "good" or "red" is, as far as I can see, not a debatable issue. | |
From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 6.6) |
2553 | The mind is a property, or it is baffling [Rorty] |
Full Idea: All that is needed for the mind-body problem to be unintelligible is for us to be nominalist, to refuse firmly to hypostasize individual properties. | |
From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 1.3) | |
A reaction: Edelman says the mind is a process rather than a property. It might vanish if the clockspeed was turned right down? Nominalism here sounds like behaviourism or instrumentalism. Would Dennett plead guilty? |
2550 | Pain lacks intentionality; beliefs lack qualia [Rorty] |
Full Idea: We can't define the mental as intentional because pains aren't about anything, and we can't define it as phenomenal because beliefs don't feel like anything. | |
From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 1.2) | |
A reaction: Nice, but simplistic? There is usually an intentional object for a pain, and the concepts which we use to build beliefs contain the residue of remembered qualia. It seems unlikely that any mind could have one without the other (even a computer). |
2554 | Is intentionality a special sort of function? [Rorty] |
Full Idea: Following Wittgenstein, we shall treat the intentional as merely a subspecies of the functional. | |
From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 1.3) | |
A reaction: Intriguing but obscure. Sounds wrong to me. The intentional refers to the content of thoughts, but function concerns their role. They have roles because they have content, so they can't be the same. |
2565 | Nature has no preferred way of being represented [Rorty] |
Full Idea: Nature has no preferred way of being represented. | |
From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 6.5) | |
A reaction: Tree rings accidentally represent the passing of the years. If God went back and started again would she or he opt for a 'preferred way'? |
2560 | Can meanings remain the same when beliefs change? [Rorty] |
Full Idea: For cooler heads there must be some middle view between "meanings remain and beliefs change" and "meanings change whenever beliefs do". | |
From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 6.2) | |
A reaction: The second one seems blatanty false. How could we otherwise explain a change in belief? But obviously some changes in belief (e.g. about electrons) produce a change in meaning. |
2562 | A theory of reference seems needed to pick out objects without ghostly inner states [Rorty] |
Full Idea: The need to pick out objects without the help of definitions, essences, and meanings of terms produced, philosophers thought, a need for a "theory of reference". | |
From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 6.3) | |
A reaction: Frege's was very perceptive in noting that meaning and reference are not the same. Whether we need a 'theory' of reference is unclear. It is worth describing how it occurs. |
2559 | Davidson's theory of meaning focuses not on terms, but on relations between sentences [Rorty] |
Full Idea: A theory of meaning, for Davidson, is not an assemblage of "analyses" of the meanings of individual terms, but rather an understanding of the inferential relations between sentences. | |
From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 6.1) | |
A reaction: Put that way, the influence of Frege on Davidson is obvious. Purely algebraic expressions can have inferential relations, using variables and formal 'sentences'. |
2558 | Since Hegel we have tended to see a human as merely animal if it is outside a society [Rorty] |
Full Idea: Only since Hegel have philosophers begun toying with the idea that the individual apart from his society is just one more animal. | |
From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 4.3) |
15798 | Kinds are arrangements of dispositions [Fetzer] |
Full Idea: Kinds of things are specific arrangements of dispositions. | |
From: J.H. Fetzer (A World of Dispositions [1977], 2) | |
A reaction: A 'disposition' doesn't seem quite the right word for what is basic to the physical world, though Harré and Madden make a good case for the 'fields' of physic being understood in that way. I prefer 'power', though that doesn't solve anything. |
15799 | Lawlike sentences are general attributions of disposition to all members of some class [Fetzer] |
Full Idea: Lawlike sentences are conceived as logically general dispositional statements attributing permanent dispositional properties to every member of a reference class. ...Their basic form is that of subjunctive generalizations. | |
From: J.H. Fetzer (A World of Dispositions [1977], 3) | |
A reaction: I much prefer talk of 'lawlike sentences' to talk of 'laws'. At least they imply that the true generalisations about nature are fairly fine-grained. Why not talk of 'generalisations' instead of 'laws'? Fetzer wants dispositions to explain everything. |