Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Ethical Studies', 'Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion' and 'Law and Causality'

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8 ideas

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / d. Non-truthfunction conditionals

10993	Ramsey's Test: believe the consequent if you believe the antecedent [Ramsey, by Read]
	Full Idea: Ramsey's Test for conditionals is that a conditional should be believed if a belief in its antecedent would commit one to believing its consequent.
	From: report of Frank P. Ramsey (Law and Causality [1928]) by Stephen Read - Thinking About Logic Ch.3
	A reaction: A rather pragmatic approach to conditionals

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / e. Supposition conditionals

14279	Asking 'If p, will q?' when p is uncertain, then first add p hypothetically to your knowledge [Ramsey]
	Full Idea: If two people are arguing 'If p, will q?' and are both in doubt as to p, they are adding p hypothetically to their stock of knowledge, and arguing on that basis about q; ...they are fixing their degrees of belief in q given p.
	From: Frank P. Ramsey (Law and Causality [1928], B 155 n)
	A reaction: This has become famous as the 'Ramsey Test'. Bennett emphasises that he is not saying that you should actually believe p - you are just trying it for size. The presupposition approach to conditionals seems attractive. Edgington likes 'degrees'.

14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 8. Ramsey Sentences

6894	Mental terms can be replaced in a sentence by a variable and an existential quantifier [Ramsey]
	Full Idea: Ramsey Sentences are his technique for eliminating theoretical terms in science (and can be applied to mental terms, or to social rights); a term in a sentence is replaced by a variable and an existential quantifier.
	From: Frank P. Ramsey (Law and Causality [1928]), quoted by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.469
	A reaction: The technique is used by functionalists and results in a sort of eliminativism. The intrinsic nature of mental states is eliminated, because everything worth saying can be expressed in terms of functional/causal role. Sounds wrong to me.

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / d. Routes to happiness

5655	Happiness is not satisfaction of desires, but fulfilment of values [Bradley, by Scruton]
	Full Idea: For Bradley, the happiness of the individual is not to be understood in terms of his desires and needs, but rather in terms of his values - which is to say, in terms of those of his desires which he incorporates into his self.
	From: report of F.H. Bradley (Ethical Studies [1876]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.16
	A reaction: Good. Bentham will reduce the values to a further set of desires, so that a value is a complex (second-level?) desire. I prefer to think of values as judgements, but I like Scruton's phrase of 'incorporating into his self'. Kant take note (Idea 1452).

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 4. Regularities / b. Best system theory

9418	All knowledge needs systematizing, and the axioms would be the laws of nature [Ramsey]
	Full Idea: Even if we knew everything, we should still want to systematize our knowledge as a deductive system, and the general axioms in that system would be the fundamental laws of nature.
	From: Frank P. Ramsey (Law and Causality [1928], §A)
	A reaction: This is the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis view. Cf. Idea 9420.

9420	Causal laws result from the simplest axioms of a complete deductive system [Ramsey]
	Full Idea: Causal laws are consequences of those propositions which we should take as axioms if we knew everything and organized it as simply as possible in a deductive system.
	From: Frank P. Ramsey (Law and Causality [1928], §B)
	A reaction: Cf. Idea 9418.

29. Religion / B. Monotheistic Religion / 4. Christianity / a. Christianity

21798	To universalise 'give everything to the poor' leads to absurdity [Hegel]
	Full Idea: If everyone gave everything to the poor, then soon there would be no more poor to give anything to, or no more persons who would have anything to give.
	From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion [1827], III: 152), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 10 'Faith'
	A reaction: Matthew 5:8, 19:21. Beautifully clear. [I always believed that I had thought of this idea - but not so]. If the logic is that it is better to be poor than to be rich, then the implication is that all excess wealth should be thrown into the sea.

29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / a. Immortality

21797	Immortality does not come at a later time, but when pure knowing Spirit fully grasps the universal [Hegel]
	Full Idea: The immortality of the soul must not be imagined as though it first emerges into actuality at some later time; rather it is a present quality. ...As pure knowing or as thinking, Spirit has the universal for its object - this is eternity.
	From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion [1827], III: 208), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 10 'Death'
	A reaction: An unusual view of immortality, which challenges orthodoxy. The idea seems to be that 'pure knowing' is a grasping of the pure reason which embodies nature, which in turn is the nature of God. You enter eternity, rather than reside in it?