Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Ethical Studies', 'works' and 'Platonism and the Spiritual Life'

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4 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / D. Assumptions for Logic / 2. Excluded Middle

7334	Anti-realism needs an intuitionist logic with no law of excluded middle [Dummett, by Miller,A]
	Full Idea: Dummett argues that antirealism implies that classical logic must be given up in favour of some form of intuitionistic logic that does not have the law of excluded middle as a theorem.
	From: report of Michael Dummett (works [1970]) by Alexander Miller - Philosophy of Language 9.4
	A reaction: Only realists can think every proposition is either true or false, even if it is beyond the bounds of our possible knowledge (e.g. tiny details from remote history). Personally I think "Plato had brown eyes" is either true or false.

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism

3303	For anti-realists there are no natural distinctions between objects [Dummett, by Benardete,JA]
	Full Idea: Dummett says that anti-realism offers us a picture of reality as an amorphous lump not yet articulated into discrete objects.
	From: report of Michael Dummett (works [1970]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.2
	A reaction: This might be called 'weak' anti-realism, where 'strong' anti-realism is the view that reality is quite unknowable, and possibly non-existent.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature

23060	The good is not relative, but is rooted in facts about human needs [Santayana]
	Full Idea: The good is by no means relative to opinion, but is rooted in the unconscious and fatal nature of living beings, a nature which predetermines for them the difference between foods and poisons, happiness and misery.
	From: George Santayana (Platonism and the Spiritual Life [1927], p.3), quoted by John Gray - Seven Types of Atheism 6
	A reaction: That is, he concedes that the good is relative to human beings, but that the relevant facts about human beings are not relative. I think he has the correct picture. The key point is that the good is 'rooted' in something, and doesn't just float free.

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).