20 ideas
| 6253 | Reason is our power of finding out true propositions [Hutcheson] |
| Full Idea: Reason is our power of finding out true propositions. | |
| From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 4: The Moral Sense [1728], §I) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a very good definition. I don't see how you can define reason without mentioning truth, and you can't believe in reason if you don't believe in truth. The concept of reason entails the concept of a good reason. |
| 14650 | Maybe proper names involve essentialism [Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps the notion of a proper name itself involves essentialism. | |
| From: Alvin Plantinga (De Re and De Dicto [1969], p.43) | |
| A reaction: This is just before Kripke's announcement of 'rigid designation', which seems to have relaunched modern essentialism. The thought is that you can't name something, if you don't have a stable notion of what is (and isn't) being named. |
| 14648 | Could I name all of the real numbers in one fell swoop? Call them all 'Charley'? [Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: Can't I name all the real numbers in the interval (0,1) at once? Couldn't I name them all 'Charley', for example? | |
| From: Alvin Plantinga (De Re and De Dicto [1969], p.40) | |
| A reaction: Plantinga is nervous about such a sweeping move, but can't think of an objection. This addresses a big problem, I think - that you are supposed to accept the real numbers when we cannot possibly name them all. |
| 14647 | Surely self-identity is essential to Socrates? [Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: If anything is essential to Socrates, surely self-identity is. | |
| From: Alvin Plantinga (De Re and De Dicto [1969], p.37) | |
| A reaction: This is the modern move of Plantinga and Adams, to make 'is identical with Socrates' the one property which assures the identity of Socrates (his 'haecceity'). My view is that self-identity is not a property. Plantinga wonders about that on p.44. |
| 14646 | An object has a property essentially if it couldn't conceivably have lacked it [Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: An object has a property essentially just in case it couldn't conceivably have lacked that property. | |
| From: Alvin Plantinga (De Re and De Dicto [1969], p.35) | |
| A reaction: Making it depend on what we can conceive seems a bit dubious, for someone committed to real essences. The key issue is how narrowly or broadly you interpret the word 'property'. The word 'object' needs a bit of thought, too! |
| 14649 | Can we find an appropriate 'de dicto' paraphrase for any 'de re' proposition? [Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: To explain the 'de re' via the 'de dicto' is to provide a rule enabling us to find, for each de re proposition, an equivalent de dicto proposition. | |
| From: Alvin Plantinga (De Re and De Dicto [1969], p.41) | |
| A reaction: Many 'de dicto' paraphrases will change the modality of a 'de re' statement, so the challenge is to find the right equivalent version. Plantinga takes up this challenge. The 'de dicto' statement says the object has the property, and must have it. |
| 14642 | Expressing modality about a statement is 'de dicto'; expressing it of property-possession is 'de re' [Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: Some statements predicate modality of another statement (modality 'de dicto'); but others predicate of an object the necessary or essential possession of a property; these latter express modality 'de re'. | |
| From: Alvin Plantinga (De Re and De Dicto [1969], p.26) | |
| A reaction: The distinction seems to originate in Aquinas, concerning whether God knows the future (or, how he knows the future). 'De dicto' is straightforward, but possibly the result of convention. 'De re' is controversial, and implies deep metaphysics. |
| 14643 | 'De dicto' true and 'de re' false is possible, and so is 'de dicto' false and 'de re' true [Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: Aquinas says if a 'de dicto' statement is true, the 'de re' version may be false. The opposite also applies: 'What I am thinking of [17] is essentially prime' is true, but 'The proposition "what I am thinking of is prime" is necessarily true' is false. | |
| From: Alvin Plantinga (De Re and De Dicto [1969], p.27) | |
| A reaction: In his examples the first is 'de re' (about the number), and the second is 'de dicto' (about that proposition). |
| 14651 | What Socrates could have been, and could have become, are different? [Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: Is there a difference between what Socrates could have been, and what he could have become? | |
| From: Alvin Plantinga (De Re and De Dicto [1969], p.44) | |
| A reaction: That is, I take it, 1) how different might he have been in the past, given how he is now?, and 2) how different might he have been in the past, and now, if he had permanently diverged from how he is now? 1) has tight constraints on it. |
| 20400 | Intentions either succeed or fail, so external evidence for them is always irrelevant [Wimsatt/Beardsley, by Davies,S] |
| Full Idea: Wimsatt and Beardsley claimed that either the intention succeeded, so one does not need to look outside the work for its meaning, or the intention failed, so external evidence does not help. | |
| From: report of W Wimsatt/W Beardsley (The Intentional Fallacy [1946]) by Stephen Davies - The Philosophy of Art (2nd ed) 5.3 | |
| A reaction: Actually, the external evidence may tell you much more clearly and accurately what the intention was than the work itself does. The best example may be the title of the work, which is presumably outside the work. |
| 7266 | The author's intentions are irrelevant to the judgement of a work's success [Wimsatt/Beardsley] |
| Full Idea: The design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work of literary art. | |
| From: W Wimsatt/W Beardsley (The Intentional Fallacy [1946], §I) | |
| A reaction: This famous proposal may have been misunderstood. Note that it is a comment about judging the work, not about understanding it. The idea allows for a work being much more successful than the author's humble intentions (e.g. Pepys). |
| 7267 | Poetry, unlike messages, can be successful without communicating intentions [Wimsatt/Beardsley] |
| Full Idea: Poetry differs from practical messages, which are successful if and only if we correctly infer the intention. | |
| From: W Wimsatt/W Beardsley (The Intentional Fallacy [1946], §I) | |
| A reaction: I am not convinced by this claim. It is plausible that a work does much more than it intends (Astaire said he danced "to make a buck"), but it is rather odd to rate very highly a work of which you have missed the point. |
| 7268 | The thoughts of a poem should be imputed to the dramatic speaker, and hardly at all to the poet [Wimsatt/Beardsley] |
| Full Idea: We ought to impute the thoughts and attitudes of the poem immediately to the dramatic speaker, and if to the author at all, only by an act of biographical inference. | |
| From: W Wimsatt/W Beardsley (The Intentional Fallacy [1946], §I) | |
| A reaction: Wrong. If in Browning's "My Last Duchess" (say), we only inferred the mind of the speaker (and his Duchess), and took no interest in Browning's view of things, we would miss the point. We might end up respecting the Duke, which would be daft. |
| 7269 | The intentional fallacy is a romantic one [Wimsatt/Beardsley] |
| Full Idea: The intentional fallacy is a romantic one. | |
| From: W Wimsatt/W Beardsley (The Intentional Fallacy [1946], §II) | |
| A reaction: Wrong. Even with those most famous of anonymous artists, the architects and carvers of medieval cathedrals, without some discernment of the purpose you won't get it. The Taj Mahal is a love letter, not a potential ice cream parlour. |
| 7271 | Biography can reveal meanings and dramatic character, as well as possible intentions [Wimsatt/Beardsley] |
| Full Idea: The use of biographical evidence need not involve intentionalism, because while it may be evidence of what the author intended, it may also be evidence of the meaning of his words and the dramatic character of his utterance. | |
| From: W Wimsatt/W Beardsley (The Intentional Fallacy [1946], §IV) | |
| A reaction: I am very keen to penetrate the author's intentions, but I have always be doubtful about the use of biography as a means to achieve this. Most of the effort to infer intentions must come from a study of the work itself, not introductions, letters etc. |
| 6256 | Can't the moral sense make mistakes, as the other senses do? [Hutcheson] |
| Full Idea: Can there not be a right and wrong state of our moral sense, as there is in our other senses? | |
| From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 4: The Moral Sense [1728], §IV) | |
| A reaction: Hutcheson replies by saying something like they are both fully reliable in normal conditions. It remains, though, a very good question for the intuitionist to face, as the moral sense is supposed to be direct and reliable, but how do you check? |
| 6252 | Happiness is a pleasant sensation, or continued state of such sensations [Hutcheson] |
| Full Idea: In the following discourse, happiness denotes pleasant sensation of any kind, or continued state of such sensations. | |
| From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 4: The Moral Sense [1728], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This is a very long way from Greek eudaimonia. Hutcheson seems to imply that I would be happy if I got high on drugs after my family had just burnt to death. Socrates points out that scratching an itch is a very pleasant sensation (Idea 132). |
| 6257 | You can't form moral rules without an end, which needs feelings and a moral sense [Hutcheson] |
| Full Idea: What rule of actions can be formed, without relation to some end proposed? Or what end can be proposed, without presupposing instincts, desires, affections, or a moral sense, it will not be easy to explain. | |
| From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 4: The Moral Sense [1728], §IV) | |
| A reaction: We have no reason to think that 'instincts, desires and affections' will give us the remotest guidance on how to behave morally well (though we would expect them to aid our survival). How could a moral sense give a reason, without spotting a rule? |
| 6254 | We are asked to follow God's ends because he is our benefactor, but why must we do that? [Hutcheson] |
| Full Idea: The reasons assigned for actions are such as 'It is the end proposed by the Deity'. But why do we approve concurring with the divine ends? The reason is given 'He is our benefactor', but then, for what reason do we approve concurrence with a benefactor? | |
| From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 4: The Moral Sense [1728], §I) | |
| A reaction: Characteristic of what MacIntyre calls the 'Enlightenment Project', which is the application of Cartesian scepticism to proving the foundations of morals. Proof beyond proof is continually demanded. If you could meet God, you would obey without question. |
| 6255 | Why may God not have a superior moral sense very similar to ours? [Hutcheson] |
| Full Idea: Why may not the Deity have something of a superior kind, analogous to our moral sense, essential to him? | |
| From: Francis Hutcheson (Treatise 4: The Moral Sense [1728], §I) | |
| A reaction: This is Plato's notion of the gods, as beings who are profoundly wise, and understand all the great moral truths, but are not the actual originators of those truths. The idea that God creates morality actually serves to undermine morality. |