13 ideas
| 22138 | Science rests on scholastic metaphysics, not on Hume, Kant or Carnap [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: The metaphysical principles that allow the scientist to learn from experience are scholastic, not Humean or Kantian or those of twentieth-century positivism. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 2) | |
| A reaction: Love this. Most modern philosophers of science would be deeply outraged by this, but I reckon that careful and open-minded interviews with scientists would prove it to be correct. We want to know the essential nature of electrons. |
| 22134 | Thoughts are general, but the world isn't, so how can we think accurately? [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: Our thoughts are full of generalities, but the world contains no generalities. So how can our thoughts accurately represent the world? This is the problem of universals. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 1) | |
| A reaction: I so love it when someone comes up with a really clear explanation of a problem, and this is a beauty from Stephen Boulter. Only a really clear explanation can motivate philosophical issues for non-philosophers. |
| 22150 | Logical possibility needs the concepts of the proposition to be adequate [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: One can only be sure that a proposition expresses a genuine logical possibility if one can be sure that one's concepts are adequate to things referred to in the proposition. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 4) | |
| A reaction: Boulter says this is a logical constraint place on logical possibility by the scholastics which tends to be neglected by modern thinkers, who only worry about whether the proposition implies a contradiction. So we now use thought experiments. |
| 22139 | Experiments don't just observe; they look to see what interventions change the natural order [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: Experiments differ from observational studies in that experiments usually involve intervening in some way in the natural order to see if altering something about that order causes a change in the response of that order. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 2) | |
| A reaction: Not convinced by this. Lots of experiments isolate a natural process, rather than 'intervening'. Chemists constantly purify substances. Particle accelerators pick out things to accelerate. Does 'intervening' in nature even make sense? |
| 22136 | Science begins with sufficient reason, de-animation, and the importance of nature [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: Three assumptions needed for the emergence of science are central to medieval thought: that the natural order is subject to the principle of sufficient reason, that nature is de-animated, and that it is worthy of study. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 2) | |
| A reaction: A very illuminating and convincing observation. Why did Europe produce major science? The answer is likely to be found in Christianity. |
| 22135 | Our concepts can never fully capture reality, but simplification does not falsify [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: While the natural order is richer than our conceptual representations of it, nonetheless our concepts can be adequate to real singulars because simplification is not falsification. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 1) | |
| A reaction: I don't know if 'simplification' is one of the faculties I am trying to identify. I suspect it is a common factor among most of our intellectual faculties. I love 'simplification is not falsification'. Vagueness isn't falsification either. |
| 22152 | Aristotelians accept the analytic-synthetic distinction [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle and the scholastics accept the analytic/synthetic distinction, but do not take it to be particularly significant. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 5) | |
| A reaction: I record this because I'm an Aristotelian, and need to know what I'm supposed to think. Luckily, I accept the distinction. |
| 22156 | The facts about human health are the measure of the values in our lives [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: The objective facts relating to human health broadly construed are the facts that measure the moral value of our actions, policies and institutions. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 6) | |
| A reaction: This is the Aristotelian approach to facts and values, which I thoroughly endorse. To say there is nothing instrinsically wrong with being unhealthy is an absurd attitude. |
| 16764 | The soul conserves the body, as we see by its dissolution when the soul leaves [Toletus] |
| Full Idea: Every accident of a living thing, as well as all its organs and temperaments and its dispositions are conserved by the soul. We see this from experience, since when that soul recedes, all these dissolve and become corrupted. | |
| From: Franciscus Toletus (Commentary on 'De Anima' [1572], II.1.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.5 | |
| A reaction: A nice example of observing a phenemonon, but not being able to observe the dependence relation the right way round. Compare Descartes in Idea 16763. |
| 3236 | Equality of opportunity without equality of respect would create a very inhuman society [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: A highly rational, efficient and unmitigated application of the idea of equality of opportunity, while abandoning the idea of equality of respect as vague and nostalgic, would lead to a quite inhuman society. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (The Idea of Equality [1962], §3) |
| 3233 | Equality implies that people are alike in potential as well as in needs [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Supporters of equality have asserted that people are alike in certain things they could do or achieve, as well as in the things that they need and could suffer. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (The Idea of Equality [1962], §2) |
| 3234 | Equality seems to require that each person be acknowledged as having a significant point of view [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Equality seems to require that each person is owed an effort at identification; they should not be seen as a surface to which a label can be applied, but one should try to see the world (including the label) from their point of view. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (The Idea of Equality [1962], §2) |
| 3235 | It is a mark of extreme exploitation that the sufferers do not realise their plight [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: It is a mark of extreme exploitation or degradation that those who suffer it do NOT see themselves differently from the way they are seen by the exploiters. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (The Idea of Equality [1962], §2) |