Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Commentary on 'De Anima'', 'Reflections on my Critics' and 'De Cive'

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5 ideas

3. Truth / H. Deflationary Truth / 2. Deflationary Truth

12129	'Truth' may only apply within a theory [Kuhn]
	Full Idea: 'Truth' may, like 'proof', be a term with only intra-theoretic applications.
	From: Thomas S. Kuhn (Reflections on my Critics [1970], §5)
	A reaction: I think we can blame Tarski (via Quine, Kuhn's teacher) for this one. I take it to be an utter failure to grasp the meaning of the word 'truth' (and sneakily substituting 'satisfaction' for it). For a start, we have to compare theories on some basis.

14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 1. Scientific Theory

6809	Kuhn came to accept that all scientists agree on a particular set of values [Kuhn, by Bird]
	Full Idea: Kuhn later came to accept that there are five values to which scientists in all paradigms adhere: accuracy; consistency with accepted theories; broad scope; simplicity; and fruitfulness.
	From: report of Thomas S. Kuhn (Reflections on my Critics [1970]) by Alexander Bird - Philosophy of Science Ch.8
	A reaction: To shake off the relativism for which Kuhn is notorious, we should begin by asking the question WHY scientists favoured these particular values, rather than (say) bizarreness, consistency with Lewis Carroll, or alliteration. (They are epistemic virtues).

14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 5. Commensurability

12128	In theory change, words shift their natural reference, so the theories are incommensurable [Kuhn]
	Full Idea: In transitions between theories words change their meanings or applicability. Though most of the signs are used before and after a revolution - force, mass, cell - the ways they attach to nature has changed. Successive theories are thus incommensurable.
	From: Thomas S. Kuhn (Reflections on my Critics [1970], §6)
	A reaction: A very nice statement of the view, from the horse's mouth. A great deal of recent philosophy has been implicitly concerned with meeting Kuhn's challenge, by providing an account of reference that doesn't have such problems.

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / e. Death

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.

25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 1. War / c. Combatants

23609	I act justly if I follow my Prince in an apparently unjust war, and refusing to fight would be injustice [Hobbes]
	Full Idea: If I wage war at the commandment of my Prince, conceiving the war to be justly undertaken, I do not therefore do unjustly, but rather if I refuse to do it, arrogating to myself the knowledge of what is just and unjust, which pertains only to my Prince.
	From: Thomas Hobbes (De Cive [1642], 12.II), quoted by Jeff McMahan - Killing in War 2.6
	A reaction: Hobbes early says that Princes make things just by commanding them. This presumably assumes divine authority in the Prince. This is, of course, ancient pernicious nonsense.