5 ideas
| 10494 | Several words may label a category; one word can name several categories; some categories lack words [Ellen] |
| Full Idea: Words are not always a good guide to the existence of categories: there may be several words which label the same categories (synonyms). and the same word can be used for quite different ideas. Some categories may exist without being labelled. | |
| From: Roy Ellen (Categories, Classification, Cogn. Anthropology [2006], I) | |
| A reaction: This is the sort of point which seems obvious to anyone outside philosophy, but which philosophers seem to find difficult to accept. Philosophers should pay much more attention to animals, and to illiterate peoples. Varieties of rice can lack labels. |
| 19347 | Substance needs independence, unity, and stability (for individuation); also it is a subject, for predicates [Perkins] |
| Full Idea: For individuation, substance needs three properties: independence, to separate it from other things; unity, to call it one thing, rather than an aggregate; and permanence or stability over time. Its other role is as subject for predicates. | |
| From: Franklin Perkins (Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed [2007], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: Perkins is describing the Aristotelian view, which is taken up by Leibniz. 'Substance' is not a controversial idea, if we see that it only means that the world is full of 'things'. It is an unusual philosopher wholly totally denies that. |
| 21004 | Hart (against Bentham) says human rights are what motivate legal rights [Hart,HLA, by Sen] |
| Full Idea: Whereas Bentham saw rights as a 'child of law', Herbert Hart's view takes the form of seeing human rights as, in effect, 'parents of law'; they motivate specific legislations. | |
| From: report of H.L.A. Hart (The Concept of Law [1961]) by Amartya Sen - The Idea of Justice 17 'Ethics' | |
| A reaction: [He cites Hart 1955 'Are there any natural rights?'] I agree with Hart. It is clearer if the parents of law are not referred to as 'rights'. You can demand a right, but it is only a right when it is awarded to you. |
| 20932 | Positive law needs secondary 'rules of recognition' for their correct application [Hart,HLA, by Zimmermann,J] |
| Full Idea: Hart says we have secondary legal 'rules of recognition', by which primary positive law is recognised and applied in a regulated manner. | |
| From: report of H.L.A. Hart (The Concept of Law [1961]) by Jens Zimmermann - Hermeneutics: a very short introduction 6 'Rules' | |
| A reaction: The example of the authority of a particular court is given. |
| 20931 | Hart replaced positivism with the democratic requirement of the people's acceptance [Hart,HLA, by Zimmermann,J] |
| Full Idea: Hart replaced Austin's concept of positive law as sovereign command with a more democratic ideal. In modern law-based societies the authority of law depends on the people's acceptance of a law's enduring validity. | |
| From: report of H.L.A. Hart (The Concept of Law [1961]) by Jens Zimmermann - Hermeneutics: a very short introduction 6 'Hart' | |
| A reaction: Presumably the ancestor of this view is the social contract of Hobbes and Locke. |