Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense', 'The Human Body is a sort of Machine' and 'On the Nature of Moral Values'

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6 ideas

3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 1. Correspondence Truth

21750	Science is sympathetic to truth as correspondence, since it depends on observation [Quine]
	Full Idea: Science, thanks to its links with observation, retains some title to a correspondence theory of truth.
	From: Willard Quine (On the Nature of Moral Values [1978], p.63)
	A reaction: I would describe what he is affirming as a 'robust' theory of truth. An interesting aside, given his usual allegiance to disquotational, and even redundancy, accounts of truth. You can hardly rely on observations if you think they contain no truth.

14. Science / C. Induction / 2. Aims of Induction

21748	More careful inductions gradually lead to the hypothetico-deductive method [Quine]
	Full Idea: Our inductions become increasingly explicit and deliberate, and in the fulness of time we even rise above induction, to the hypothetico-deductive method.
	From: Willard Quine (On the Nature of Moral Values [1978], p.57)
	A reaction: This seems to defer to Hempel's account of scientific theorising. I wander what exactly 'rising above' means?

15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 3. Abstraction by mind

20363	Leaves are unequal, but we form the concept 'leaf' by discarding their individual differences [Nietzsche]
	Full Idea: Every concept arises through the setting equal of the unequal. Just as it is certain that one leaf is never wholly equal to another, so it is certain that the concept leaf is formed by arbitrarily discarding these individual differences.
	From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense [1872]), quoted by John Richardson - Nietzsche's System 2.1.1 n28
	A reaction: Nietzsche adds an interesting aspect to psychological abstraction, of abstracting away the differences between things, which we might label as the (further) capacity for Equalisation. If two cars differ only in a blemish, we abstract away the blemish.

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / a. Nature of value

21749	Altruistic values concern other persons, and ceremonial values concern practices [Quine]
	Full Idea: Altruistic values attach to satisfactions of other persons, without regard to ulterior satisfactions accruing to oneself. Ceremonial values attach to practices of one's society, without regard to satisfactions accruing to oneself.
	From: Willard Quine (On the Nature of Moral Values [1978], p.58)
	A reaction: An interesting distinction, but probably as blurred and circular as (according to Quine) the analytic/synthetic distinction.

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / g. Love

21751	Love seems to diminish with distance from oneself [Quine]
	Full Idea: One cannot reasonably be called upon to love even one's neighbour quite as oneself. Is love to diminish inversely as the square of the distance? Is it to extend to other species than one's own?
	From: Willard Quine (On the Nature of Moral Values [1978], p.65)
	A reaction: Quine isn't actually saying that love is inherently egoistic, but that is the implication. The power of my love is at its most powerful when it is closest to home.

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 2. Natural Purpose / b. Limited purposes

19376	A machine is best defined by its final cause, which explains the roles of the parts [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Any machine ...is best defined in terms of its final cause, so that in the description of the parts it is therefore apparent in what way each of them is coordinated with the others for the intended us.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Human Body is a sort of Machine [1683], p.290), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 3 'Machines'
	A reaction: We would use the 'function', an inherently teleological concept, and a concept which is almost indispensable for giving an illuminating description of the world. If nature is dispositional, it points towards things. Leibniz views persons as machines.