Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Of Human Freedom', 'Logic and Conversation' and 'Women of Trachis'

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8 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / c. Becoming
Being is only perceptible to itself as becoming [Schelling]
     Full Idea: Being is only perceptible to itself in the state of becoming.
     From: Friedrich Schelling (Of Human Freedom [1809], p.403), quoted by Jean-François Courtine - Schelling p.90
     A reaction: Is the Enlightenment the era of Being, and the Romantic era that of Becoming? They like process, fluidity, even chaos.
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / c. Truth-function conditionals
Conditionals are truth-functional, but we must take care with misleading ones [Grice, by Edgington]
     Full Idea: Grice argued that the truth-functional account of conditionals can withstand objections, provided that we are careful to distinguish the false from the misleadingly true.
     From: report of H. Paul Grice (Logic and Conversation [1975]) by Dorothy Edgington - Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? 2
The odd truth table for material conditionals is explained by conversational conventions [Grice, by Fisher]
     Full Idea: According to Grice, it is the rules that govern conversation beyond the merely logical that account for the counter-intuitiveness of the truth table for the material conditional.
     From: report of H. Paul Grice (Logic and Conversation [1975]) by Jennifer Fisher - On the Philosophy of Logic 8.I
     A reaction: There is a conversational rule which says that replies should normally relevant to context. It would be nice if logical implications were also relevant to context.
Conditionals might remain truth-functional, despite inappropriate conversational remarks [Edgington on Grice]
     Full Idea: Grice defended the truth-functional account of conditionals, noting the gap between what we are justified in believing and what is appropriate to say. .But the problem arises at the level of belief, not at the level of inappropriate conversational remarks
     From: comment on H. Paul Grice (Logic and Conversation [1975]) by Dorothy Edgington - Conditionals 17.1.3
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / f. Pragmatics of conditionals
A person can be justified in believing a proposition, though it is unreasonable to actually say it [Grice, by Edgington]
     Full Idea: Grice drew attention to situations in which a person is justified in believing a proposition, which would nevertheless by an unreasonable thing for the person to say, in normal circumstances. I think he is right about disjunction and negated conjunctions.
     From: report of H. Paul Grice (Logic and Conversation [1975]) by Dorothy Edgington - Conditionals (Stanf) 2.4
     A reaction: Edgington considers Grice's ideas of implicature as of permanent value, especially as a clarification of 1950s ordinary language philosophy.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / d. Absolute idealism
We must show that the whole of nature, because it is effective, is grounded in freedom [Schelling]
     Full Idea: What is required is to show that everything that is effective (nature, the world of things) is grounded in activity, life, freedom.
     From: Friedrich Schelling (Of Human Freedom [1809], p.351), quoted by Jean-François Courtine - Schelling
     A reaction: I take the ancestor of this view of nature to be the monads of Leibniz, as the active principle in nature. Because this is an idealist view, it starts with the absolute freedom of the Self, and presumably sees nature in its own image.
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 2. Sources of Free Will
Only idealism has given us the genuine concept of freedom [Schelling]
     Full Idea: Until the discovery of idealism, the genuine concept of freedom has been missing from every modern system, whether it be that of Leibniz or of Spinoza.
     From: Friedrich Schelling (Of Human Freedom [1809], p.345), quoted by Jean-François Courtine - Schelling p.87
     A reaction: Spinoza denied free will, and Leibniz fudged it. Evidently more medieval theological accounts were not good enough. I presume Fichte is Schelling's hero, and he seems to see freedom as axiomatic about the Self.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / e. Honour
Sophoclean heroes die terrible deaths when they oppose the new Athenian values [Sophocles, by Grayling]
     Full Idea: Sophocles has Ajax (in 'Ajax') and Hercules (in 'Trachiniae') die terrible deaths because of the opposition they represent to the values which are the new values of Periclean Athens.
     From: report of Sophocles (Women of Trachis [c.430 BCE]) by A.C. Grayling - What is Good? Ch.2
     A reaction: Presumably they are tragic heroes, who hence invite our sympathy, like Othello and Hamlet, who also die following an older moral code. It is only tragic if the code they follow has something 'higher' about it.