Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Intention', 'Of the standard of taste' and 'Letter to Frege 29.12.1899'

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4 ideas

3. Truth / G. Axiomatic Truth / 1. Axiomatic Truth

15716	If axioms and their implications have no contradictions, they pass my criterion of truth and existence [Hilbert]
	Full Idea: If the arbitrarily given axioms do not contradict each other with all their consequences, then they are true and the things defined by the axioms exist. For me this is the criterion of truth and existence.
	From: David Hilbert (Letter to Frege 29.12.1899 [1899]), quoted by R Kaplan / E Kaplan - The Art of the Infinite 2 'Mind'
	A reaction: If an axiom says something equivalent to 'fairies exist, but they are totally undetectable', this would seem to avoid contradiction with anything, and hence be true. Hilbert's idea sounds crazy to me. He developed full Formalism later.

20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / a. Nature of intentions

20041	Intentional actions are those which are explained by giving the reason for so acting [Anscombe]
	Full Idea: Intentional actions are those to which a certain sense of the question 'Why?' is given application; the sense is of course that in which the answer, if positive, gives a reason for acting.
	From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Intention [1957], p.9), quoted by Rowland Stout - Action 2 'Two kinds'
	A reaction: This works better for grand large-scale actions than for small ones, like taking the knife out of the drawer before the fork. Kahnemann nowadays tells us that the reasons we articulate might not be the ones that are operative.

21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 2. Aesthetic Attitude

18552	Forget about beauty; just concentrate on the virtues of delicacy and discernment admired in critics [Hume, by Scruton]
	Full Idea: Hume suggest we get away from the fruitless discussion of beauty, and simply concentrate on the qualities we admire, and ought to admire, in a critic - qualities such as delicacy and discernment.
	From: report of David Hume (Of the standard of taste [1757]) by Roger Scruton - Beauty: a very short introduction 6
	A reaction: We might wonder how you can admire 'discernment' without some view of the thing being discern, which is in danger of being beauty. How do you judge delicacy and discernment without judging the objects of the critic's taste? Mere authority?

21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 3. Taste

6608	Strong sense, delicate sentiment, practice, comparisons, and lack of prejudice, are all needed for good taste [Hume]
	Full Idea: Strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice, can alone entitle critics to the valuable character of having 'taste'.
	From: David Hume (Of the standard of taste [1757]), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.6
	A reaction: I agree entirely with this, but then I am a very politically incorrect elitist when it comes to taste. It just seems screamingly obvious that professional wine-tasters have a better appreciation of wine than me, and so on for the rest of the arts.