Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Lectures on the History of Philosophy', 'fragments/reports' and 'What Price Bivalence?'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined

21757	Philosophy is the conceptual essence of the shape of history [Hegel]
	Full Idea: Philosophy is the supreme blossom - the concept - of the entire shape of history, the consciousness and the spiritual essence of the whole situation, the spirit of the age as the spirit present and aware of itself in thought.
	From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the History of Philosophy [1830], p.25), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 01
	A reaction: This sees philosophy as intrinsically historical, which is a founding idea for 'continental' philosophy. Analysis is tied to science, in which the history of the subject is seen as irrelevant to its truth. Does this mean we can't go back to Aristotle?

5. Theory of Logic / D. Assumptions for Logic / 1. Bivalence

19043	Bivalence applies not just to sentences, but that general terms are true or false of each object [Quine]
	Full Idea: It is in the spirit of bivalence not just to treat each closed sentence as true or false; as Frege stressed, each general term must be definitely true or false of each object, specificiable or not.
	From: Willard Quine (What Price Bivalence? [1981], p.36)
	A reaction: But note that this is only the 'spirit' of the thing. If you had (as I do) doubts about whether predicates actually refer to genuine 'properties', you may want to stick to the whole sentence view, and not be so fine-grained.

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / d. Vagueness as linguistic

19042	Terms learned by ostension tend to be vague, because that must be quick and unrefined [Quine]
	Full Idea: A term is apt to be vague if it is to be learned by ostension, since its applicability must admit of being judged on the spot and so cannot hinge of fine distinctions laboriously drawn.
	From: Willard Quine (What Price Bivalence? [1981], p.32)
	A reaction: [Quine cites C. Wright for this] Presumably precision can steadily increased by repeated ostension. After the first 'dog' it's pretty vague; after hundreds of them we are pretty clear about it. Long observation of borderline 'clouds' could do the same.

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues

6004	The cardinal virtues are theoretical (based on knowledge), and others are 'non-theoretical' [Hecato, by Dorandi]
	Full Idea: Hecato defined the cardinal virtues as 'theoretical', that is, based on knowledge, and to these he opposed those that are 'non-theoretical', for example, health, beauty, strength of spirit, and courage.
	From: report of Hecato (fragments/reports [c.70 BCE]) by Tiziano Dorandi - Hecato of Rhodes
	A reaction: Mostly these are Aristotle's external and non-external virtues, except that courage is here included among the former, implying, presumably, that it is more of a natural gift than an intellectual achievement.