21757
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Philosophy is the conceptual essence of the shape of history [Hegel]
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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.
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From:
Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the History of Philosophy [1830], p.25), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 01
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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?
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10438
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Definite descriptions are usually rigid in subject, but not in predicate, position [Sainsbury]
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Full Idea:
Definite descriptions used with referential intentions (usually in subject position) are normally rigid, ..but in predicate position they are normally not rigid, because there is no referential intention.
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From:
Mark Sainsbury (The Essence of Reference [2006], 18.5)
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A reaction:
'The man in the blue suit is the President' seems to fit, but 'The President is the head of state' doesn't. Seems roughly right, but language is always too complex for philosophers.
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9381
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If some inferences are needed to fix meaning, but we don't know which, they are all relevant [Fodor/Lepore, by Boghossian]
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Full Idea:
The Master Argument for linguistic holism is: Some of an expression's inferences are relevant to fixing its meaning; there is no way to distinguish the inferences that are constitutive (from Quine); so all inferences are relevant to fixing meaning.
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From:
report of J Fodor / E Lepore (Holism: a Shopper's Guide [1993], §III) by Paul Boghossian - Analyticity Reconsidered
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A reaction:
This would only be if you thought that the pattern of inferences is what fixes the meanings, but how can you derive inferences before you have meanings? The underlying language of thought generates the inferences? Meanings are involved!
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10431
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Things are thought to have a function, even when they can't perform them [Sainsbury]
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Full Idea:
On one common use of the notion of a function, something can possess a function which it does not, or even cannot, perform. A malformed heart is to pump blood, even if such a heart cannot in fact pump blood.
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From:
Mark Sainsbury (The Essence of Reference [2006], 18.2)
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A reaction:
One might say that the heart in a dead body had the function of pumping blood, but does it still have that function? Do I have the function of breaking the world 100 metres record, even though I can't quite manage it? Not that simple.
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