Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Lectures on the History of Philosophy', 'Nietzsche's Immoralism' and 'A Plea for Substitutional Quantification'

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6 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?

4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 4. Alethic Modal Logic

9470	Modal logic is not an extensional language [Parsons,C]
	Full Idea: Modal logic is not an extensional language.
	From: Charles Parsons (A Plea for Substitutional Quantification [1971], p.159 n8)
	A reaction: [I record this for investigation. Possible worlds seem to contain objects]

5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 4. Substitutional Quantification

9469	Substitutional existential quantifier may explain the existence of linguistic entities [Parsons,C]
	Full Idea: I argue (against Quine) that the existential quantifier substitutionally interpreted has a genuine claim to express a concept of existence, which may give the best account of linguistic abstract entities such as propositions, attributes, and classes.
	From: Charles Parsons (A Plea for Substitutional Quantification [1971], p.156)
	A reaction: Intuitively I have my doubts about this, since the whole thing sounds like a verbal and conventional game, rather than anything with a proper ontology. Ruth Marcus and Quine disagree over this one.

9468	On the substitutional interpretation, '(∃x) Fx' is true iff a closed term 't' makes Ft true [Parsons,C]
	Full Idea: For the substitutional interpretation of quantifiers, a sentence of the form '(∃x) Fx' is true iff there is some closed term 't' of the language such that 'Ft' is true. For the objectual interpretation some object x must exist such that Fx is true.
	From: Charles Parsons (A Plea for Substitutional Quantification [1971], p.156)
	A reaction: How could you decide if it was true for 't' if you didn't know what object 't' referred to?

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / g. Moral responsibility

22474	Unlike aesthetic evaluation, moral evaluation needs a concept of responsibility [Foot]
	Full Idea: Moral, as opposed to aesthetic, evaluation does require some distinction between actions for which we are responsible and those for which we are not responsible.
	From: Philippa Foot (Nietzsche's Immoralism [1991], p.154)
	A reaction: It is hard to disagree with this, but difficult to give a precise account of responsibility, probably because it is not an all-or-nothing matter. If we accept responsibility for our controlled actions, why not for our considered aesthetic judgements?

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / c. Justice

22472	The practice of justice may well need a recognition of human equality [Foot]
	Full Idea: I wonder whether the practice of justice may not absolutely require a certain recognition of equality between human beings, not a pretence of the equality of talents, but something deeper.
	From: Philippa Foot (Nietzsche's Immoralism [1991], p.152)
	A reaction: {My 'something deeper' is expressed by Foot in a quotation from Gertrude Stein]. This may well be the most fundamental division which runs across a society - between those who accept and those reject human equality.