8 ideas
| 22334 | Analysis must include definitions, search for simples, concept analysis, and Kant's analysis [Glock] |
| Full Idea: Under 'analysis' a minimum would include the Socratic quest for definitions, Descartes' search for simple natures, the empiricists' psychological resolution of complex ideas, and Kant's 'transcendental' analysis of our cognitive capacities. | |
| From: Hans-Johann Glock (What is Analytic Philosophy? [2008], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: This has always struck me, and I find the narrow focus on modern logic a very distorted idea of the larger project. The aim, I think, is to understand by taking things apart, in the spirit of figuring out how a watch works. |
| 8463 | Maths can be reduced to logic and set theory [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Researches in the foundations of mathematics have made it clear that all of (interpreted) mathematics can be got down to logic and set theory, and the objects needed for mathematics can be got down to the category of classes (and classes of classes..). | |
| From: Willard Quine (The Scope and Language of Science [1954], §VI) | |
| A reaction: This I take to be a retreat from pure logicism, presumably influenced by Gödel. So can set theory be reduced to logic? Crispin Wright is the one the study. |
| 8461 | The category of objects incorporates the old distinction of substances and their modes [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The category of objects embraces indiscriminately what would anciently have been distinguished as substances and as modes or states of substances. | |
| From: Willard Quine (The Scope and Language of Science [1954], §6) | |
| A reaction: This nicely captures Quine's elimination of properties, by presenting them as inseparable from their objects/substances. Armstrong calls this 'Ostrich Nominalism' (for refusing to address the universals problem) but Quineans are unshaken. |
| 22332 | German and British idealism is not about individual ideas, but the intelligibility of reality [Glock] |
| Full Idea: Neither German nor British Idealism reduced reality to episodes in the minds of individuals. Instsead, they insisted that reality is intelligible only because it is a manifestation of a divine spirit or rational principle. | |
| From: Hans-Johann Glock (What is Analytic Philosophy? [2008], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: They standardly reject Berkeley. Such Idealism seems either to be the design argument for God's existence, or neo-Stoicism (in its claim that nature is rational). Why not just say that nature seems to be intelligible, and stop there? |
| 8130 | Qualities of experience are just representational aspects of experience ('Representationalism') [Harman, by Burge] |
| Full Idea: Harman defended what came to be known as 'representationalism' - the view that qualitative aspects of experience are nothing other than representational aspects. | |
| From: report of Gilbert Harman (The Intrinsic Quality of Experience [1990]) by Tyler Burge - Philosophy of Mind: 1950-2000 p.459 | |
| A reaction: Functionalists like Harman have a fairly intractable problem with the qualities of experience, and this may be clutching at straws. What does 'represent' mean? How is the representation achieved? Why that particular quale? |
| 8462 | A hallucination can, like an ague, be identified with its host; the ontology is physical, the idiom mental [Quine] |
| Full Idea: A physical ontology has a place for states of mind. An inspiration or a hallucination can, like the fit of ague, be identified with its host for the duration. It leaves our mentalistic idioms fairly intact, but reconciles them with a physical ontology. | |
| From: Willard Quine (The Scope and Language of Science [1954], §VI) | |
| A reaction: Quine is employing the same strategy that he uses for substances and properties (Idea 8461): take the predication as basic, rather than reifying the thing being predicated. The ague analogy suggests that Quine is an incipient functionalist. |
| 22336 | We might say that the family resemblance is just a consequence of meaning-as-use [Glock] |
| Full Idea: Against Wittgenstein's family resemblance view one might evoke his own idea that the meaning of a word is its use, and that diversity of use entails diversity of meaning. | |
| From: Hans-Johann Glock (What is Analytic Philosophy? [2008], 8.2) | |
| A reaction: Wittgenstein might just accept the point. Diversity of concepts reflects diversity of usage. But how do you distinguish 'football is a game' from 'oy, what's your game?'. How does usage distinguish metaphorical from literal (if it does)? |
| 22335 | The variety of uses of 'game' may be that it has several meanings, and isn't a single concept [Glock] |
| Full Idea: The proper conclusion to draw from the fact that we explain 'game' in a variety of different ways is that it is not a univocal term, but has different, albeit related, meanings. | |
| From: Hans-Johann Glock (What is Analytic Philosophy? [2008], 8.2) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Rundle 1990] Potter says Wittgenstein insisted that 'game' is a single concept. 'Game' certainly slides off into metaphor, as in 'are you playing games with me?'. The multivocal view would still meet family resemblance on a narrower range. |