Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Human Flourishing, Ethics and Liberty', 'Reference and Essence: seven appendices' and 'works'

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5 ideas

2. Reason / D. Definition / 1. Definitions

15927	Definition just needs negation, known variables, conjunction, disjunction, substitution and quantification [Weyl, by Lavine]
	Full Idea: For mathematics, Weyl arrived (by 1917) at a satisfactory list of definition principles: negation, identification of variables, conjunction, disjunction, substitution of constants, and existential quantification over the domain.
	From: report of Hermann Weyl (works [1917]) by Shaughan Lavine - Understanding the Infinite V.3
	A reaction: Lavine summarises this as 'first-order logic with parameters'.

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / g. Degrees of vagueness

14742	It can't be indeterminate whether x and y are identical; if x,y is indeterminate, then it isn't x,x [Salmon,N]
	Full Idea: Insofar as identity seems vague, it is provably mistaken. If it is vague whether x and y are identical (as in the Ship of Theseus), then x,y is definitely not the same as x,x, since the first pair is indeterminate and the second pair isn't.
	From: Nathan Salmon (Reference and Essence: seven appendices [2005], App I)
	A reaction: [compressed; Gareth Evans 1978 made a similar point] This strikes me as begging the question in the Ship case, since we are shoehorning the new ship into either the slot for x or the slot for y, but that was what we couldn’t decide. No rough identity?

19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / a. Direct reference

18885	Kripke and Putnam made false claims that direct reference implies essentialism [Salmon,N]
	Full Idea: Kripke and Putnam made unsubstantiated claims, indeed false claims, to the effect that the theory of direct reference has nontrivial essentialist import.
	From: Nathan Salmon (Reference and Essence: seven appendices [2005], Pref to Exp Ed)
	A reaction: Kripke made very few claims, and is probably innocent of the charge. Most people agree with Salmon that you can't derive metaphysics from a theory of reference.

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / d. Good as virtue

5121	Basing ethics on flourishing makes it consequentialist, as actions are judged by contributing to it [Harman]
	Full Idea: Basing ethics on human flourishing tends towards utilitarianism or consequentialism; actions, character traits, laws, and so on are to be assessed with reference to their contributions to human flourishing.
	From: Gilbert Harman (Human Flourishing, Ethics and Liberty [1983], 9.2.2)
	A reaction: This raises the question of whether only virtue can contribute to flourishing, or whether a bit of vice might be helpful. This problem presumably pushed the Stoics to say that virtue itself is the good, rather than the resulting flourishing.

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / b. Eudaimonia

5120	What counts as 'flourishing' must be relative to various sets of values [Harman]
	Full Idea: If we base our ethics on human flourishing, one implication would seem to be moral relativism, since what counts as 'flourishing' seems inevitably relative to one or other set of values.
	From: Gilbert Harman (Human Flourishing, Ethics and Liberty [1983], 9.2.1)
	A reaction: This remark seems to make the relativist assumption that all value systems are equal. For Aristotle, flourishing is no more relative than health is. No one can assert that illness has an intrinsically high value in human life.