Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'On Motion', 'The Nature of Mathematics' and 'What is Critique?'

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10 ideas

1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 3. Scientism

14782	Philosophy is an experimental science, resting on common experience [Peirce]
	Full Idea: Philosophy, although it uses no microscopes or other apparatus of special observation, is really an experimental science, resting on that experience which is common to us all.
	From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Nature of Mathematics [1898], I)
	A reaction: The 'experimental' either implies that thought-experiments are central to the subject, or that philosophers are discussing the findings of scientists, but at a high level of theory and abstraction. Peirce probably means the latter. I can't disagree.

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 3. Non-Contradiction

14787	Self-contradiction doesn't reveal impossibility; it is inductive impossibility which reveals self-contradiction [Peirce]
	Full Idea: It is an anacoluthon to say that a proposition is impossible because it is self-contradictory. It rather is thought so to appear self-contradictory because the ideal induction has shown it to be impossible.
	From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Nature of Mathematics [1898], III)

5. Theory of Logic / C. Ontology of Logic / 3. If-Thenism

14783	Logic, unlike mathematics, is not hypothetical; it asserts categorical ends from hypothetical means [Peirce]
	Full Idea: Mathematics is purely hypothetical: it produces nothing but conditional propositions. Logic, on the contrary, is categorical in its assertions. True, it is a normative science, and not a mere discovery of what really is. It discovers ends from means.
	From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Nature of Mathematics [1898], II)

6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 6. Logicism / a. Early logicism

14788	Mathematics is close to logic, but is even more abstract [Peirce]
	Full Idea: The whole of the theory of numbers belongs to logic; or rather, it would do so, were it not, as pure mathematics, pre-logical, that is, even more abstract than logic.
	From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Nature of Mathematics [1898], IV)
	A reaction: Peirce seems to flirt with logicism, but rejects in favour of some subtler relationship. I just don't believe that numbers are purely logical entities.

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 1. Possibility

14786	Some logical possibility concerns single propositions, but there is also compatibility between propositions [Peirce]
	Full Idea: Many say everything is logically possible which involves no contradiction. In this sense two contradictory propositions may be severally possible. In the substantive sense, the contradictory of a possible proposition is impossible (if we were omniscient).
	From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Nature of Mathematics [1898], III)

12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 1. Empiricism

14789	Experience is indeed our only source of knowledge, provided we include inner experience [Peirce]
	Full Idea: If Mill says that experience is the only source of any kind of knowledge, I grant it at once, provided only that by experience he means personal history, life. But if he wants me to admit that inner experience is nothing, he asks what cannot be granted.
	From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Nature of Mathematics [1898])
	A reaction: Notice from Idea 14785 that Peirce has ideas in mind, and not just inner experiences like hunger. Empiricism certainly begins to look more plausible if we expand the notion of experience. It must include what we learned from prior experience.

12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 5. Empiricism Critique

14785	The world is one of experience, but experiences are always located among our ideas [Peirce]
	Full Idea: The real world is the world of sensible experience, and it is part of the process of sensible experience to locate its facts in the world of ideas.
	From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Nature of Mathematics [1898], III)
	A reaction: This is the neatest demolition of the sharp dividing line between empiricism and rationalism that I have ever encountered.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / b. Defining ethics

14784	Ethics is the science of aims [Peirce]
	Full Idea: Ethics is the science of aims.
	From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Nature of Mathematics [1898], II)
	A reaction: Intriguing slogan. He is discussing the aims of logic. I think what he means is that ethics is the science of value. 'Science' may be optimistic, but I would sort of agree with his basic idea.

24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 3. Government / a. Government

22236	The big question of the Renaissance was how to govern everything, from the state to children [Foucault]
	Full Idea: How to govern was one of the fundamental question of the fifteenth and sixteenth century. ...How to govern children, the poor and beggars, how to govern the family, a house, how to govern armies, different groups, cities, states, and govern one's self.
	From: Michel Foucault (What is Critique? [1982], p.28), quoted by Johanna Oksala - How to Read Foucault 9
	A reaction: A nice example of Foucault showing how things we take for granted (techniques of control) have been slowly learned, and then taught as standard. Of course, the Romans knew how to govern an army.

27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 1. Relativity / a. Special relativity

12709	Motion is not absolute, but consists in relation [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: In reality motion is not something absolute, but consists in relation.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Motion [1677], A6.4.1968), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 3
	A reaction: It is often thought that motion being relative was invented by Einstein, but Leibniz wholeheartedly embraced 'Galilean relativity', and refused to even consider any absolute concept of motion. Acceleration is a bit trickier than velocity.