53 ideas
| 22216 | Phenomenology studies different types of correlation between consciousness and its objects [Husserl, by Bernet] |
| Full Idea: Husserl's phenomenology is the science of the intentional correlation of acts of consciousness with their objects and it studies the ways in which different kinds of objects involve different kinds of correlation with different kinds of acts. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.198 | |
| A reaction: I notice he uncritically accepts Husserl's description of it as a 'science'. My naive question is how you would distinguish one kind of 'correlation' from another. |
| 21217 | Phenomenology needs absolute reflection, without presuppositions [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: Phenomenology demands the most perfect freedom from presuppositions and, concerning itself, an absolute reflective insight. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], III.1.063), quoted by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 3.1 | |
| A reaction: As an outsider, I would have thought that the whole weight of modern continental philosophy is entirely opposed to the aspiration to think without presuppositions. |
| 22218 | There can only be a science of fluctuating consciousness if it focuses on stable essences [Husserl, by Bernet] |
| Full Idea: How can there be a science of a Heraclitean flux of acts of consciousness? Husserl answers that this is possible only if these acts are described in respect of their invariant or essential structure. This is an 'eidetic' scence of 'pure' psychology. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.199 | |
| A reaction: This is his phenomenology in 1913, which Bernet describes as 'static'. Husserl later introduced time with his 'genetic' version of phenomenology, looking at the sources of experience (and then at history). Essentialism seems to be intuitive. |
| 22217 | Phenomenology aims to validate objects, on the basis of intentional intuitive experience [Husserl, by Bernet] |
| Full Idea: Husserl's goal is to account for the validity, the 'being-true', of objects on the basis of the way in which they are given or constituted. ...Experiences more suitable for guaranteeing objects are those which both intend and intuitively apprehend them. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.199 | |
| A reaction: [compressed] In the light of previous scepticism and idealism, the project sounds a bit optimistic. If there is a gulf between mind and world it can only be bridged by 'reaching out' from both sides. This is a mind-sided attempt. |
| 22219 | Husserl saw transcendental phenomenology as idealist, in its construction of objects [Husserl, by Bernet] |
| Full Idea: Phenomeonology is 'transcendental' in describing the correlation between phenomena and intentional objects, to show how their meaning and validity are constructed. Husserl gave this process an idealist interpretation (which Heidegger criticised). | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.200 | |
| A reaction: [compressed] If the actions which produce our concepts of objects all take place 'behind' phenomenal consciousness, then it is hard to avoid sliding into some sort of idealism. It encourages direct realism about perception. |
| 22204 | Start philosophising with no preconceptions, from the intuitively non-theoretical self-given [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: Where other philosophers ...start from unclarified, ungrounded preconceptions, we start out from that which antedates all standpoints: from the totality of the intuitively self-given which is prior to any theorising reflexion. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.2.020) | |
| A reaction: This is the great aim of Phenomenology, which is obviously inspired by Hegel's similar desire to start from nothing. Hegel starts from a concept ('nothing'), but Husserl starts from raw experience. I suspect both approaches are idle dreams. |
| 22207 | Epoché or 'bracketing' is refraining from judgement, even when some truths are certain [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: In relation to every thesis we can use this peculiar epoché (the phenomenon of 'bracketing' or 'disconnecting'), a certain refraining from judgment which is compatible with the unshaken and unshakable because self-evidencing conviction of Truth. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.1.031) | |
| A reaction: This is the crucial first step of Phenomenology. It seems to me that it is best described as 'methodological scepticism'. People actually practise it all the time, while they focus on some experience, while trying to forget preconceptions. |
| 22208 | 'Bracketing' means no judgements at all about spatio-temporal existence [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: I use the 'phenomenological' epoché, which completely bars me from using any judgment that concerns spatio-temporal existence. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.1.032) | |
| A reaction: This makes bracketing (or epoché) into a sort of voluntary idealism. Put like that, it is hard to see what benefits it could bring. I am, you will notice, a pretty thorough sceptic about the project of phenomenology. What has it taught us? |
| 22210 | After everything is bracketed, consciousness still has a unique being of its own [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: We fix our eyes steadily upon the sphere of Consciousness and study what it is that we find immanent in it. ...Consciousness in itself has a being of its own which in its absolute uniqueness of nature remains unaffected by disconnection. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.2.033) | |
| A reaction: 'Disconnection' is his 'bracketing'. He makes it sound obvious, but Schopenhauer entirely disagrees with him, and I have no idea how to arbitrate. I struggle to grasp consciousness once nature has been bracketed, but have little luck. Is it Da-sein? |
| 22215 | Phenomenology describes consciousness, in the light of pure experiences [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: Phenomenology is a pure descriptive discipline which studies the whole field of pure transcendental consciousness in the light of pure intuition. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.4.059) | |
| A reaction: When he uses the word 'pure' three times in a sentence, each applied to a different thing, you begin to wonder precisely what it means. Strictly speaking, I would probably only apply 'pure' to abstracta, and never to experiences or reality.115 |
| 22201 | The use of mathematical-style definitions in philosophy is fruitless and harmful [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: Definition cannot take the same form in philosophy as it does in mathematics; the imitation of mathematical procedure is invariably in this respect not only unfruitful, but perverse and most harmful in its consequences. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], Intro) | |
| A reaction: A hundred years of analytic philosophy has entirely ignored this warning. My heart has always sunk when I read '=def...' in a philosophy article (which is usually American). The illusion of rigour. |
| 9542 | The best known axiomatization of PL is Whitehead/Russell, with four axioms and two rules [Russell/Whitehead, by Hughes/Cresswell] |
| Full Idea: The best known axiomatization of PL is Whitehead/Russell. There are four axioms: (p∨p)→p, q→(p∨q), (p→q)→(q∨p), and (q→r)→((p∨q)→(p∨r)), plus Substitution and Modus Ponens rules. | |
| From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by GE Hughes/M Cresswell - An Introduction to Modal Logic Ch.1 |
| 21720 | Russell saw Reducibility as legitimate for reducing classes to logic [Linsky,B on Russell/Whitehead] |
| Full Idea: The axiom of Reducibility ...is crucial in the reduction of classes to logic, ...and seems to be a quite legitimate logical notion for Russell. | |
| From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 6.4 | |
| A reaction: This is an unusual defence of the axiom, which is usually presumed to have been kicked into the long grass by Quine. If one could reduce classes to logic, that would destroy the opposition to logicism in a single neat coup. |
| 10044 | Russell denies extensional sets, because the null can't be a collection, and the singleton is just its element [Russell/Whitehead, by Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Russell adduces two reasons against the extensional view of classes, namely the existence of the null class (which cannot very well be a collection), and the unit classes (which would have to be identical with their single elements). | |
| From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Stewart Shapiro - Structure and Ontology p.459 | |
| A reaction: Gödel believes in the reality of classes. I have great sympathy with Russell, when people start to claim that sets are not just conveniences to help us think about things, but actual abstract entities. Is the singleton of my pencil is on this table? |
| 18208 | We regard classes as mere symbolic or linguistic conveniences [Russell/Whitehead] |
| Full Idea: Classes, so far as we introduce them, are merely symbolic or linguistic conveniences, not genuine objects. | |
| From: B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.72), quoted by Penelope Maddy - Naturalism in Mathematics III.2 |
| 8204 | Lewis's 'strict implication' preserved Russell's confusion of 'if...then' with implication [Quine on Russell/Whitehead] |
| Full Idea: Russell call 'if...then' implication, when the material conditional is a much better account; C.I.Lewis (in founding modern modal logic) preserved Russell's confusion by creating 'strict implication', and called that implication. | |
| From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Willard Quine - Reply to Professor Marcus p.177 | |
| A reaction: [A compession of Quine's paragraph]. All of this assumes that logicians can give an accurate account of what if...then means, when ordinary usage is broad and vague. Strict implication seems to drain all the normal meaning out of 'if...then'. |
| 9359 | Russell's implication means that random sentences imply one another [Lewis,CI on Russell/Whitehead] |
| Full Idea: In Mr Russell's idea of implication, if twenty random sentences from a newspaper were put in a hat, and two of them drawn at random, one will certainly imply the other, and it is an even bet the implication will be mutual. | |
| From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by C.I. Lewis - A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori p.366 | |
| A reaction: This sort of lament leads modern logicians to suggest 'relevance' as an important criterion. It certainly seems odd that so-called 'classical logic' should contain a principle so at variance with everyday reasoning. |
| 21707 | Russell unusually saw logic as 'interpreted' (though very general, and neutral) [Russell/Whitehead, by Linsky,B] |
| Full Idea: Russell did not view logic as an uninterpreted calculus awaiting interpretations [the modern view]. Rather, logic is a single 'interpreted' body of a priori truths, of propositions rather than sentence forms - but maximally general and topic neutral. | |
| From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 1 | |
| A reaction: This is the view which Wittgenstein challenged, saying logic is just conventional. Linsky claims that Russell's logicism is much more plausible, once you understand his view of logic. |
| 10036 | In 'Principia' a new abstract theory of relations appeared, and was applied [Russell/Whitehead, by Gödel] |
| Full Idea: In 'Principia' a young science was enriched with a new abstract theory of relations, ..and not only Cantor's set theory but also ordinary arithmetic and the theory of measurement are treated from this abstract relational standpoint. | |
| From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Kurt Gödel - Russell's Mathematical Logic p.448 | |
| A reaction: I presume this is accounting for relations in terms of ordered sets. |
| 10245 | One geometry cannot be more true than another [Poincaré] |
| Full Idea: One geometry cannot be more true than another; it can only be more convenient. | |
| From: Henri Poincaré (Science and Method [1908], p.65), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics | |
| A reaction: This is the culminating view after new geometries were developed by tinkering with Euclid's parallels postulate. |
| 18248 | A real number is the class of rationals less than the number [Russell/Whitehead, by Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: For Russell the real number 2 is the class of rationals less than 2 (i.e. 2/1). ...Notice that on this definition, real numbers are classes of rational numbers. | |
| From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Stewart Shapiro - Thinking About Mathematics 5.2 |
| 18152 | Russell takes numbers to be classes, but then reduces the classes to numerical quantifiers [Russell/Whitehead, by Bostock] |
| Full Idea: Although Russell takes numbers to be certain classes, his 'no-class' theory then eliminates all mention of classes in favour of the 'propositional functions' that define them; and in the case of the numbers these just are the numerical quantifiers. | |
| From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by David Bostock - Philosophy of Mathematics 9.B.4 |
| 10037 | 'Principia' lacks a precise statement of the syntax [Gödel on Russell/Whitehead] |
| Full Idea: What is missing, above all, in 'Principia', is a precise statement of the syntax of the formalism. | |
| From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Kurt Gödel - Russell's Mathematical Logic p.448 |
| 10025 | Russell and Whitehead took arithmetic to be higher-order logic [Russell/Whitehead, by Hodes] |
| Full Idea: Russell and Whitehead took arithmetic to be higher-order logic, ..and came close to identifying numbers with numerical quantifiers. | |
| From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Harold Hodes - Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic p.148 | |
| A reaction: The point here is 'higher-order'. |
| 8683 | Russell and Whitehead were not realists, but embraced nearly all of maths in logic [Russell/Whitehead, by Friend] |
| Full Idea: Unlike Frege, Russell and Whitehead were not realists about mathematical objects, and whereas Frege thought that only arithmetic and analysis are branches of logic, they think the vast majority of mathematics (including geometry) is essentially logical. | |
| From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 3.1 | |
| A reaction: If, in essence, Descartes reduced geometry to algebra (by inventing co-ordinates), then geometry ought to be included. It is characteristic of Russell's hubris to want to embrace everything. |
| 10093 | The ramified theory of types used propositional functions, and covered bound variables [Russell/Whitehead, by George/Velleman] |
| Full Idea: Russell and Whitehead's ramified theory of types worked not with sets, but with propositional functions (similar to Frege's concepts), with a more restrictive assignment of variables, insisting that bound, as well as free, variables be of lower type. | |
| From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by A.George / D.J.Velleman - Philosophies of Mathematics Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: I don't fully understand this (and no one seems much interested any more), but I think variables are a key notion, and there is something interesting going on here. I am intrigued by ordinary language which behaves like variables. |
| 8691 | The Russell/Whitehead type theory was limited, and was not really logic [Friend on Russell/Whitehead] |
| Full Idea: The Russell/Whitehead type theory reduces mathematics to a consistent founding discipline, but is criticised for not really being logic. They could not prove the existence of infinite sets, and introduced a non-logical 'axiom of reducibility'. | |
| From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 3.6 | |
| A reaction: To have reduced most of mathematics to a founding discipline sounds like quite an achievement, and its failure to be based in pure logic doesn't sound too bad. However, it seems to reduce some maths to just other maths. |
| 10305 | In 'Principia Mathematica', logic is exceeded in the axioms of infinity and reducibility, and in the domains [Bernays on Russell/Whitehead] |
| Full Idea: In the system of 'Principia Mathematica', it is not only the axioms of infinity and reducibility which go beyond pure logic, but also the initial conception of a universal domain of individuals and of a domain of predicates. | |
| From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.267) by Paul Bernays - On Platonism in Mathematics p.267 | |
| A reaction: This sort of criticism seems to be the real collapse of the logicist programme, rather than Russell's paradox, or Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems. It just became impossible to stick strictly to logic in the reduction of arithmetic. |
| 8684 | Russell and Whitehead consider the paradoxes to indicate that we create mathematical reality [Russell/Whitehead, by Friend] |
| Full Idea: Russell and Whitehead are particularly careful to avoid paradox, and consider the paradoxes to indicate that we create mathematical reality. | |
| From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 3.1 | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as quite a good argument. It is certainly counterintuitive that reality, and abstractions from reality, would contain contradictions. The realist view would be that we have paradoxes because we have misdescribed the facts. |
| 8746 | To avoid vicious circularity Russell produced ramified type theory, but Ramsey simplified it [Russell/Whitehead, by Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Russell insisted on the vicious circle principle, and thus rejected impredicative definitions, which resulted in an unwieldy ramified type theory, with the ad hoc axiom of reducibility. Ramsey's simpler theory was impredicative and avoided the axiom. | |
| From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Stewart Shapiro - Thinking About Mathematics 5.2 | |
| A reaction: Nowadays the theory of types seems to have been given up, possibly because it has no real attraction if it lacks the strict character which Russell aspired to. |
| 22209 | Our goal is to reveal a new hidden region of Being [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: We could refer to our goal as the winning of a new region of Being, the distinctive character of which has not yet been defined. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.2.033) | |
| A reaction: The obvious fruit of this idea, I would think, is Heidegger's concept of Da-sein, which claims to be a distinctively human region of Being. I'm not sure I can cope with the claim that Being itself (a very broad-brush term) has hidden regions. |
| 22211 | As a thing and its perception are separated, two modes of Being emerge [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: We are left with the transcendence of the thing over against the perception of it, ...and thus a basic and essential difference arises between Being as Experience and Being as Thing. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.2.042) | |
| A reaction: I'm thinking that this is not just the germ of Heidegger's concept of Da-sein, but it actually IS his concept, without the label. Husserl had said that he hoped to reveal a new region of Being. |
| 22202 | The World is all experiencable objects [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: The World is the totality of objects that can be known through experience. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.1.001) | |
| A reaction: I think this is the 'Nature' which has to be 'bracketed', when pursuing Phenomenology. It sounds like anti-realist empiricism, which has no place for unobservables. |
| 22213 | Absolute reality is an absurdity [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: An absolute reality is just as valid as a round square. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.3.055) | |
| A reaction: Husserl distances himself from 'Berkeleyian' idealism, but his discussion keeps flirting with, perhaps in some sort of have-your-cake-and-eat-it Hegelian way. Perhaps it is close to Dummett's Anti-Realism. |
| 21218 | The sense of anything contingent has a purely apprehensible essence or Eidos [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: It belongs to the sense of anything contingent to have an essence and therefore an Eidos which can be apprehended purely. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.1.002), quoted by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 3.2.2 | |
| A reaction: This is the quirky idea that we can know necessary categorial essences a priori, even if the category is currently empty. Crops us in Lowe. Husserl says grasping the corresponding individuals must be possible. Third Man question. |
| 19263 | Imagine an object's properties varying; the ones that won't vary are the essential ones [Husserl, by Vaidya] |
| Full Idea: Husserl's 'eidetic variation' implies that we can judge the essential properties of an object by varying the properties of the object in imagination, and seeing which vary and which do not. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Anand Vaidya - Understanding and Essence 'Knowledge' | |
| A reaction: The problem with this is that there are trivial or highly general necessary properties which are obviously not essential to the thing. Vaidya says [822] you can't perform the experiment without prior knowledge of the essence. |
| 12033 | An object is identical with itself, and no different indiscernible object can share that [Russell/Whitehead, by Adams,RM] |
| Full Idea: Trivially, the Identity of Indiscernibles says that two individuals, Castor and Pollux, cannot have all properties in common. For Castor must have the properties of being identical with Castor and not being identical with Pollux, which Pollux can't share. | |
| From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], I p.57) by Robert Merrihew Adams - Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity 2 | |
| A reaction: I suspect that either the property of being identical with itself is quite vacuous, or it is parasytic on primitive identity, or it is the criterion which is actually used to define identity. Either way, I don't find this claim very illuminating. |
| 21220 | The physical given, unlike the mental given, could be non-existing [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: Anything physical which is given in person can be non-existing, no mental process which is given in person can be non-existing. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.2.046), quoted by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 3.3.5 | |
| A reaction: This endorsement of Descartes shows how strong the influence of the Cogito remained in later continental philosophy. Phenomenology is a footnote to Descartes. |
| 22205 | Feelings of self-evidence (and necessity) are just the inventions of theory [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: So-called feelings of self-evidence, of intellectual necessity, and however they may otherwise be called, are just theoretically invented feelings. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.2.021) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a dismissal of the a priori necessary on the grounds that it is 'theory-laden' - which is why it has to be bracketed in order to do phenomenology. |
| 21221 | Direct 'seeing' by consciousness is the ultimate rational legitimation [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: Immediate 'seeing', not merely sensuous, experiential seeing, but seeing in the universal sense as an originally presenting consciousness of any kind whatsoever, is the ultimate legitimising source of all rational assertions. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.2.019), quoted by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 3.3.5 | |
| A reaction: Husserl is (I gather from this) a classic rationalist. Just like Descartes' judgement of the molten wax. |
| 10040 | Russell showed, through the paradoxes, that our basic logical intuitions are self-contradictory [Russell/Whitehead, by Gödel] |
| Full Idea: By analyzing the paradoxes to which Cantor's set theory had led, ..Russell brought to light the amazing fact that our logical intuitions (concerning such notions as truth, concept, being, class) are self-contradictory. | |
| From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Kurt Gödel - Russell's Mathematical Logic p.452 | |
| A reaction: The main intuition that failed was, I take it, that every concept has an extension, that is, there are always objects which will or could fall under the concept. |
| 22220 | The phenomena of memory are given in the present, but as being past [Husserl, by Bernet] |
| Full Idea: In Husserl's phenomenology, the intentional object of a memory is the object of a past experience, which is intuitively given to me in the present, not, however, as being present but as being past. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.203 | |
| A reaction: I certainly don't have to assess my mental events, and judge which are past, which are now, and which are future imaginings. I suppose Fodor would say they are memories because we find them in the memory-box. How else could it work? |
| 22206 | Natural science has become great by just ignoring ancient scepticism [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: Natural science has grown to greatness by pushing ruthlessly aside the rank growth of ancient skepticism and renouncing the attempt to conquer it. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.2.026) | |
| A reaction: This may be because scepticism is boring, or it may be because science 'brackets' scepticism, leaving philosophers to worry about it. |
| 22221 | We know another's mind via bodily expression, while also knowing it is inaccessible [Husserl, by Bernet] |
| Full Idea: Another person's consciousness is given to me through the expressive stratum of her body, which gives me access to her experience while making me realise that it is inaccessible to me. Empathy is a presentation of what is absent. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.203 | |
| A reaction: This is the phenomenological approach to the problem of other minds, by examining the raw experience of encountering another person. It is true that we seem to both know and not know another person's mind when we encounter them. |
| 22212 | Pure consciousness is a sealed off system of actual Being [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: Consciousness, considered in its 'purity', must be reckoned as a self-contained system of Being, a system of actual Being, into which nothing can penetrate, and from which nothing can escape. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.3.049) | |
| A reaction: Recorded without comment, to show that among phenomenologists there is a way of thinking about consciousness which is a long way from analytic discussions of the topic. |
| 22214 | We never meet the Ego, as part of experience, or as left over from experience [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: We never stumble across the pure Ego as an experience within the flux of manifold experiences which survives as transcendental residuum; nor do we meet it as a constitutive bit of experience appearing with the experience of which it is an integral part. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.4.057) | |
| A reaction: It seems that he agrees with David Hume. Sartre's 'Transcendence of the Ego' follows up this idea. However, Husserl goes on to assert the 'necessity' of the permanent Ego, which sounds like Kant's view. |
| 21725 | The multiple relations theory says assertions about propositions are about their ingredients [Russell/Whitehead, by Linsky,B] |
| Full Idea: The multiple relations theory of judgement proposes that assertions about propositions are dependent upon genuine facts involving belief and other attitude relations, subjects of those attitudes, and the constituents of the belief. | |
| From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 7.2 | |
| A reaction: This seems to require a commitment to universals (especially relations) with which we can be directly acquainted. I prefer propositions, but as mental entities, not platonic entities. |
| 23474 | A judgement is a complex entity, of mind and various objects [Russell/Whitehead] |
| Full Idea: When a judgement occurs, there is a certain complex entity, composed of the mind and the various objects of the judgement. | |
| From: B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.44) | |
| A reaction: This is Russell's multiple-relation theory of judgement, which replaced his earlier belief in unified propositions (now 'false abstractions'). He seems to have accepted Locke's view, that the act of judgement produces the unity. |
| 23455 | The meaning of 'Socrates is human' is completed by a judgement [Russell/Whitehead] |
| Full Idea: When I judge 'Socrates is human', the meaning is completed by the act of judging. | |
| From: B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.44), quoted by Michael Morris - Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus | |
| A reaction: Morris says this is Russell's multiple-relations theory of judgement. The theory accompanies the rejection of the concept of the unified proposition. When I hear 'Socrates had a mole on his shoulder' I get the meaning without judging. |
| 23480 | The multiple relation theory of judgement couldn't explain the unity of sentences [Morris,M on Russell/Whitehead] |
| Full Idea: When Russell moved to his multiple relation theory of judgement …he then faced difficulties making sense of the unity of sentences. | |
| From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.44) by Michael Morris - Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus 3A | |
| A reaction: Roughly, he seems committed to saying that there is only unity if you think there is unity; there is no unity in a sentence prior to the act of judgement. |
| 18275 | Only the act of judging completes the meaning of a statement [Russell/Whitehead] |
| Full Idea: When I judge 'Socrates is human', the meaning is completed by the act of judging, and we no longer have an incomplete symbol. | |
| From: B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.44), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap | |
| A reaction: Personally I would have thought that you needed to know the meaning properly before you could make the judgement, but then he is Bertrand Russell and I'm not. |
| 23453 | Propositions as objects of judgement don't exist, because we judge several objects, not one [Russell/Whitehead] |
| Full Idea: A 'proposition', in the sense in which a proposition is supposed to be the object of a judgement, is a false abstraction, because a judgement has several objects, not one. | |
| From: B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.44), quoted by Michael Morris - Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus 2E | |
| A reaction: This is the rejection of the 'Russellian' theory of propositions, in favour of his multiple-relations theory of judgement. But why don't the related objects add up to a proposition about a state of affairs? |
| 22203 | Only facts follow from facts [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: From facts follow always nothing but facts. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.1.008) | |
| A reaction: I presume objective possibilities follow from facts, so this doesn't sound strictly correct. I sounds like a nice slogan for those desiring to keep facts separate from values. [on p.53 he comments on fact/value] |