53 ideas
| 6118 | Philosophy is logical analysis, followed by synthesis [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The business of philosophy, as I conceive it, is essentially that of logical analysis, followed by logical synthesis. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.162) | |
| A reaction: I am uneasy about Russell's hopes for the contribution that logic could make, but I totally agree that analysis is the route to wisdom, and I take Aristotle as my role model of an analytical philosopher, rather than the modern philosophers of logic. |
| 6116 | A logical language would show up the fallacy of inferring reality from ordinary language [Russell] |
| Full Idea: We are trying to create a perfectly logical language to prevent inferences from the nature of language to the nature of the world, which are fallacious because they depend upon the logical defects of language. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.159) | |
| A reaction: Wittgenstein seems to have rebelled against this idea, so that one strand of his later philosophy leads to 'ordinary language' philosophy, which is exactly what Russell is criticising. Wittgenstein seems to have seen 'logical language' as an oxymoron. |
| 6117 | Philosophy should be built on science, to reduce error [Russell] |
| Full Idea: We would be wise to build our philosophy upon science, because the risk of error in philosophy is pretty sure to be greater than in science. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.160) | |
| A reaction: If you do very little, it reduces the 'risk of error'. I agree that philosophers should start from the facts, and be responsive to new facts, and that science is excellent at discovering facts. But I don't think cognitive science is the new epistemology. |
| 6110 | Subject-predicate logic (and substance-attribute metaphysics) arise from Aryan languages [Russell] |
| Full Idea: It is doubtful whether the subject-predicate logic, with the substance-attribute metaphysic, would have been invented by people speaking a non-Aryan language. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.151) | |
| A reaction: This is not far off the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (e.g. Idea 3917), which Russell would never accept. I presume that Russell would see true logic as running deeper, and the 'Aryan' approach as just one possible way to describe it. |
| 6107 | It is logic, not metaphysics, that is fundamental to philosophy [Russell] |
| Full Idea: I hold that logic is what is fundamental in philosophy, and that schools should be characterised rather by their logic than by their metaphysics. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.143) | |
| A reaction: Personally I disagree. Russell seems to have been most interested in the logical form underlying language, but that seems to be because he was interested in the ontological implications of what we say, which is metaphysics. |
| 6115 | Vagueness, and simples being beyond experience, are obstacles to a logical language [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The fact that we do not experience simples is one obstacle to the actual creation of a correct logical language, and vagueness is another. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.159) | |
| A reaction: The dream of creating a perfect logical language looks doomed from the start, but it is a very interesting project to try to pinpoint why it is unlikely to be possible. I say a perfect language cuts nature exactly at the joints, so find the joints. |
| 6109 | Some axioms may only become accepted when they lead to obvious conclusions [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Some of the premisses (of my logicist theory) are much less obvious than some of their consequences, and are believed chiefly because of their consequences. This will be found to be always the case when a science is arranged as a deductive system. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.145) | |
| A reaction: We shouldn't assume the model of self-evident axioms leading to surprising conclusions, which is something like the standard model for rationalist foundationalists. Russell nicely points out that the situation could be just the opposite |
| 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. |
| 6108 | Maths can be deduced from logical axioms and the logic of relations [Russell] |
| Full Idea: I think that no one will dispute that from certain ideas and axioms of formal logic, but with the help of the logic of relations, all pure mathematics can be deduced. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.145) | |
| A reaction: It has been said for a long time that Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems of 1930 disproved this claim, though recently there have been defenders of logicism. Beginning with 'certain ideas' sounds like begging the question. |
| 10968 | Russell gave up logical atomism because of negative, general and belief propositions [Russell, by Read] |
| Full Idea: Russell preceded Wittgenstein in deciding that the reduction of all propositions to atomic propositions could not be achieved. The problem cases were negative propositions, general propositions, and belief propositions. | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924]) by Stephen Read - Thinking About Logic Ch.1 |
| 6113 | To mean facts we assert them; to mean simples we name them [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The way to mean a fact is to assert it; the way to mean a simple is to name it. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.156) | |
| A reaction: Thus logical atomism is a linguistic programme, of reducing our language to a foundation of pure names. The recent thought of McDowell and others is aimed at undermining any possibility of a 'simple' in perception. The myth of 'The Given'. |
| 6114 | 'Simples' are not experienced, but are inferred at the limits of analysis [Russell] |
| Full Idea: When I speak of 'simples' I am speaking of something not experienced as such, but known only inferentially as the limits of analysis. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.158) | |
| A reaction: He claims that the simples are 'known', so he does not mean purely theoretical entities. They have something like the status of quarks in physics, whose existence is inferred from experience. |
| 21722 | Better to construct from what is known, than to infer what is unknown [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Whenever possible, substitute constructions out of known entities for inferences to unknown entities. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.161), quoted by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 7 | |
| A reaction: In 1919 he said that the alternative, of 'postulating' new entities, has 'all the advantages of theft over honest toil' [IMP p.71]. This is Russell's commitment to 'constructing' everything, even his concept of matter. Arithmetic as PA is postulation. |
| 6111 | As propositions can be put in subject-predicate form, we wrongly infer that facts have substance-quality form [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Since any proposition can be put into a form with a subject and a predicate, united by a copula, it is natural to infer that every fact consists in the possession of a quality by a substance, which seems to me a mistake. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.152) | |
| A reaction: This disagrees with McGinn on facts (Idea 6075). I approve of this warning from Russell, which is a recognition that we can't just infer our metaphysics from our language. I think of this as the 'Frege Fallacy', which ensnared Quine and others. |
| 23101 | Intuitions don't prove things; they just receptivity to interpretations [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Appeal to intuitions cannot prove or disprove anything. They merely create receptivity to particular interpretations of particular cases. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 04.3) | |
| A reaction: A nice point, but more is needed. A gun to the head can create receptivity. What distinguishes good from bad intuitions? Why are intuitions different from mere whims or hopes? |
| 6112 | Meaning takes many different forms, depending on different logical types [Russell] |
| Full Idea: There is not one relation of meaning between words and what they stand for, but as many relations of meaning, each of a different logical type, as there are logical types among the objects for which there are words. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.153) | |
| A reaction: This might be a good warning for those engaged in the externalist/internalist debate over the meaning of concepts such as natural kind terms like 'water'. I could have an external meaning for 'elms', but an internal meaning for 'ferns'. |
| 23086 | Liberals say we are only responsible for fully autonomous actions [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: The liberal view is that people can be held responsible only for actions that are in their control: actions that reflect the agents' unforced choices, evaluations, and understanding of their significance - that is, autonomous actions. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 01.5) | |
| A reaction: Kekes, who is a somewhat right wing anti-liberal, thinks people should be mainly held responsible for the consequences, unless they have a very good excuse. |
| 23100 | Collective responsibility conflicts with responsibility's requirement of authonomy [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: The ascription of collective responsibility is inconsistent with …the belief that people should be held responsible for only their own autonomous actions. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 04) | |
| A reaction: The autonomy would need to be displaced, from the decision to act to the decision of identify with the organisation. But if you invest in an evil group you are responsible for actions you never even knew occurred (never mind autonomy). |
| 23093 | Moral and causal responsibility are not clearly distinct [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Moral and causal responsibility cannot be distinguished as clearly as the liberal strategy requires. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.2) | |
| A reaction: I take assessment to be a two-stage operation. It is usually easy to assign causal responsibility. Moral responsibiity is quite different. Our negligence can make us morally responsible for an event we didn’t cause. |
| 23096 | Morality should aim to prevent all evil actions, not just autonomous ones [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: If one main task of morality is to prevent evil, then morality must be concerned with all evil-producing actions, not just autonomous ones. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: Hm. Is placing a railing next to a flight of steps a moral action? Possibly. |
| 23087 | Much human evil is not autonomous, so moral responsibility need not be autonomous [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: If much evil is due to nonautonomous actions, then liberals cannot be right in idenitfying the domain of moral responsibility with the domain of autonomy. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 02.1) | |
| A reaction: One might evade this anti-liberal thought by making responsibility directly proportional to degree of autonomy. Then the only counterexample would be genuine immorality that is entirely non-autonomous, but is there such a thing? |
| 23098 | Effects show the existence of moral responsibility, and mental states show the degree [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Psychological states are relevant to the degree of an agent's moral responsibility, while the effects of their actions are relevant to whether the agents are liable to moral responsibility. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.5) | |
| A reaction: He has previously offered a problem case for this, where someone's social role makes them fully responsible whatever their mental state. I still think his distinction is helpful. 1) Whose fault is it, then 2) How far are they to blame? Normal practice. |
| 23089 | Evil people may not be autonomously aware, if they misjudge the situation [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Agents who perform evil nonautonomously do not know what they are doing, because they have made a mistake in understanding or evaluating their own conduct. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 02.4) | |
| A reaction: So while liberals say that true evil must be autonomous, Kekes says it may result from factual or evaluative error, for which people are also responsible. |
| 23094 | Ought implies can means moral responsibility needs autonomy [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Ought implies can translates into the claim that only autonomous agents are morally responsible. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: Since Kekes identifies autonomy as the key to liberalism, he sees this also as a basic liberal claim (which he rejects). I ought to ring my mother, but my phone is broken (so I ought not to ring my mother?).. |
| 23095 | Why should moral responsibility depend on autonomy, rather than social role or experience? [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Why should moral responsibility be made to depend on autonomy, rather than on intelligence, education, social role, experience, or whatever? | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: Social role seems a particularly good one to cite. 'I didn't really understand what I was doing.' 'But it's your job to understand!' |
| 23090 | Liberals assume people are naturally free, equal, rational, and morally good [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: The view of human nature at the core of the liberal faith is that human beings are by their nature free, equal, rational, and morally good. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 02.5) | |
| A reaction: These four claims are quite distinct, and should be evaluated separately. I think I'm something of a liberal, but I don't really accept any of them. Hm. I just want all people to have these attributes. |
| 23117 | Love should be partial, and discriminate in favour of its object [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Love is personal and partial. It is not love if it does not discriminate in favor of its object. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 09.4) | |
| A reaction: I agree with that, mainly on the grounds that this is the natural form of human love. Generalised love of mankind seems like a distortion, even if it is well-meaning. |
| 23119 | Sentimental love distorts its object [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Love is sentimental if it exaggerates the virtues and minimises the vices of its object. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 09.5) | |
| A reaction: Not sure about this. It implies that we should retain a streak of cold evaluative objectivity, even about the people we love most. There is difference between knowing a person's qualities, and the importance we attach to those qualities. Forgive vices! |
| 23088 | Evil is not deviation from the good, any more than good is a deviation from evil [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: There is no more reason to think of evil as deviation from the good than there is to think of the good as deviation from evil. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 02.2) | |
| A reaction: This is a political moderate right winger defending the concept of evil as a basic and inescapable component of existence, in contrast to liberals who tend to deny 'pure evil'. |
| 23097 | What matters for morality is the effects of action, not the psychological causes [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: What is crucial to morality are the good and evil effects of human actions, not their psychological causes. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.4) | |
| A reaction: The context is his attack on the liberal idea that morality only concerns the actions of autonomous agents. Kekes says he is not a full consequentialist. He just urges that consequences be given greater weight. Even Kant must care about that. |
| 23099 | It is said that if an agent is not autonomous then their evil actions don't reflect on their character [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Liberals deny the reflexivity of evil, …to prevent the evil consequences of an agent's morally deplorable actions from redounding to their detriment. Evil actions are allowed to reflect on their agents only if the agents cause them autonomously. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.5) | |
| A reaction: A central question of morality is essentialising character. That is, when does an eater of carrots become a carrot-eater? When does a performer of wicked deeds become a wicked person? Never, say many liberals. Wrong, says Kekes. |
| 23118 | Awareness of others' suffering doesn't create an obligation to help [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: It is a mistaken assumption that knowledge of the sufferings of others creates an obligation to help them. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 09.4) | |
| A reaction: A nice question is when that knowledge does become an obligation. The obvious criteria are proximity to the suffering, and capacity to relieve it. But then a wealthy person couldn't walk down the street without such obigations. Hm. |
| 23109 | The veil of ignorance is only needed because people have bad motivations [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: If the darker aspects of human motivation did not exist, there would be no need for Rawls to place his people behind the veil of ignorance. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 07.2) | |
| A reaction: All the critics observe that Rawls's blind choosers are nothing like as simple as the mere specks of rationality he seems to imagine. The usual objection is that they are already liberals, but this objection says they are already benevolent. |
| 23114 | The chief function of the state is to arbitrate between contending visions of the good life [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: The chief function of the state is seen to be to maintain what is referred to as the dialogue or conversation among the contending visions of how life should be lived. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 08.4) | |
| A reaction: This is Kekes's defence of 'pluralism'. It is not liberal, because liberal freedom, autonomy and equality is only one of the competing visions of the good life. Almost every state suppresses some such visions. |
| 23116 | Citizenship is easier than parenthood [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: It is much easier to be a good citizen than it is to be a good parent. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 09.4) | |
| A reaction: A nice observation. It is shocking how many people are bad citizens, given the limited demands. I think philosophers have some responsibility for beliefs and values which people bring to their citizenship. Parents need communal support. |
| 23103 | Power is meant to be confined to representatives, and subsequent delegation [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Universal adult suffrage and representative government are intended to give everyone equal initial political power, and assure that delegation is the only legitimate means to acquiring greater power. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 05.1) | |
| A reaction: The delegation bit is where it all goes wrong. Once you've packed your representative off to the capital, you lose nearly all control over what sort of delegation happens next. It is hard to trust representatives voters have barely met. |
| 23107 | Prosperity is a higher social virtue than justice [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: If social institutions were to have a first virtue, …prosperity would be a much stronger candidate that justice. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 06.3) | |
| A reaction: Kekes occasionally pays lip service to ecological issues, but this shows he is not serious. Endless economic growth will kill our planet, so it should never be our prime virtue. Also the impplication that you can't be too prosperous is plainly false. |
| 23081 | Liberal basics are pluralism, freedom, rights, equality, and distributive justice - for autonomy [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: The basic liberal values are pluralism, freedom, rights, equality, and distributive justice. What makes them basically valuable is that they enable individuals to live autonomously. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 01.2) | |
| A reaction: Helpful. Kekes identifies respect for autonomy as the single value which unites all liberal doctrines (and he traces it back to Kant). |
| 23085 | The key liberal values are explained by the one core value, which is autonomy [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Liberals regard pluralism, freedom, rights, equality and distributive justice as basic …but this particular group of values is explained by the true core of liberalism, the inner citadel for whose protection all the liberal battles are waged: autonomy. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 01.5) | |
| A reaction: Given that children, soldiers, monks and nuns, and people in old folks homes have very limited autonomy, it is reasonable to query whether it really is so important. I like autonomy if I have external power over my life; not so good when in hospital. |
| 23092 | Agents have little control over the capacities needed for liberal autonomy [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: It is important [for liberals] to realise that agents have no control over their possession of the capacities and opportunities on which their autonomy depends. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 03.2) | |
| A reaction: It can be replied to Kekes that they also have little control over the capacities upon which his prized 'desert' depends. It may be an axiom of all modern political thought that people have less control than we imagine. |
| 23102 | Liberals are egalitarians, but in varying degrees [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: All liberals are egalitarians, though they may be more or less so. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 05.1) | |
| A reaction: In the broadest view, this may be the one thing which distinguishes generalised liberals from the rest. To reject it needs a basis for the rejection, and every basis for its flat rejection is anathema to liberals. |
| 23084 | Are egalitarians too coercive, or not egalitarian enough, or lax over morality? [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Egalitarian liberalism is criticised by classical [freedom] liberals for its coercive redistribution, by socialist liberals for not being egalitarian enough, and by conservative liberals for abandoning moral standards in the guise of neutrality. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 01.4) | |
| A reaction: Income tax is 'coercive' distribution, but it is done with general consent in most liberal democracies. An interesting line between the needs of the state and the needs of its most needy citizens. |
| 23079 | Liberal justice ignores desert, which is the essence of justice [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: The liberal conception of justice …excludes the essence of justice: desert. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], Pref) | |
| A reaction: Certainly our normal concept of justice includes such thoughts as 'serves him right'. The trouble with the Kekes view is his society is continually morally judging people, and most people's grounds for that are fairly irrational. It's why we have courts. |
| 23091 | Why do liberals not see a much wider range of values as basic? [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Why are prosperity, order, civility, peace, a healthy environment, security, happiness, and law-abidingness not as important as those thought of by liberals as basic? | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 02.5) | |
| A reaction: This presumes that liberals only see a narrow core of values as basic to the structure of the society. Presumably every society should be well disposed towards the nice features listed here. Would their absence wreck the society? |
| 23112 | Liberals ignore contingency, and think people are good and equal, and institutions cause evil [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Liberals comfortably believe that autonomy minimises contingency, that humans are disposed to the good, that wickedness is due to remediable institutions, and that humans are morally equal because of their autonomy. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 07.4) | |
| A reaction: In a nutshell, Kekes thinks liberals are naïve. That institutions cause evil sounds more Marxist than liberal. When individuals become evil, it is reasonable for us to think that this need not have been the case. |
| 23082 | Liberal distribution cares more about recipients than donors [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Liberal distribution cares more about the rights of the recipients than the rights of the donors. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 01.2) | |
| A reaction: Even if you are very left wing indeed, this is an important point. A society dominated by a powerful Robin Hood (steal from the rich, for the poor) is quite likely to end in civil war. But should society allow huge individual wealths to accumulate? |
| 23106 | To rectify the undeserved equality, we should give men longer and women shorter lives [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Redistribution ought to aim to equalise the life expectancy of men and women, by making men have longer and women shorter lives. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 05.4) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice satirical counterexample to the Rawlsian claim that 'undeserved inequalities should somehow be compensated for' [Rawls 1971: 100]. See also Kurt Vonnegut's story 'Harrison Bergeron'. |
| 23121 | It is just a fact that some people are morally better than others [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: It is an obviolus fact that some people are morally better than others and that some are morally worse. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: This could be conceded, without then asserting that the moral ones are superior, or more deserving. That is a social strategy, rather than a fact. We can challenge the criteria for 'morally better', but we can't deny a rankng once it is agreed. |
| 23105 | It is not deplorable that billionaires have more than millionaires [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: It is certainly not intuitively deplorable that billionaires have more money than millionaires. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 05.3) | |
| A reaction: Nice point. His claim is that sufficiency is the important feature, and equality is largely irrelevant. The reality, though, is that the billionaires, unlike the millionaires, could solve the insufficiency problem. |
| 23120 | The problem is basic insufficiency of resources, not their inequality [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: If everyone has sufficient resources, it is not objectionable that some have more than others. What is objectionable is that some do not have enough. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: Reasonable, but there seems to be sharp disagreement between the haves and the have-nots over what counts as 'enough'. In an affluent country, does enough include a car, restaurant dining, and foreign holidays? Or just food and shelter? |
| 23108 | Justice combines consistency and desert; treat likes alike, judging likeness by desert [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Justice is a combination of consistency and desert. Like cases should be treated alike, and likenesses should be evaluated according to desert. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 06.3) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] He needs to add that at least the desert should be relevant to the events being assessed. Should people not get a fair trial if they are branded as generally 'undeserving'? Hence the case must be judged before the desert is identified. |
| 23083 | Liberal welfare focuses on need rather than desert [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: In welfare legislation, liberals concentrate on what people need rather than on what they deserve. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 01,2) | |
| A reaction: He makes assessing what people 'deserve' sound easy. Do drowning people deserve to be rescued? Do billionaires deserve their wealth (which is not the same as 'did they acquire it legally')? What do rude people deserve? |
| 23113 | Sexual morality doesn't require monogamy, but it needs a group of sensible regulations [Kekes] |
| Full Idea: A moral tradition need not be committed to monogamy, but it must regulate sexual conduct to prevent inbreeding, protect the sexually immature, prohibit some forms of coercion, and assign responsibility for raising children. | |
| From: John Kekes (Against Liberalism [1997], 08.1) | |
| A reaction: Wise words, I would say. The sexual liberation which arose with the contraceptive pill rather swamped thoughts of this type. These are just sensible responses to the facts of life. |