3 ideas
8828 | Truth is rational acceptability [Putnam] |
Full Idea: Truth, in the only sense in which we have a vital and working notion of it, is rational acceptability. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Why Reason Can't be Naturalized [1981]) | |
A reaction: I smell a circularity somewhere in there, probably in 'rational', though it could be in 'acceptable'. Putnams's views on truth tend to shift a lot. He denies that evolutionary survival is a criterion. |
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. |
10650 | In the military, persons are parts of parts of large units, but not parts of those large units [Rescher] |
Full Idea: In military usage, persons can be parts of small units, and small units parts of large ones; but persons are never parts of large units. | |
From: Nicholas Rescher (Axioms for the Part Relation [1955]), quoted by Achille Varzi - Mereology 2.1 | |
A reaction: This much-cited objection to the transitivity of the 'part' relation seems very odd. There could hardly be an army or a regiment if there weren't soldiers to make up parts of it. |