4 ideas
9217 | Modern empirical metaphysics focuses on ontological commitments of discourse, or on presuppositions [Loux/Zimmerman] |
Full Idea: The empiricist revival of metaphysics came with Quine, who focused on ontological commitments associated with accepting a body of discourse, and Strawson, asking about the presuppositions of our conceptual practices. | |
From: M Loux / D Zimmerman (Intro to Oxford Hndbk of Metaphysics [2003]) | |
A reaction: I find myself preferring the British approach. I can discourse about things without ontological commitment, and utter truths about non-existent things. I really yearn, though, for the third way - actually reasoning towards knowing what's out there. |
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. |
10486 | If we are rebuilding our ship at sea, we should jettison some cargo [Boolos on Neurath] |
Full Idea: If we are sailors rebuilding our ship plank by plank on the open sea, then I know of some cargo we might want to jettison. | |
From: comment on Otto Neurath (Protocol Sentences [1932]) by George Boolos - Must We Believe in Set Theory? p.128 | |
A reaction: This may just be an assertion of Ockham's Razor, but the interest is that the Neurath image demands internal standards of economy etc, whereas reality itself seems to be a right mess. |
8485 | We must always rebuild our ship on the open sea; we can't reconstruct it properly in dry-dock [Neurath] |
Full Idea: We are like sailors who must rebuild their ship out on the open sea, never able to dismantle it in a dry-dock and reconstruct it there out of the best materials. | |
From: Otto Neurath (Protocol Sentences [1932]), quoted by Alex Orenstein - W.V. Quine Ch.8 | |
A reaction: This is the classic statement of the anti-foundationalist picture of knowledge. It is often quoted by Quine. A tricky issue. I have a lot of sympathy with Bonjour's rationalist foundationalism. |