Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Space and Time', 'Elimination of Metaphysics by Analysis of Language' and 'At the Existentialist Caf'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 7. Against Metaphysics

16252	Metaphysics uses empty words, or just produces pseudo-statements [Carnap]
	Full Idea: Since metaphysics doesn't want to assert analytic propositions, nor fall within the domain of physical science, it is compelled to employ words for which no criteria of application are specified, ..or else combine meaningful words..into pseudo-statements.
	From: Rudolph Carnap (Elimination of Metaphysics by Analysis of Language [1959]), quoted by Tim Maudlin - The Metaphysics within Physics 2.4
	A reaction: A classic summary of the logical positivist rejection of metaphysics. I incline to treat metaphysics as within the domain of science, but at a level of generality so high that practising scientists become bewildered and give up.

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 2. Phenomenology

21238	Later phenomenologists tried hard to incorporate social relationships [Bakewell]
	Full Idea: Ever since Husserl, phenomenologists and existentialists had been trying to stretch the definition of existence to incorporate our social lives and relationships.
	From: Sarah Bakewell (At the Existentialist Café [2016], 08)
	A reaction: I see a parallel move in Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument. Husserl's later work seems to have been along those lines. Putnam's Twin Earth too.

21237	Phenomenology begins from the immediate, rather than from axioms and theories [Bakewell]
	Full Idea: Traditional philosophy often started with abstract axioms or theories, but the German phenomenologists went straight for life as they experienced it, moment to moment.
	From: Sarah Bakewell (At the Existentialist Café [2016], 01)
	A reaction: Bakewell gives this as the gist of what Aron said to Sartre in 1933, providing the bridge from phenomenology to existentialism. The obvious thought is that everybody outside philosophy starts from immediate experience, so why is this philosophy?

27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 6. Space-Time

14014	Space alone, and time alone, will fade away, and only their union has an independent reality [Minkowski]
	Full Idea: Henceforth, space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.
	From: Hermann Minkowski (Space and Time [1908], Intro)
	A reaction: Notice the qualification that it is a 'kind of' union. Deep confusion arises from exaggerating the analogy between space and time. Craig Bourne remarks (2006:157) that this shows independence of measurement, not of reality