Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'works', 'Modes of Extension: comment on Fine' and 'The Confessions'

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4 ideas

18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 7. Abstracta by Equivalence

18883	Any equivalence relation among similar things allows the creation of an abstractum [Simons]
	Full Idea: Whenever we have an equivalence relation among things - such as similarity in a certain respect - we can abstract under the equivalence and consider the abstractum.
	From: Peter Simons (Modes of Extension: comment on Fine [2008], p.19)
	A reaction: This strikes me as dressing up old-fashioned psychological abstractionism in the respectable clothing of Fregean equivalences (such as 'directions'). We can actually do what Simons wants without the precision of partitioned equivalence classes.

18884	Abstraction is usually seen as producing universals and numbers, but it can do more [Simons]
	Full Idea: Abstraction as a cognitive tool has been associated predominantly with the metaphysics of universals and of mathematical objects such as numbers. But it is more widely applicable beyond this standard range. I commend its judicious use.
	From: Peter Simons (Modes of Extension: comment on Fine [2008], p.21)
	A reaction: Personally I think our view of the world is founded on three psychological principles: abstraction, idealisation and generalisation. You can try to give them rigour, as 'equivalence classes', or 'universal quantifications', if it makes you feel better.

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues

20239	Unlike us, the early Greeks thought envy was a good thing, and hope a bad thing [Hesiod, by Nietzsche]
	Full Idea: Hesiod reckons envy among the effects of the good and benevolent Eris, and there was nothing offensive in according envy to the gods. ...Likewise the Greeks were different from us in their evaluation of hope: one felt it to be blind and malicious.
	From: report of Hesiod (works [c.700 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Dawn (Daybreak) 038
	A reaction: Presumably this would be understandable envy, and unreasonable hope. Ridiculous envy can't possibly be good, and modest and sensible hope can't possibly be bad. I suspect he wants to exaggerate the relativism.

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 9. Communism

19745	The nature of people is decided by the government and politics of their society [Rousseau]
	Full Idea: Everything is rooted in politics, and whatever might be attempted, no people would ever be other than the nature of their government made them.
	From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Confessions [1770], 9-1756)
	A reaction: A striking anticipation of one of Marx's most important ideas - that society is not created by individual minds, because the nature of consciousness is created by society. The central idea in the subject of sociology, I think.