Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Letters to a Young Clergyman' and 'Phil of Mathematics: why nothing works'

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3 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 9. Limits of Reason

22520	You can't reason someone out of an irrational opinion [Swift]
	Full Idea: Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired.
	From: Jonathan Swift (Letters to a Young Clergyman [1720])
	A reaction: It would be hard to prove this, and someone full of irrational beliefs may have their rationality awakened by a sound argument. Nice remark, but too pessimistic.

6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 1. Mathematical Platonism / b. Against mathematical platonism

3663	How can you contemplate Platonic entities without causal transactions with them? [Putnam]
	Full Idea: Platonism has the attendant problem of how we can succeed in thinking about and referring to entities we can have no causal transactions with.
	From: Hilary Putnam (Phil of Mathematics: why nothing works [1979], Modalism)

13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 2. Knowledge as Convention

1556	By nature people are close to one another, but culture drives them apart [Hippias]
	Full Idea: I regard you all as relatives - by nature, not by convention. By nature like is akin to like, but convention is a tyrant over humankind and often constrains people to act contrary to nature.
	From: Hippias (fragments/reports [c.430 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Protagoras 337c8