Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mathematical Methods in Philosophy', 'Reflections on Value' and 'Survival and Identity, with postscript'

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16 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined
All thought about values is philosophical, and thought about anything else is not philosophy [Weil]
     Full Idea: All reflections bearing on the notion of value and on the hierarchy of values is philosophical; all efforts of thought bearing on anything other than value are, if one examines them closely, foreign to philosophy.
     From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.30)
     A reaction: If nothing else proves that Weil is a platonist, this does. She, of course, has a transcendent and religious view of values, whereas I just see them as concepts which embody what is important. That said, I'm not far off agreeing with this.
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / b. Philosophy as transcendent
Philosophy aims to change the soul, not to accumulate knowledge [Weil]
     Full Idea: Philosophy does not consist in accumulating knowledge, as science does, but in changing the whole soul.
     From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.33)
     A reaction: I agree, roughly. In the sense that philosophy is a much more personal matter than any pure pursuit of knowledge, such as geology. Though a life in geology could change your soul. Not just any old change, of course….
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 3. Metaphysical Systems
Systems are not unique to each philosopher. The platonist tradition is old and continuous [Weil]
     Full Idea: People believe that every philosopher has a system that contradicts all the others! But there is a tradition, genuinely philosophical, that is as old as humanity itself. …Plato is the most perfect representative of this tradition.
     From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.33)
     A reaction: I see roughly two traditions. If you believe in transcendence you follow Plato, like Simone. If you are a naturalist (like me) you follow Aristotle. A third tradition might be much more sceptical.
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 1. Truth
Truth is a value of thought [Weil]
     Full Idea: Truth is a value of thought. The word 'truth' cannot have any other meaning.
     From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.32)
     A reaction: This makes a nice change from truth being a mere predicate. I would call truth the criterion of success in thought, and that counts as a value, so she is right.
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 9. Philosophical Logic
Three stages of philosophical logic: syntactic (1905-55), possible worlds (1963-85), widening (1990-) [Horsten/Pettigrew]
     Full Idea: Three periods can be distinguished in philosophical logic: the syntactic stage, from Russell's definite descriptions to the 1950s, the dominance of possible world semantics from the 50s to 80s, and a current widening of the subject.
     From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 1)
     A reaction: [compressed] I've read elsewhere that the arrival of Tarski's account of truth in 1933, taking things beyond the syntactic, was also a landmark.
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 1. Logical Form
Logical formalization makes concepts precise, and also shows their interrelation [Horsten/Pettigrew]
     Full Idea: Logical formalization forces the investigator to make the central philosophical concepts precise. It can also show how some philosophical concepts and objects can be defined in terms of others.
     From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 2)
     A reaction: This is the main rationale of the highly formal and mathematical approach to such things. The downside is when you impose 'precision' on language that was never intended to be precise.
5. Theory of Logic / J. Model Theory in Logic / 1. Logical Models
Models are sets with functions and relations, and truth built up from the components [Horsten/Pettigrew]
     Full Idea: A (logical) model is a set with functions and relations defined on it that specify the denotation of the non-logical vocabulary. A series of recursive clauses explicate how truth values of complex sentences are compositionally determined from the parts.
     From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 3)
     A reaction: See the ideas on 'Functions in logic' and 'Relations in logic' (in the alphabetical list) to expand this important idea.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 1. Nature of Existence
If 'exist' doesn't express a property, we can hardly ask for its essence [Horsten/Pettigrew]
     Full Idea: If there is indeed no property of existence that is expressed by the word 'exist', then it makes no sense to ask for its essence.
     From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 2)
     A reaction: As far as I can tell, this was exactly Aristotle's conclusion, so he skirted round the question of 'being qua being', and focused on the nature of objects instead. Grand continental talk of 'Being' doesn't sound very interesting.
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 4. De re / De dicto modality
De re modal predicates are ambiguous [Lewis, by Rudder Baker]
     Full Idea: Lewis is perhaps the most prominent proponent of the view that de re modal predicates are ambiguous.
     From: report of David Lewis (Survival and Identity, with postscript [1983]) by Lynne Rudder Baker - Why Constitution is not Identity n25
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / a. Possible worlds
A Tarskian model can be seen as a possible state of affairs [Horsten/Pettigrew]
     Full Idea: A Tarskian model can in a sense be seen as a model of a possible state of affairs.
     From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 3)
     A reaction: I include this remark to show how possible worlds semantics built on the arrival of model theory.
The 'spheres model' was added to possible worlds, to cope with counterfactuals [Horsten/Pettigrew]
     Full Idea: The notion of a possible worlds model was extended (resulting in the concept of a 'spheres model') in order to obtain a satisfactory logical treatment of counterfactual conditional sentences.
     From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 4)
     A reaction: Thus we add 'centred' worlds, and an 'actual' world, to the loose original model. It is important to remember when we discuss 'close' worlds that we are then committed to these presuppositions.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / b. Impossible worlds
Epistemic logic introduced impossible worlds [Horsten/Pettigrew]
     Full Idea: The idea of 'impossible worlds' was introduced into epistemic logic.
     From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 4)
     A reaction: Nathan Salmon seems interested in their role in metaphysics (presumably in relation to Meinongian impossible objects, like circular squares, which must necessarily be circular).
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / e. Against possible worlds
Possible worlds models contain sets of possible worlds; this is a large metaphysical commitment [Horsten/Pettigrew]
     Full Idea: Each possible worlds model contains a set of possible worlds. For this reason, possible worlds semantics is often charged with smuggling in heavy metaphysical commitments.
     From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 3)
     A reaction: To a beginner it looks very odd that you should try to explain possibility by constructing a model of it in terms of 'possible' worlds.
Using possible worlds for knowledge and morality may be a step too far [Horsten/Pettigrew]
     Full Idea: When the possible worlds semantics were further extended to model notions of knowledge and of moral obligation, the application was beginning to look distinctly forced and artificial.
     From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 5)
     A reaction: They accept lots of successes in modelling necessity and time.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / e. Means and ends
Ends, unlike means, cannot be defined, which is why people tend to pursue means [Weil]
     Full Idea: Everything that can be taken as an end cannot be defined. Means, such as power and money, are easily defined, and that is why people orient themselves exclusively towards the acquisition of means.
     From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.31)
     A reaction: Nice, but too neat, because so many activities can be treated either as means or as ends, and often as both. It makes sense that people pursue what is clear to them.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / a. Normativity
Minds essentially and always strive towards value [Weil]
     Full Idea: For the mind essentially and always, in whatever manner it is disposed, strives towards value.
     From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.31)
     A reaction: A typically platonist thought. If you accept my view that values identify what is important, the thought is plausible. We might distinguish between what the mind pointlessly entertains, and what it 'strives' for.