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7548
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Classes, grouped by a convenient property, are logical constructions [Russell]
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Full Idea:
Classes or series of particulars, collected together on account of some property which makes it convenient to be able to speak of them as wholes, are what I call logical constructions or symbolic fictions.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.125)
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A reaction:
When does a construction become 'logical' instead of arbitrary? What is it about a property that makes it 'convenient'? At this point Russell seems to have built his ontology on classes, and the edifice was crumbling, thanks to Wittgenstein.
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9390
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Logic guides thinking, but it isn't a substitute for it [Rumfitt]
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Full Idea:
Logic is part of a normative theory of thinking, not a substitute for thinking.
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From:
Ian Rumfitt (The Logic of Boundaryless Concepts [2007], p.13)
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A reaction:
There is some sort of logicians' dream, going back to Leibniz, of a reasoning engine, which accepts propositions and outputs inferences. I agree with this idea. People who excel at logic are often, it seems to me, modest at philosophy.
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9389
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Vague membership of sets is possible if the set is defined by its concept, not its members [Rumfitt]
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Full Idea:
Vagueness in respect of membership is consistency with determinacy of the set's identity, so long as a set's identity is taken to consist, not in its having such-and-such members, but in its being the extension of a concept.
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From:
Ian Rumfitt (The Logic of Boundaryless Concepts [2007], p.5)
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A reaction:
I find this view of sets much more appealing than the one that identifies a set with its members. The empty set is less of a problem, as well as non-existents. Logicians prefer the extensional view because it is tidy.
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7549
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If my body literally lost its mind, the object seen when I see a flash would still exist [Russell]
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Full Idea:
My meaning may be made plainer by saying that if my body could remain in exactly the same state in which it is, though my mind had ceased to exist, precisely that object which I now see when I see a flash would exist, though I should not see it.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.126)
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A reaction:
Zombies, 70 years before Robert Kirk! Sense-data are physical. It is interesting to see a philosopher as committed to empiricism, anti-spiritualism and the priority of science as this, still presenting an essentially dualist picture of perception.
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7546
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A man is a succession of momentary men, bound by continuity and causation [Russell]
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Full Idea:
The real man, I believe, however the police may swear to his identity, is really a series of momentary men, each different one from the other, and bound together, not by a numerical identity, but by continuity and certain instrinsic causal laws.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.124)
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A reaction:
This seems to be in the tradition of Locke and Parfit, and also follows the temporal-slices idea of physical objects. Personally I take a more physical view of things, and think the police are probably more reliable than Bertrand Russell.
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7550
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We could probably, in principle, infer minds from brains, and brains from minds [Russell]
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Full Idea:
It seems not improbable that if we had sufficient knowledge we could infer the state of a man's mind from the state of his brain, or the state of his brain from the state of his mind.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.131)
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A reaction:
This strikes me as being a very good summary of the claim that mind is reducible to brain, which is the essence of physicalism. Had he been born a little later, Russell would have taken a harder line with physicalism.
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23262
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Experience, sympathy and history are sensible grounds for laying claim to rights [Grayling]
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Full Idea:
Personal experience, social sympathies, and history together licence laying claim to rights …which we see to make good mutual as well as individual sense.
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From:
A.C. Grayling (The Good State [2020], 6)
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A reaction:
There are no such thing as natural rights, but there are clearly natural grounds on which it is very reasonable to base a claim for legal rights. If positive rights are just arbitrary, or expressions of power struggles, that is crazy.
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23259
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There should be separate legislative, executive and judicial institutions [Grayling]
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Full Idea:
The obvious solution is where the legislative, executive and judicial powers are exercised by different institutions, distinguished by function. The executive is answerable to the legislative, and the judicial is controlled by neither.
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From:
A.C. Grayling (The Good State [2020], 3)
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A reaction:
Separation by institution, rather than merely by separate individuals exercising the powers. I agree (with Popper etc) that institutions are the way to secure long-term success and justice. Grayling says the judiciary must not paralyse government.
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7552
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Six dimensions are needed for a particular, three within its own space, and three to locate that space [Russell]
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Full Idea:
The world of particulars is a six-dimensional space, where six co-ordinates will be required to assign the position of any particular, three to assign its position in its own space, and three to assign the position of its space among the other spaces.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.134)
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A reaction:
Not a proposal that has caught on. One might connect the idea with the notion of 'frames of reference' in Einstein's Special Theory. Inside a frame of reference, three co-ordinates are needed; but where is the frame of reference?
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