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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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12207
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Metaphysical possibility is discovered empirically, and is contrained by nature [Edgington]
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Full Idea:
Metaphysical necessity derives from distinguishing things which can happen and things which can't, in virtue of their nature, which we discover empirically: the metaphysically possible, I claim, is constrained by the laws of nature.
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From:
Dorothy Edgington (Two Kinds of Possibility [2004], §I)
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A reaction:
She claims that Kripke is sympathetic to this. Personally I like the idea that natural necessity is metaphysically necessary (see 'Scientific Essentialism'), but the other way round comes as a bit of a surprise. I will think about it.
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20594
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Choosers in the 'original position' have been stripped of most human characteristics [Sandel, by Tuckness/Wolf]
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Full Idea:
Sandel argues that people in the 'original position' have been stripped of everything that makes them recognisably human: their conceptions of the good, their nationality, family membership, religion, friendships and past histories.
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From:
report of Michael J. Sandel (Liberalism and the Limits of Justice [1982]) by Tuckness,A/Wolf,C - This is Political Philosophy 4 'Communitarian'
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A reaction:
This draws attention to what a pure Enlightenment rational project Rawls is pursuing, in the spirit if Kant's ethics. Choosers in the original position become identical, and thus choose a homogeneous society.
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