Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Logic of Boundaryless Concepts', 'Treatise of Freewill' and 'Of Grammatology'

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4 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 3. Value of Logic
Logic guides thinking, but it isn't a substitute for it [Rumfitt]
     Full Idea: Logic is part of a normative theory of thinking, not a substitute for thinking.
     From: Ian Rumfitt (The Logic of Boundaryless Concepts [2007], p.13)
     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.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / e. Vague objects
Vague membership of sets is possible if the set is defined by its concept, not its members [Rumfitt]
     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.
     From: Ian Rumfitt (The Logic of Boundaryless Concepts [2007], p.5)
     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.
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 9. Ambiguity
Derrida focuses on ambiguity, but talks of 'dissemination', not traditional multiple meanings [Derrida]
     Full Idea: Derrida affirms something like an 'ambiguity of meaning'. But he explicitly contrasts the word he uses to characterize the phenomenon at issue, what he calls 'dissemination', with the traditional concept of 'polysemia' - multiple meanings.
     From: Jacques Derrida (Of Grammatology [1967]), quoted by Simon Glendinning - Derrida: A Very Short Introduction 2 'After'
     A reaction: The point, I presume, is that there is vagueness and elision to the meanings, rather than a list of options, such as bank/bank. Context (sense-making paths) is crucial for Derrida. Can the analytic apparatus for the logic of vagueness be brought to bear?
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 6. Authentic Self
There is a self-determing power in each person, which makes them what they are [Cudworth]
     Full Idea: This hegemonicon (self-power) always determines the passive capability of men's nature one way or other, either for better or for worse; and has a self-forming and self-framing power by which every man is self-made into what he is.
     From: Ralph Cudworth (Treatise of Freewill [1688], §X)
     A reaction: The idea that we can somehow create our own selves seems to me the core of existentialism, and the opposite of the Aristotelian belief in a fairly fixed human nature. See Stephen Pinker's 'The Blank Slate' for a revival of the old view.