8 ideas
| 18261 | A simplification which is complete constitutes a definition [Kant] |
| Full Idea: By dissection I can make the concept distinct only by making the marks it contains clear. That is what analysis does. If this analysis is complete ...and in addition there are not so many marks, then it is precise and so constitutes a definition. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Wiener Logik [1795], p.455), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 1 'Conc' | |
| A reaction: I think Aristotle would approve of this. We need to grasp that a philosophical definition is quite different from a lexicographical definition. 'Completeness' may involve quite a lot. |
| 22275 | Logic gives us the necessary rules which show us how we ought to think [Kant] |
| Full Idea: In logic the question is not one of contingent but of necessary rules, not how to think, but how we ought to think. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Wiener Logik [1795], p.16), quoted by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 02 'Trans' | |
| A reaction: Presumably it aspires to the objectivity of a single correct account of how we all ought to think. I'm sympathetic to that, rather than modern cultural relativism about reason. Logic is rooted in nature, not in arbitrary convention. |
| 18260 | If we knew what we know, we would be astonished [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If we only know what we know ...we would be astonished by the treasures contained in our knowledge. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Wiener Logik [1795], p.843), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 1 'Conc' | |
| A reaction: Nice remark. He doesn't require immediat recall of knowledge. You can't be required to know that you know something. That doesn't imply externalism, though. I believe in securely founded internal knowledge which is hard to recall. |
| 7880 | If a blind persons suddenly sees a kestrel, that doesn't make visual and theoretical kestrels different [Papineau on Jackson] |
| Full Idea: An ornithological Mary might know everything theoretical about kestrels, but be blind from birth, then have her sight restored. She now knows "That bird eats mice", so visual kestrels must be ontologically distinct from theoretical ones. | |
| From: comment on Frank Jackson (Epiphenomenal Qualia [1982]) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness 6.3 | |
| A reaction: A nice reductio, and I think this pinpoints best what is wrong with the knowledge argument. Knowledge, and the means of acquiring it, are two distinct things. When I see x, I don't acquire knowledge of x, AND knowledge of my seeing x. |
| 7378 | No one bothers to imagine what it would really be like to have ALL the physical information [Dennett on Jackson] |
| Full Idea: That Mary "has all the physical information" is not readily imaginable, so no one bothers. They just imagine she knows lots and lots - perhaps everything known today - but that is just a drop in the bucket. | |
| From: comment on Frank Jackson (Epiphenomenal Qualia [1982]) by Daniel C. Dennett - Consciousness Explained 12.5 | |
| A reaction: I certainly don't see how we can rule out a priori the possibility that someone who really had all the physical knowledge might be able to infer the phenomenal properties of colour. |
| 7377 | Mary learns when she sees colour, so her complete physical information had missed something [Jackson] |
| Full Idea: It seems obvious that Mary will learn something about the world when she is released from her black-and-white room; but then it is inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete; she had all the physical information, so there is more to have. | |
| From: Frank Jackson (Epiphenomenal Qualia [1982], §1) | |
| A reaction: This is Jackson's famous 'knowledge argument', which seems to me misconceived. Since I don't think phenomenal colours are properties of objects (Idea 5456), Mary learns more about herself, and about her means of acquiring knowledge. |
| 18552 | Forget about beauty; just concentrate on the virtues of delicacy and discernment admired in critics [Hume, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Hume suggest we get away from the fruitless discussion of beauty, and simply concentrate on the qualities we admire, and ought to admire, in a critic - qualities such as delicacy and discernment. | |
| From: report of David Hume (Of the standard of taste [1757]) by Roger Scruton - Beauty: a very short introduction 6 | |
| A reaction: We might wonder how you can admire 'discernment' without some view of the thing being discern, which is in danger of being beauty. How do you judge delicacy and discernment without judging the objects of the critic's taste? Mere authority? |
| 6608 | Strong sense, delicate sentiment, practice, comparisons, and lack of prejudice, are all needed for good taste [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice, can alone entitle critics to the valuable character of having 'taste'. | |
| From: David Hume (Of the standard of taste [1757]), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.6 | |
| A reaction: I agree entirely with this, but then I am a very politically incorrect elitist when it comes to taste. It just seems screamingly obvious that professional wine-tasters have a better appreciation of wine than me, and so on for the rest of the arts. |