15 ideas
| 6222 | If a decision is in accord with right reason, everyone can agree with it [Cumberland] |
| Full Idea: No decision can be in accord with right reason unless all can agree on it. | |
| From: Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.V.XLVI) | |
| A reaction: Personally I think anyone who disagrees with this should get out of philosophy (and into sociology, fantasy fiction, ironic game-playing, crime…). Of course 'can' agree is not the same as 'will' agree. You must have faith that good reasons are persuasive. |
| 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. |
| 17505 | Using proper names properly doesn't involve necessary and sufficient conditions [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: The important thing about proper names is that it would be ridiculous to think that having linguistic competence can be equated in their case with knowledge of a necessary and sufficient condition. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Explanation and Reference [1973], II B) |
| 11908 | Putnam bases essences on 'same kind', but same kinds may not share properties [Mackie,P on Putnam] |
| Full Idea: The only place for essentialism to come from in Putnam's semantic account is out of the 'same kind' relation. But if the same kind relation can be cashed out in terms that do not involve sharing properties (apart from 'being water') there is a gap. | |
| From: comment on Hilary Putnam (Explanation and Reference [1973]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 10.4 | |
| A reaction: [This is the criticism of Salmon and Mellor] See Mackie's discussion for details. I would always have thought that relations result from essences, so could never be used to define them. |
| 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. |
| 17508 | Science aims at truth, not at 'simplicity' [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Scientists are not trying to maximise some formal property of 'simplicity'; they are trying to maximise truth. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Explanation and Reference [1973], III B) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be aimed at the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis account of laws of nature, as the simplest axioms of experience. I'm with Putnam (as he was at this date). |
| 17506 | I now think reference by the tests of experts is a special case of being causally connected [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: In previous papers I suggested that the reference is fixed by a test known to experts; it now seems to me that this is just a special case of my use being causally connected to an introducing event. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Explanation and Reference [1973], II C) | |
| A reaction: I think he was probably right the first time, and has now wandered off course. |
| 6217 | Natural law is supplied to the human mind by reality and human nature [Cumberland] |
| Full Idea: Some truths of natural law, concerning guides to moral good and evil, and duties not laid down by civil law and government, are necessarily supplied ot the human mind by the nature of things and of men. | |
| From: Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.I.I) | |
| A reaction: I agree that some moral truths have the power of self-evidence. If you say they are built into the mind, we now ask what did the building, and evolution is the only answer, and hence we distance ourselves from the truths, seeing them as strategies. |
| 6221 | If there are different ultimate goods, there will be conflicting good actions, which is impossible [Cumberland] |
| Full Idea: If there be posited different ultimate ends, whose causes are opposed to each other, then there will be truly good actions likewise opposed to each other, which is impossible. | |
| From: Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.V.XVI) | |
| A reaction: A very interesting argument for there being one good rather than many, and an argument which I don't recall in any surviving Greek text. A response might be to distinguish between what is 'right' and what is 'good'. See David Ross. |
| 6218 | The happiness of individuals is linked to the happiness of everyone (which is individuals taken together) [Cumberland] |
| Full Idea: The happiness of each person cannot be separated from the happiness of all, because the whole is no different from the parts taken together. | |
| From: Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.I.VI) | |
| A reaction: Sounds suspiciously like the fallacy of composition (Idea 6219). An objection to utilitarianism is its assumption that a group of people have a 'total happiness' that is different from their individual states. Still, Cumberland is on to utilitarianism. |
| 6220 | The happiness of all contains the happiness of each, and promotes it [Cumberland] |
| Full Idea: The common happiness of all contains the greatest happiness for each, and most effectively promotes it. …There is no path leading anyone to his own happiness, other than the path which leads all to the common happiness. | |
| From: Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.I.VI) | |
| A reaction: I take this as a revolutionary idea, which leads to utilitarianism. It is doing what seemed to the Greeks unthinkable, which is combining hedonism with altruism. There is no proof for it, but it is a wonderful clarion call for building a civil society. |
| 6216 | Natural law is immutable truth giving moral truths and duties independent of society [Cumberland] |
| Full Idea: Natural law is certain propositions of immutable truth, which guide voluntary actions about the choice of good and avoidance of evil, and which impose an obligation to act, even without regard to civil laws, and ignoring compacts of governments. | |
| From: Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.I.I) | |
| A reaction: Not a popular view, but I am sympathetic. If you are in a foreign country and find a person lying in pain, there is a terrible moral deficiency in anyone who just ignores such a thing. No legislation can take away a person's right of self-defence. |
| 17507 | Natural kind stereotypes are 'strong' (obvious, like tiger) or 'weak' (obscure, like molybdenum) [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Natural kinds can be associated with 'strong' stereotypes (giving a strong picture of a typical member, like a tiger), or with 'weak' stereotypes (with no idea of a sufficient condition, such as molybdenum or elm). | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Explanation and Reference [1973], II C) |
| 11904 | Express natural kinds as a posteriori predicate connections, not as singular terms [Putnam, by Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Putnam implies dispensing with the designation of natural kinds by singular terms in favour of the postulation of necessary but a posteriori connections between predicates. ...We might call this 'predicate essentialism', but not 'de re essentialism'. | |
| From: report of Hilary Putnam (Explanation and Reference [1973]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 10.1 | |
| A reaction: It is characteristic of modern discussion that the logical form of natural kind statements is held to be crucial, rather than an account of nature in any old ways that do the job. So do I prefer singular terms, or predicate-connections. Hm. |