8 ideas
21054 | Reason enables the unbounded extension of our rules and intentions [Kant] |
Full Idea: Reason, in a creature, is a faculty which enables that creature to extend far beyond the limits of natural instinct the rules and intentions it follows in using its various powers, and the range of its project is unbounded. | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Idea for a Universal History [1784], 2nd) | |
A reaction: I'm inclined to identify the mind's creation of universals as the source of this power, rather than reason. Generalisations are infinitely extensible. Cantor's infinities are a nice example. Can't ideas be extended irrationally? |
9565 | Zermelo made 'set' and 'member' undefined axioms [Zermelo, by Chihara] |
Full Idea: The terms 'set' and 'is a member of' are primitives of Zermelo's 1908 axiomatization of set theory. They are not given model-theoretic analyses or definitions. | |
From: report of Ernst Zermelo (works [1920]) by Charles Chihara - A Structural Account of Mathematics 7.5 | |
A reaction: This looks like good practice if you want to work with sets, but not so hot if you are interested in metaphysics. |
3339 | For Zermelo's set theory the empty set is zero and the successor of each number is its unit set [Zermelo, by Blackburn] |
Full Idea: For Zermelo's set theory the empty set is zero and the successor of each number is its unit set. | |
From: report of Ernst Zermelo (works [1920]) by Simon Blackburn - Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy p.280 |
21053 | The manifest will in the world of phenomena has to conform to the laws of nature [Kant] |
Full Idea: Whatever conception of the freedom of the will one may form in terms of metaphysics, the will's manifestations in the world of phenomena, i.e. human actions, are determined in accordance with natural laws, as is every other natural event. | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Idea for a Universal History [1784], Intro) | |
A reaction: So free will either requires total substance dualism, or it is best described as transcendental fictionalism. This seems to imply the Leibnizian idea that metaphysics contains facts which having nothing to do with the physical world. |
21055 | Our aim is a constitution which combines maximum freedom with strong restraint [Kant] |
Full Idea: The highest task which nature has set mankind is to establish a society in which freedom under external laws would be combined to the greatest possible extent with irresistible force, in other words of establishing a perfectly just constitution. | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Idea for a Universal History [1784], 5th) | |
A reaction: The 'force' is to restrict the harms that may result from individual freedom. This seems to equate justice with liberal freedom. Force can prevent direct harm to others, but what to do about indirect harm? Many lack freedom, but whose fault is it? |
21056 | The vitality of business needs maximum freedom (while avoiding harm to others) [Kant] |
Full Idea: If the citizen is deterred from seeking his personal welfare in any way he chooses which is consistent with the freedom of others, the vitality of business in general and hence also the strength of the whole are held in check. | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Idea for a Universal History [1784], 8th) | |
A reaction: This is a rather American view of liberalism. Kant has been praising the virtues of aggressive competition. |
21057 | The highest ideal of social progress is a universal cosmopolitan existence [Kant] |
Full Idea: There is hope that the highest purpose of nature, a universal cosmopolitan existence, will at last be realised as the matrix within which all the original capacities of the human race may develop. | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Idea for a Universal History [1784], 8th) | |
A reaction: Apart from Diogenes of Sinope, Kant seems to have been the first great champion of the cosmopolitan ideal. As I write (2018) the western world is putting up growing barriers against immigrants. I think my response may be to adopt Kantian cosmopolitanism. |
16746 | Principles of things are not hidden features of forms, but the laws by which they were formed [Newton] |
Full Idea: The (active) principles I consider not as occult qualities, supposed to result from the specific forms of things, but as general laws of nature, by which the things themselves are formed. | |
From: Isaac Newton (Queries to the 'Opticks' [1721], q 31), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.6 | |
A reaction: This is the external, 'imposed' view of laws (with the matter passive) at its most persuasive. If laws arise out the stuff (as I prefer to think), what principles went into the formulation of the stuff? |