14 ideas
| 20962 | Habermas seems to make philosophy more democratic [Habermas, by Bowie] |
| Full Idea: Habermas is concerned to avoid the traumas of modern German history by making democracy an integral part of philosophy. | |
| From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy Conc 'Habermas' | |
| A reaction: Hence Habermas's emphasis on communication as central to language, which is central to philosophy. Modern philosophy departments are amazingly hierarchical. |
| 15670 | The aim of 'post-metaphysical' philosophy is to interpret the sciences [Habermas, by Finlayson] |
| Full Idea: For Habermas, the task of what he calls 'post-metaphysical' philosophy is to be a stand-in and interpreter for the specialized sciences. | |
| From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.5:65 |
| 15665 | We can do social philosophy by studying coordinated action through language use [Habermas, by Finlayson] |
| Full Idea: Habermas claims to have embarked upon a new way of doing social philosophy, one that begins from an analysis of language use and that locates the rational basis of the coordination of action in speech. | |
| From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.3:28 |
| 20573 | Rather than instrumental reason, Habermas emphasises its communicative role [Habermas, by Oksala] |
| Full Idea: Instead of Enlightenment instrumental rationality (criticised by Adorno and Horkheimer), Habermas emphasizes 'communicative rationality', which makes critical discussion and mutual understanding possible. | |
| From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by Johanna Oksala - Political Philosophy: all that matters Ch.6 | |
| A reaction: There was a good reason not to smoke cigarettes, before we found out what it is. In one sense, reasons are in the world. This is interesting, but I feel analytic vertigo, as the lovely concept of 'rationality' becomes blurred and diffused. |
| 15797 | All structures are dispositional, objects are dispositions sets, and events manifest dispositions [Fetzer] |
| Full Idea: I propose a dispositional ontology for the physical world, according to which a) every structural property is a dispositional one, b) a physical object is an ordered set of dispositions, and c) every event manifests a dispositional property of the world. | |
| From: J.H. Fetzer (A World of Dispositions [1977], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Mumford says this is consistent with ontology as a way of describing the world, rather than being facts about the world. I like Fetzer's sketch, which sounds to have a lot in common with 'process philosophy'. |
| 15800 | All events and objects are dispositional, and hence all structural properties are dispositional [Fetzer] |
| Full Idea: Every atomic event in the world's history is a manifestation of some dispositional property of the world and every physical object is an instantiation of some set of dispositions; hence, every structural property is dispositional in kind. | |
| From: J.H. Fetzer (A World of Dispositions [1977], 5) | |
| A reaction: I quite like this drastic view, but there remains the intuition that there must always be something which has the disposition. That may be because I have not yet digested the lessons of modern physics. |
| 20961 | What is considered a priori changes as language changes [Habermas, by Bowie] |
| Full Idea: Habermas claims that what is regarded as a priori changes with history. This is because the linguistic structures on which judgements depend are themselves part of history, not prior to it. | |
| From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy Conc 'Habermas' | |
| A reaction: This is an interesting style of argument generally only found in continental philosophers, because they see the problem as historical rather than timeless. Compare Idea 20595, which sees analyticity historically. |
| 15667 | To understand a statement is to know what would make it acceptable [Habermas] |
| Full Idea: We understand the meaning of a speech act when we know what would make it acceptable. | |
| From: Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981], I:297), quoted by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.3:37 | |
| A reaction: Finlayson glosses this as requiring the reasons which would justify the speech act. |
| 15668 | Meaning is not fixed by a relation to the external world, but a relation to other speakers [Habermas, by Finlayson] |
| Full Idea: On Habermas's view, meanings are not determined by the speaker's relation to the external world, but by his relation to his interlocutors; meaning is essentially intersubjective. | |
| From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.3:38 | |
| A reaction: This view is not the same as Grice's, but it is clearly much closer to Grice than to (say) the Frege/Davidson emphasis on truth-conditions. I'm not sure if I would know how to begin arbitrating between the two views! |
| 18681 | The base for values has grounds, catalysts and intensifiers [Dancy,J, by Orsi] |
| Full Idea: Dancy distinguishes three parts of the supervenience base of values: 1) those which ground the value ('resultance base'); 2) those which enable the ground to make something good ('enabling conditions'); 3) those which intensify or diminish value. | |
| From: report of Jonathan Dancy (Ethics without Principles [2004], p. 170-181) by Francesco Orsi - Value Theory 5.2 | |
| A reaction: I really like and admire this. Dancy has focused on what really matters about values (and hence about the whole of ethics), and begun the work of getting a bit of clarity and increased understanding. |
| 15669 | People endorse equality, universality and inclusiveness, just by their communicative practices [Habermas, by Finlayson] |
| Full Idea: The ideal of equality, universality, and inclusiveness are inscribed in the communicative practices of the lifeworld, and agents, merely by virtue of communicating, conform to them. | |
| From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.4:60 | |
| A reaction: This summary of Habermas's social views strikes me as thoroughly Kantian. It is something like the ideals of the Kingdom of Ends, necessarily implemented in a liberal society. Habermas emphasises the social, where Kant starts from the liberal. |
| 23416 | Political involvement is needed, to challenge existing practices [Habermas, by Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Habermas thinks political deliberation is required precisely because in its absence people will tend to accept existing practices as given, and thereby perpetuate false needs. | |
| From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by Will Kymlicka - Community 'need' | |
| A reaction: If the dream is healthy and intelligent progress, it is not clear where that should come from. The problem with state involvement in the authority and power of the state. Locals are often prejudiced, so the intermediate level may be best. |
| 15798 | Kinds are arrangements of dispositions [Fetzer] |
| Full Idea: Kinds of things are specific arrangements of dispositions. | |
| From: J.H. Fetzer (A World of Dispositions [1977], 2) | |
| A reaction: A 'disposition' doesn't seem quite the right word for what is basic to the physical world, though Harré and Madden make a good case for the 'fields' of physic being understood in that way. I prefer 'power', though that doesn't solve anything. |
| 15799 | Lawlike sentences are general attributions of disposition to all members of some class [Fetzer] |
| Full Idea: Lawlike sentences are conceived as logically general dispositional statements attributing permanent dispositional properties to every member of a reference class. ...Their basic form is that of subjunctive generalizations. | |
| From: J.H. Fetzer (A World of Dispositions [1977], 3) | |
| A reaction: I much prefer talk of 'lawlike sentences' to talk of 'laws'. At least they imply that the true generalisations about nature are fairly fine-grained. Why not talk of 'generalisations' instead of 'laws'? Fetzer wants dispositions to explain everything. |