29 ideas
| 7578 | I conceived it my task to create difficulties everywhere [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: I conceived it my task to create difficulties everywhere. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Author') | |
| A reaction: Nice. It is like Socrates's image of himself as the 'gadfly' of Athens. The interesting question is always to see what the rest of society makes of having someone in their midst who sees it as their social role to 'create difficulties'. |
| 22047 | Wherever there is painless contradiction there is also comedy [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: Wherever there is contradiction, the comical is also present. ...The tragic is the suffering contradiction, the comical is the painless contradiction. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], p.459), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 13 | |
| A reaction: He is not saying that this is the only source of comedy. I once heard an adult say that there is one thing that is always funny, and that is a fart. |
| 22092 | Kierkegaard's truth draws on authenticity, fidelity and honesty [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
| Full Idea: Kierkegaard offers a different interpretation of truth, which draws on the notions of authenticity, fidelity and honesty. | |
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 4 | |
| A reaction: This notion of truth, meaning 'the real thing' (as in 'she was a true scholar'), seems to begin with Hegel. I suggest we use the word 'genuine' for that, and save 'truth' for its traditional role. It is disastrous to blur the simple concept of truth. |
| 15999 | Pure truth is for infinite beings only; I prefer endless striving for truth [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: If God held all truth enclosed in his right hand, and in his left hand the ever-striving drive for truth, even if erring forever, and he were to say Choose! I would humbly fall at his left hand and say Father, give! Pure truth is for infinite beings only. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], p.106) | |
| A reaction: A sobering realistic thought of our own limitations; Kierkegaard allows that there is no limit to how far we can strive for truth. Just that truth is comprehended by infinite beings (if any), not by mere mortals. [SY] |
| 20313 | The highest truth we can get is uncertainty held fast by an inward passion [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: An objective uncertainty held fast in an appropriation-process of the most passionate inwardness is the truth, the highest truth available for an existing individual. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846]) | |
| A reaction: [Bk 711] Offered as a definition of truth, knowing how strange and paradoxical it sounds. If we view all life as subjectivity, then there can of course be nothing more to truth than passionate conviction. Personally I think thought can be objective. |
| 10688 | 'Equivocation' is when terms do not mean the same thing in premises and conclusion [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: 'Equivocation' is when the terms do not mean the same thing in the premises and in the conclusion. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Consequence [2005], Intro) |
| 10690 | Formal logic is invariant under permutations, or devoid of content, or gives the norms for thought [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: Logic is purely formal either when it is invariant under permutation of object (Tarski), or when it has totally abstracted away from all contents, or it is the constitutive norms for thought. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Consequence [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] The third account sounds rather woolly, and the second one sounds like a tricky operation, but the first one sounds clear and decisive, so I vote for Tarski. |
| 10691 | Logical consequence needs either proofs, or absence of counterexamples [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: Technical work on logical consequence has either focused on proofs, where validity is the existence of a proof of the conclusions from the premises, or on models, which focus on the absence of counterexamples. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Consequence [2005], 3) |
| 10695 | Logical consequence is either necessary truth preservation, or preservation based on interpretation [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: Two different views of logical consequence are necessary truth-preservation (based on modelling possible worlds; favoured by Realists), or truth-preservation based on the meanings of the logical vocabulary (differing in various models; for Anti-Realists). | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Consequence [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: Thus Dummett prefers the second view, because the law of excluded middle is optional. My instincts are with the first one. |
| 10689 | A step is a 'material consequence' if we need contents as well as form [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: A logical step is a 'material consequence' and not a formal one, if we need the contents as well as the structure or form. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Consequence [2005], 2) |
| 10696 | A 'logical truth' (or 'tautology', or 'theorem') follows from empty premises [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: If a conclusion follows from an empty collection of premises, it is true by logic alone, and is a 'logical truth' (sometimes a 'tautology'), or, in the proof-centred approach, 'theorems'. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Consequence [2005], 4) | |
| A reaction: These truths are written as following from the empty set Φ. They are just implications derived from the axioms and the rules. |
| 10693 | Models are mathematical structures which interpret the non-logical primitives [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: Models are abstract mathematical structures that provide possible interpretations for each of the non-logical primitives in a formal language. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Consequence [2005], 3) |
| 10692 | Hilbert proofs have simple rules and complex axioms, and natural deduction is the opposite [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: There are many proof-systems, the main being Hilbert proofs (with simple rules and complex axioms), or natural deduction systems (with few axioms and many rules, and the rules constitute the meaning of the connectives). | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Consequence [2005], 3) |
| 14221 | Serious essentialism says everything has essences, they're not things, and they ground necessities [Shalkowski] |
| Full Idea: Serious essentialism is the position that a) everything has an essence, b) essences are not themselves things, and c) essences are the ground for metaphysical necessity and possibility. | |
| From: Scott Shalkowski (Essence and Being [2008], 'Intro') | |
| A reaction: If a house is being built, it might acquire an identity first, and only get an essence later. Essences can be physical, but if you extract them you destroy thing thing of which they were the essence. Does all of this apply to abstract 'things'. |
| 14222 | Essences are what it is to be that (kind of) thing - in fact, they are the thing's identity [Shalkowski] |
| Full Idea: The route into essentialism is, first, a recognition that the essence of a thing is "what it is to be" that (kind of) thing; the essence of a thing is just its identity. | |
| From: Scott Shalkowski (Essence and Being [2008], 'Essent') | |
| A reaction: The first half sounds right, and very Aristotelian. The second half is dramatically different, controversial, and far less plausible. Slipping in 'kind of' is also highly dubious. This remark shows, I think, some confusion about essences. |
| 14226 | We distinguish objects by their attributes, not by their essences [Shalkowski] |
| Full Idea: In ordinary contexts, we distinguish objects not by their essences but by their attributes. | |
| From: Scott Shalkowski (Essence and Being [2008], 'Ess and Know') | |
| A reaction: Hence we have a gap between what bestows identity intrinsically, and how we bestow identity conventionally. If you could grasp the essence of something, you might predict a new attribute, as yet unobserved. |
| 14225 | Critics say that essences are too mysterious to be known [Shalkowski] |
| Full Idea: According to critics, the thorniest problem for essentialism is the question of our knowledge of essence. It is usually at this point that terms of abuse such as 'dark', 'mysterious', and 'occult' are wheeled out. | |
| From: Scott Shalkowski (Essence and Being [2008], 'Ess and Know') | |
| A reaction: I'm inclined to think that the existence of essences can be fairly conclusively inferred, but that attributing a precise identity to them is the biggest challenge. |
| 14223 | De dicto necessity has linguistic entities as their source, so it is a type of de re necessity [Shalkowski] |
| Full Idea: De dicto necessity is a species of de re necessity. Anyone prone to countenance de dicto necessity must recognise mental and/or linguistic entities, thus counting each of them as a res to which necessity attaches. | |
| From: Scott Shalkowski (Essence and Being [2008], 'Essent') | |
| A reaction: This seems to rest on the Kit Fine thought that analytic necessities seem to derive from the essences of words such as 'bachelor'. I like this idea: all necessity is de re, but some of the 'things' are words. |
| 20742 | The real subject is ethical, not cognitive [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: The real subject is not the cognitive subject …the real subject is the ethically existing subject. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], p.281), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Subjective' | |
| A reaction: Perhaps we should say the essence of the self is its drive to live, not its drive to know. Just getting through the day is top priority, and ethics don’t figure much for the solitary person. But each activity, such as cooking, has its virtues. |
| 14224 | Equilateral and equiangular aren't the same, as we have to prove their connection [Shalkowski] |
| Full Idea: That 'all and only equilateral triangles are equiangular' required proof, and not for mere curiosity, is grounds for thinking that being an equilateral triangle is not the same property as being an equiangular triangle. | |
| From: Scott Shalkowski (Essence and Being [2008], 'Serious') | |
| A reaction: If you start with equiangularity, does equilateralness then require proof? This famous example is of two concepts which seem to be coextensional, but seem to have a different intension. Does a dependence relation drive a wedge between them? |
| 7579 | While big metaphysics is complete without ethics, personal philosophy emphasises ethics [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: While the Hegelian philosophy goes on and is finished without having an Ethics, the more simple philosophy which is propounded by an existing individual for existing individuals, will more especially emphasis the ethical. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Lessing') | |
| A reaction: This is reminiscent of the Socratic revolution, which shifted philosophy from the study of nature to the study of personal virtue. However, if we look for ethical teachings in existentialism, there often seems to be a black hole in the middle. |
| 7581 | Speculative philosophy loses the individual in a vast vision of humanity [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: Being an individual man is a thing that has been abolished, and every speculative philosopher confuses himself with humanity at large, whereby he becomes infinitely great - and at the same time nothing at all. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Lessing') | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 4840. This is a beautiful statement of the motivation for existentialism. The sort of philosophers who love mathematics (Plato, Descartes, Leibniz, Russell) love losing themselves in abstractions. This is the rebellion. |
| 20314 | People want to lose themselves in movements and history, instead of being individuals [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: Everything must attach itself so as to be part of some movement; men are determined to lose themselves in the totality of things, in world-history, fascinated and deceived by a magic witchery; no one wants to be an individual human being. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846]) | |
| A reaction: [Bk 711] I presume 'world-history' refers to the exhilerating ideas of Hegel. Right now [2017] I would say we have far too much of people only wanting to be individuals, with insufficient attention to our social nature. |
| 7582 | Becoming what one is is a huge difficulty, because we strongly aspire to be something else [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: Striving to become what one already is is a very difficult task, the most difficult of all, because every human being has a strong natural bent and passion to become something more and different. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Subjective') | |
| A reaction: Presumably most people continually drift between vanity and low self-esteem, and between unattainable daydreams and powerless immediate reality. That creates the stage on which Kierkegaard's interesting battle would have to be fought. |
| 7586 | God does not think or exist; God creates, and is eternal [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: God does not think, He creates; God does not exist, he is eternal. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Thinker') | |
| A reaction: The sort of nicely challenging remarks we pay philosophers to come up with. I don't understand the second claim, but the first one certainly avoids all paradoxes that arise if God experiences all the intrinsic problems of thinking. |
| 20312 | God cannot be demonstrated objectively, because God is a subject, only existing inwardly [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: Choosing the objective way enters upon the entire approximation-process by which it is proposed to bring God to light objectively. But this is in all eternity impossible, because God is a subject, and therefore exist only for subjectivity in inwardness. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846]) | |
| A reaction: [pg in 711] This seems to have something like Wittgenstein's problem with a private language - that with no external peer-review it is unclear what the commitment is. |
| 7580 | Pantheism destroys the distinction between good and evil [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: So called pantheistic systems have often been characterised and challenged by the assertion that they abrogate the distinction between good and evil. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Lessing') | |
| A reaction: He will have Spinoza in mind. Interesting. Obviously this criticism would come from someone who thought that the traditional deity was the only source of goodness. Good/evil isn't all-or-nothing. A monistic system could contain them. |
| 7584 | Without risk there is no faith [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: Without risk there is no faith. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Inwardness') | |
| A reaction: Remarks like this make you realise that Kierkegaard is just as much of a romantic as most of the other nineteenth century philosophers. Plunge into the dark unknown of the human psyche, in order to intensify and heighten human life. |
| 7583 | Faith is the highest passion in the sphere of human subjectivity [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: Faith is the highest passion in the sphere of human subjectivity. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Subjective') | |
| A reaction: The word 'highest' should always ring alarm bells. The worst sort of religious fanatics seem to be in the grip of this 'high' passion. The early twenty-first century is an echo of eighteenth century England, with its dislike of religious 'enthusiasm'. |