56 ideas
21887 | Derrida focuses on other philosophers, rather than on science [Derrida] |
Full Idea: We should focus on other philosophers, and not on science. | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
21888 | Philosophy is just a linguistic display [Derrida] |
Full Idea: Philosophy is entirely linguistic, and is a display. | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
21896 | Philosophy aims to build foundations for thought [Derrida, by May] |
Full Idea: Derrida points out that the project of philosophy consists largely in attempting to build foundations for thought. | |
From: report of Jacques Derrida (works [1990]) by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 1.04 | |
A reaction: You would first need to be convinced that there could be such a thing as foundations for thinking. Derrida thinks the project is hopeless. I think of it more as building an ideal framework for thought. |
21893 | Philosophy is necessarily metaphorical, and its writing is aesthetic [Derrida] |
Full Idea: All of philosophy is necessarily metaphorical, and hence aesthetic. | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
9208 | Philosophers with a new concept are like children with a new toy [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: Philosophers with a new concept are like children with a new toy; their world shrinks to one in which it takes centre stage. | |
From: Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p.10) | |
A reaction: A wonderfully accurate observation, I'm afraid. You can trace the entire history of the subject as a wave of obsessions with exciting new ideas. Fine is referring to a posteriori necessities and possible worlds. |
21892 | Interpretations can be interpreted, so there is no original 'meaning' available [Derrida] |
Full Idea: Because interpretations of texts can be interpreted, they can therefore have no 'original meaning'. | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
20934 | Hermeneutics is hostile, trying to overcome the other person's difference [Derrida, by Zimmermann,J] |
Full Idea: Derrida described the hermeneutic impulse to understand another as a form of violence that seeks to overcome the other's particularity and unique difference. | |
From: report of Jacques Derrida (works [1990]) by Jens Zimmermann - Hermeneutics: a very short introduction App 'Derrida' | |
A reaction: I'm not sure about 'violence', but Derrida was on to somethng here. The 'hermeneutic circle' sounds like a creepy process of absorption, where the original writer disappears in a whirlpool of interpretation. |
20925 | Hermeneutics blunts truth, by conforming it to the interpreter [Derrida, by Zimmermann,J] |
Full Idea: Derrida worried that hermeneutics blunts the disruptive power of truth by forcing it conform to the interpreter's mental horizon. | |
From: report of Jacques Derrida (works [1990]) by Jens Zimmermann - Hermeneutics: a very short introduction 3 'The heart' | |
A reaction: Good heavens - I agree with Derrida. Very French, though, to see the value of truth in its disruptiveness. I tend to find the truth reassuring, but then I'm English. |
21895 | Structuralism destroys awareness of dynamic meaning [Derrida] |
Full Idea: Structuralism destroys awareness of dynamic meaning. | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
21934 | The idea of being as persistent presence, and meaning as conscious intelligibility, are self-destructive [Derrida, by Glendinning] |
Full Idea: The tradition of conceiving being in terms of persisting presence, and meaning in terms of pure intelligibility or logos potentially present to the mind, finds itself dismantled by resources internal to its own construction. | |
From: report of Jacques Derrida (works [1990]) by Simon Glendinning - Derrida: A Very Short Introduction 6 | |
A reaction: [compressed] Glendinning says this is the basic meaning of de-construction. My personal reading of this is that Aristotle is right, and grand talk of Being is hopeless, so we should just aim to understand objects. I also believe in propositions. |
21881 | We aim to explore the limits of expression (as in Mallarmé's poetry) [Derrida] |
Full Idea: The aim is to explore the limits of expression (which is what makes the poetry of Mallarmé so important). | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
21883 | Sincerity can't be verified, so fiction infuses speech, and hence reality also [Derrida] |
Full Idea: Sincerity can never be verified, so fiction infuses all speech, which means that reality is also fictional. | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
21882 | Sentences are contradictory, as they have opposite meanings in some contexts [Derrida] |
Full Idea: Sentences are implicitly contradictory, because they can be used differently in different contexts (most obviously in 'I am ill'). | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
4756 | Derrida says that all truth-talk is merely metaphor [Derrida, by Engel] |
Full Idea: Derrida's view is that every discourse is metaphorical, and there is no difference between truth-talk and metaphor. | |
From: report of Jacques Derrida (works [1990]) by Pascal Engel - Truth §2.5 | |
A reaction: Right. Note that this is a Frenchman's summary. How would one define metaphor, without mentioning that it is parasitic on truth? Certainly some language tries to be metaphor, and other language tries not to be. |
21877 | True thoughts are inaccessible, in the subconscious, prior to speech or writing [Derrida] |
Full Idea: 'True' thoughts are inaccessible, buried in the subconscious, long before they get to speech or writing. | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction | |
A reaction: [My reading of some Derrida produced no quotations. I've read two commentaries, which were obscure. The Derrida ideas in this db are my simplistic tertiary summaries. Experts can chuckle over my failure] |
21878 | Names have a subjective aspect, especially the role of our own name [Derrida] |
Full Idea: We can give a subjective account of names, by considering our own name. | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
21889 | 'I' is the perfect name, because it denotes without description [Derrida] |
Full Idea: 'I' is the perfect name, because it denotes without description. | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
21879 | Even Kripke can't explain names; the word is the thing, and the thing is the word [Derrida] |
Full Idea: Even Kripke can't explain names, because the word is the thing, and also the thing is the word. | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
9210 | Possible objects are abstract; actual concrete objects are possible; so abstract/concrete are compatible [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: If it is in the nature of a possible object to be abstract, this is presumably a property it has in any possible circumstance in which it is actual. If it is actual it is also concrete. So the property of being abstract and concrete are not incompatible. | |
From: Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p.14) | |
A reaction: A rather startling and powerful idea. What of the definition of an abstract object as one which is not in space-time, and lacks causal powers? Could it be that abstraction is a projection of our minds, onto concepts or objects? |
9211 | A non-standard realism, with no privileged standpoint, might challenge its absoluteness or coherence [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: By challenging the assumption that reality is 'absolute' (not relative to a standpoint), or that reality is 'coherent' (it is of a piece, from one standpoint), one accepts worldly facts without a privilege standpoint. I call this 'non-standard' realism. | |
From: Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p.15) | |
A reaction: Fine's essay 'Tense and Reality' explores his proposal. I'm not drawn to either of his challenges. I have always taken as articles of faith that there could be a God's Eye view of all of reality, and that everything coheres, independent of our view. |
9202 | Objects, as well as sentences, can have logical form [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: We normally think of logical form as exclusively an attribute of sentences; however, the notion may also be taken to have application to objects. | |
From: Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p. 3) | |
A reaction: A striking proposal which seems intuitively right. If one said that objects have 'powers', one might subsume abstract and physical objects under a single account. |
9206 | We must distinguish between the identity or essence of an object, and its necessary features [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: The failure to distinguish between the identity or essence of an object and its necessary features is an instance of what we may call 'modal mania'. | |
From: Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p. 9) | |
A reaction: He blames Kripke's work for modal mania, a reaction to Quine's 'contempt' for modal notions. I don't actually understand Fine's remark (yet), but it strikes me as incredibly important! Explanations by email, please. |
9205 | The three basic types of necessity are metaphysical, natural and normative [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: There are three basic forms of necessity - the metaphysical (sourced in the identity of objects); natural necessity (in the 'fabric' of the universe); and normative necessity (in the realm of norms and values). | |
From: Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p. 7) | |
A reaction: Earlier he has allowed, as less 'basic', logical necessity (in logical forms), and analytic necessity (in meaning). Fine insists that the three kinds should be kept separate (so no metaphysical necessities about nature). I resent this. |
9209 | Metaphysical necessity may be 'whatever the circumstance', or 'regardless of circumstances' [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: There are two fundamental ways in which a property may be metaphysically necessary: it may be a worldly necessity, true whatever the circumstances; or it may be a transcendent necessity, true regardless of the circumstances. | |
From: Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p.10) | |
A reaction: [See Fine's 'Necessity and Non-Existence' for further details] The distinction seems to be that the first sort needs some circumstances (e.g. a physical world?), whereas the second sort doesn't (logical relations?). He also applies it to existence. |
9200 | Empiricists suspect modal notions: either it happens or it doesn't; it is just regularities. [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: Empiricists have always been suspicious of modal notions: the world is an on-or-off matter - either something happens or it does not. ..Empiricists, in so far as they have been able to make sense of modality, have tended to see it as a form of regularity. | |
From: Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p. 1) | |
A reaction: Fine is discussing the two extreme views of Quine and Lewis. It is one thing to have views about what is possible, and another to include possibilities 'in your ontology'. Our imagination competes with our extrapolations from actuality. |
21890 | Heidegger showed that passing time is the key to consciousness [Derrida] |
Full Idea: Heidegger showed us the importance of transient time for consciousness. | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
21880 | 'Tacit theory' controls our thinking (which is why Freud is important) [Derrida] |
Full Idea: All thought is controlled by tacit theory (which is why Freud is so important). | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction | |
A reaction: This idea is said to be the essential thought of Derrida's Deconstruction. The aim is liberation of thought, by identifying and bypassing these tacit metaphysical schemas. |
21884 | Capacity for repetitions is the hallmark of language [Derrida] |
Full Idea: The capacity for repetitions is the hallmark of language. | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
21935 | The sign is only conceivable as a movement between elusive presences [Derrida] |
Full Idea: The sign is conceivable only on the basis of the presence that it defers, and moving toward the deferred presence that it aims to reappropriate. | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Simon Glendinning - Derrida: A Very Short Introduction 6 | |
A reaction: [Glendinning gives no source for this] I take the fundamental idea to be that meanings are dynamic, when they are traditionally understood as static (and specifiable in dictionaries). |
21930 | For Aristotle all proper nouns must have a single sense, which is the purpose of language [Derrida] |
Full Idea: A noun [for Aristotle] is proper when it has but a single sense. Better, it is only in this case that it is properly a noun. Univocity is the essence, or better, the telos of language. | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Simon Glendinning - Derrida: A Very Short Introduction 5 | |
A reaction: [no ref given] His target seem to be Aristotelian definition, and also formal logic, which usually needs unambiguous meanings. {I'm puzzled that he thinks 'telos' is simply better than 'essence', since it is quite different]. |
21933 | Writing functions even if the sender or the receiver are absent [Derrida, by Glendinning] |
Full Idea: Writing can and must be able to do without the presence of the sender. ...Also writing can and must he able to do without the presence of the receiver. | |
From: report of Jacques Derrida (works [1990]) by Simon Glendinning - Derrida: A Very Short Introduction 6 | |
A reaction: In simple terms, one of them could die during the transmission. This is the grounds for the assertion of the primacy of writing. It opposes orthodox views which define language in terms of sender and receiver. |
21886 | Meanings depend on differences and contrasts [Derrida] |
Full Idea: Meaning depends on 'differences' (contrasts). | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
21894 | Madness and instability ('the demonic hyperbole') lurks in all language [Derrida] |
Full Idea: Madness and instability ('the demonic hyperbole') lurks behind all language. | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
21931 | 'Dissemination' is opposed to polysemia, since that is irreducible, because of multiple understandings [Derrida, by Glendinning] |
Full Idea: The intention to oppose polysemia with dissemination does not aim to affirm that everything we say is ambiguous, but that polysemia is irreducible in the sense that each and every 'meaning' is itself subject to more than one understanding. | |
From: report of Jacques Derrida (works [1990]) by Simon Glendinning - Derrida: A Very Short Introduction 5 | |
A reaction: The key point, I think, is that ambiguity and polysemia are not failures of language (which is the way most logicians see it), but part of the essential and irreducible nature of language. Nietzsche started this line of thought. |
21885 | Words exist in 'spacing', so meanings are never synchronic except in writing [Derrida] |
Full Idea: Words only exist is 'spacings' (of time and space), so there are no synchronic meanings (except perhaps in writing). | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
9207 | If sentence content is all worlds where it is true, all necessary truths have the same content! [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: The content of a sentence is often identified with the set of possible worlds in which it is true, where the worlds are metaphysically possible. But this has the awkward consequence that all metaphysically necessary truths will have the same content. | |
From: Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p.10) | |
A reaction: I've never understood how the content of a sentence could be a vast set of worlds, so I am delighted to see this proposal be torpedoed. That doesn't mean that truth conditions across possible worlds is not a promising notion. |
21891 | The good is implicitly violent (against evil), so there is no pure good [Derrida] |
Full Idea: Even the good is implicitly violent (against evil), so there can be no 'pure' good. | |
From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction | |
A reaction: Is good implicitly non-violent? Appropriate anger seems to be good behaviour, and I can't see why it is impure. Maybe anger and violence lack the control needed for pure goodness. |
23125 | Most good social changes are incremental, rather than revolutionary [Gopnik] |
Full Idea: More permanent positive social change is made incrementally rather than by revolutionary transformation. | |
From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 1) | |
A reaction: This is the standard liberal response to revolution. Revolutionaries obviously consider such a claim to be very naïve, and a failure to grasp how deep the changes need to go. |
23126 | Conservatives often want peace, prosperity and tolerance, but not social fairness [Gopnik] |
Full Idea: Many conservatives want their world to be peaceful, properous, and pluralist, just as liberals do, but they don't particularly care that it be fair. | |
From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 1) | |
A reaction: Every conservative will have a sense of what is fair (such as appropriate punishments, and keeping of contracts), but they are more inclined to think that fairness must be fought for by individuals, not imposed by governments. |
23132 | Conservatives believe obedience and rank are essential to social order [Gopnik] |
Full Idea: The idea that the appearance of submission and obedience and rank are essential to order is at the heart of the conservative ideal. | |
From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 2) | |
A reaction: [He has just quoted Edmund Burke writing of Marie Antoinette] I once heard Richard Hare say that he thought social order would be best modelled on the army. A colleague once told me that obedience is a prime duty of a school teacher. |
23128 | The opposite of liberalism is dogmatism [Gopnik] |
Full Idea: The opposite of liberalism is not conservatism but dogmatism. | |
From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 1) | |
A reaction: Nice. It pinpoints the liberal opposition to both extremes of normal politics. It might make anarchists their allies, though! |
23142 | People are fallible, so liberalism tries to distribute power [Gopnik] |
Full Idea: Liberalism makes the idea of fallibility into a political practice by trying not to have too much power concentrated in one place or part of the system. | |
From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 3) | |
A reaction: There is a potential inefficiency and failure to focus on key goals implicit in this aim. It may be a good idea for a peacetime democracy, but a terrible idea for a wartime army. To stop corruption, don't let anyone do anything? |
23143 | Liberals have tried very hard to build a conscience into their institutions [Gopnik] |
Full Idea: What liberalism can say on its own behalf is that no system of power in human history has tried harder to insert a corrective conscience into its institutions. | |
From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 3) | |
A reaction: What we are learning in recent years is that wonderful liberal institutions can be quietly eroded by the forces of darkness, once those forces have sufficient control of the media to hide what they are doing. The 'rule of law' is wobbling. |
23141 | Left-wingers are inconsistent in their essentialist descriptions of social groups [Gopnik] |
Full Idea: A criticism of the left is that it is essentialist at some moments, and wildly anti-essentialist at others. We can call this opportunistic essentialism. Gender is fluid - except for transgender kids. Race is a construction - except for white races. | |
From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 3) | |
A reaction: [compressed] Interesting. Gopnik's solution seems to be to abandon all social essentialism as wicked. In this context he is probably right, but I am firmly committed to the idea that many entities in the world have essential natures. 'Bourgeois'. |
23124 | Liberal community is not blood ties or tradition, but shared choices, and sympathy for the losers [Gopnik] |
Full Idea: The liberal idea of community is not one, as it is for many conservatives, of blood ties or traditional authority. It rest on the idea of shared choices …including even a sense of sympathy for those caught on the losing side of the argument. | |
From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 1) | |
A reaction: The key point is that most liberals (other than extreme libertarians) have a strong sense of community, contrary to the standard criticisms offered by communitarians. |
23127 | Liberal community includes flight from the family, into energetic reforming groups [Gopnik] |
Full Idea: Where conservatives believe in the renewal of traditional community, liberals believe as well in the flight from family and tradition into new kinds of communal order. …It is an idea of assembling confidence and energies for reform. | |
From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 1) | |
A reaction: He cites Greenwich Village as an example. This suggests that his vision is a little narrow. His communities are for radicals who flee to join like minds in big cities. Politics must care about community for those left behind. Pubs, sport and pets. |
23138 | Modern left-wingers criticise liberalism's control of culture [Gopnik] |
Full Idea: Most left-wing critiques of liberalism now turn more often on its cultural power and its cultural illusions. | |
From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 3) | |
A reaction: As opposed to older Marxists critiques of the exploitation of workers. This is certainly fertile ground for interesting studies of our culture. It is very hard to grasp the influence had by the endless stories we expose ourselves to. |
23129 | Right-wingers attack liberal faith in reason, left-wingers attack its faith in reform [Gopnik] |
Full Idea: The right-wing critique of liberalism is largely an attack on its overreliance on reason; the left-wing one, mostly an attack on its false faith in reform. | |
From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 2) | |
A reaction: I doubt whether sensible liberals do rely too much on reason, though they do rely of scientific evidence (after peer review!). No one can doubt that lots of reforms have occurred, so it must be frustration with the very slow process. |
23133 | Cosmopolitan liberals lack national loyalty, and welcome excessive immigration [Gopnik] |
Full Idea: Critics say liberal cosmopolitanism is indifference to national loyalty, making them easily contemplate going elsewhere and, worse still, welcoming in the world through unsifted immigration. | |
From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 2) | |
A reaction: There is certainly some truth in this. Not all liberals are so cosmopolitan, though. It is interesting to observe whether people who retire stay in their old community or move to somewhere quite new. |
23139 | Liberalism's attempt to be neutral and colour-blind erases cultural identities [Gopnik] |
Full Idea: The 'colour-blind' universe of 'neutral' liberalism is actually an attempt to erase cultural identity and history. | |
From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 3) | |
A reaction: This is the modern critique of liberalism [centred on the Intersectionality of Bell Hooks or Kimberlé Crenshaw], which analyses alienated minorities, and their emphasis on their difference in response. It can lead to 'identity politics'. |
23135 | Classic Marxists see liberalism as the ideology of the bourgeoisie [Gopnik] |
Full Idea: The classic Marxist account shows liberalism as merely the ideology of the bourgeoisie. | |
From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 3) | |
A reaction: The word 'merely' does an awful lot of work in philosohy! I suspect that 'bourgeoisie' is self-defining here - as the believers in liberalism - given that lots of Marxists emerge from the middle classes. |
23140 | Environmental disasters result not from capitalism, but from a general drive for growth [Gopnik] |
Full Idea: It is the drive for growth, not capitalism in particular, that makes environmental disasters happen. Those caused by the command economics of Eastern Europe were far greater than even the worst known in Western Europe. | |
From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 3) | |
A reaction: So the next question is whether you can have capitalism without a drive for growth. I would have thought not, given the role recycled profit plays in driving capitalism. Command economies are more easily swept away. |
23130 | Popular imperialism gives the poor the belief that their acts have world historical meaning [Gopnik] |
Full Idea: Popular imperialism is the cosmopolitanism of the poor, the lever by which the small and impotent come to believe that their acts have world historical meaning. | |
From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 2) | |
A reaction: It is not only the poor who like imperialism. The focus of this popular attitude is the armed forces, and especially the army, where personal bravery is most obvious. The army gets strong support, no matter how dubious are its activities. |
23131 | Patriots love their place, but nationalists have a paranoid ethnic hostility [Gopnik] |
Full Idea: The patriot loves his place and its cheeses; …the nationalist has not particular affection for the place, but employs his obsessive sense of encirclement and grievance on behalf of acts of ethnic vengeance. | |
From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 2) | |
A reaction: 'Vengeance' seems a bit strong. John Le Carré said nationalists are distinguished by the need to have enemies. Russia is particularly obsessed with 'encirclement'. |
23136 | Liberal free speech is actually paid speech [Gopnik] |
Full Idea: What liberals call free speech or a free press is invariably paid speech. | |
From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 3) | |
A reaction: He give this as the left-wing view of liberalism. The much-hated social media are a substantial breech in this tendency. Sales of newspapers are declining everywhere, so the battle is for television channels. |
23134 | A 'free' society implies a free market, which always produces predatory capitalism and inequalities [Gopnik] |
Full Idea: 'Free societies', as a matter of practical fact, always mean free-market societies - and free markets will never sponsor more than predatory capitalism. Inequalities always emerge. | |
From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 3) | |
A reaction: This is part of his account of left-wing objections to liberalism. The crux of the liberal view is a conviction that the worst of capitalism can be restrained. This began to look doubtful once huge multinational companies emerged. What to do? |