79 ideas
2463 | A standard naturalist view is realist, externalist, and computationalist, and believes in rationality [Fodor] |
Full Idea: There seems to be an emerging naturalist consensus that is Realist in ontology and epistemology, externalist in semantics, and computationalist in cognitive psychology, which nicely allows us to retain our understanding of ourselves as rational creatures. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) |
23853 | Truth is not a object we love - it is the radiant manifestation of reality [Weil] |
Full Idea: Love of truth is not a correct form of expression. Truth is not an object of love. It is not an object at all. …Truth is the radiant manifestation of reality. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], III 'Growing') | |
A reaction: Wow! Love that one! |
2435 | Psychology has to include the idea that mental processes are typically truth-preserving [Fodor] |
Full Idea: A psychology that can't make sense of such facts as that mental processes are typically truth-preserving is ipso facto dead in the water. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §1.3) |
15413 | With four tense operators, all complex tenses reduce to fourteen basic cases [Burgess] |
Full Idea: Fand P as 'will' and 'was', G as 'always going to be', H as 'always has been', all tenses reduce to 14 cases: the past series, each implying the next, FH,H,PH,HP,P,GP, and the future series PG,G,FG,GF,F,HF, plus GH=HG implying all, FP=PF which all imply. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 2.8) | |
A reaction: I have tried to translate the fourteen into English, but am not quite confident enough to publish them here. I leave it as an exercise for the reader. |
15415 | The temporal Barcan formulas fix what exists, which seems absurd [Burgess] |
Full Idea: In temporal logic, if the converse Barcan formula holds then nothing goes out of existence, and the direct Barcan formula holds if nothing ever comes into existence. These results highlight the intuitive absurdity of the Barcan formulas. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 2.9) | |
A reaction: This is my reaction to the modal cases as well - the absurdity of thinking that no actually nonexistent thing might possibly have existed, or that the actual existents might not have existed. Williamson seems to be the biggest friend of the formulas. |
15430 | Is classical logic a part of intuitionist logic, or vice versa? [Burgess] |
Full Idea: From one point of view intuitionistic logic is a part of classical logic, missing one axiom, from another classical logic is a part of intuitionistic logic, missing two connectives, intuitionistic v and → | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 6.4) |
15431 | It is still unsettled whether standard intuitionist logic is complete [Burgess] |
Full Idea: The question of the completeness of the full intuitionistic logic for its intended interpretation is not yet fully resolved. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 6.9) |
15429 | Relevance logic's → is perhaps expressible by 'if A, then B, for that reason' [Burgess] |
Full Idea: The relevantist logician's → is perhaps expressible by 'if A, then B, for that reason'. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 5.8) |
2442 | Inferences are surely part of the causal structure of the world [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Inferences are surely part of the causal structure of the world. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §3) |
15404 | Technical people see logic as any formal system that can be studied, not a study of argument validity [Burgess] |
Full Idea: Among the more technically oriented a 'logic' no longer means a theory about which forms of argument are valid, but rather means any formalism, regardless of its applications, that resembles original logic enough to be studied by similar methods. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], Pref) | |
A reaction: There doesn't seem to be any great intellectual obligation to be 'technical'. As far as pure logic is concerned, I am very drawn to the computer approach, since I take that to be the original dream of Aristotle and Leibniz - impersonal precision. |
15405 | Classical logic neglects the non-mathematical, such as temporality or modality [Burgess] |
Full Idea: There are topics of great philosophical interest that classical logic neglects because they are not important to mathematics. …These include distinctions of past, present and future, or of necessary, actual and possible. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 1.1) |
15427 | The Cut Rule expresses the classical idea that entailment is transitive [Burgess] |
Full Idea: The Cut rule (from A|-B and B|-C, infer A|-C) directly expresses the classical doctrine that entailment is transitive. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 5.3) |
15421 | Classical logic neglects counterfactuals, temporality and modality, because maths doesn't use them [Burgess] |
Full Idea: Classical logic neglects counterfactual conditionals for the same reason it neglects temporal and modal distinctions, namely, that they play no serious role in mathematics. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 4.1) | |
A reaction: Science obviously needs counterfactuals, and metaphysics needs modality. Maybe so-called 'classical' logic will be renamed 'basic mathematical logic'. Philosophy will become a lot clearer when that happens. |
15403 | Philosophical logic is a branch of logic, and is now centred in computer science [Burgess] |
Full Idea: Philosophical logic is a branch of logic, a technical subject. …Its centre of gravity today lies in theoretical computer science. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], Pref) | |
A reaction: He firmly distinguishes it from 'philosophy of logic', but doesn't spell it out. I take it that philosophical logic concerns metaprinciples which compare logical systems, and suggest new lines of research. Philosophy of logic seems more like metaphysics. |
15407 | Formalising arguments favours lots of connectives; proving things favours having very few [Burgess] |
Full Idea: When formalising arguments it is convenient to have as many connectives as possible available.; but when proving results about formulas it is convenient to have as few as possible. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 1.4) | |
A reaction: Illuminating. The fact that you can whittle classical logic down to two (or even fewer!) connectives warms the heart of technicians, but makes connection to real life much more difficult. Hence a bunch of extras get added. |
15424 | Asserting a disjunction from one disjunct seems odd, but can be sensible, and needed in maths [Burgess] |
Full Idea: Gricean implicature theory might suggest that a disjunction is never assertable when a disjunct is (though actually the disjunction might be 'pertinent') - but the procedure is indispensable in mathematical practice. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 5.2) | |
A reaction: He gives an example of a proof in maths which needs it, and an unusual conversational occasion where it makes sense. |
15409 | All occurrences of variables in atomic formulas are free [Burgess] |
Full Idea: All occurrences of variables in atomic formulas are free. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 1.7) |
15414 | The denotation of a definite description is flexible, rather than rigid [Burgess] |
Full Idea: By contrast to rigidly designating proper names, …the denotation of definite descriptions is (in general) not rigid but flexible. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 2.9) | |
A reaction: This modern way of putting it greatly clarifies why Russell was interested in the type of reference involved in definite descriptions. Obviously some descriptions (such as 'the only person who could ever have…') might be rigid. |
15406 | 'Induction' and 'recursion' on complexity prove by connecting a formula to its atomic components [Burgess] |
Full Idea: There are atomic formulas, and formulas built from the connectives, and that is all. We show that all formulas have some property, first for the atomics, then the others. This proof is 'induction on complexity'; we also use 'recursion on complexity'. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 1.4) | |
A reaction: That is: 'induction on complexity' builds a proof from atomics, via connectives; 'recursion on complexity' breaks down to the atomics, also via the connectives. You prove something by showing it is rooted in simple truths. |
15425 | The sequent calculus makes it possible to have proof without transitivity of entailment [Burgess] |
Full Idea: It might be wondered how one could have any kind of proof procedure at all if transitivity of entailment is disallowed, but the sequent calculus can get around the difficulty. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 5.3) | |
A reaction: He gives examples where transitivity of entailment (so that you can build endless chains of deductions) might fail. This is the point of the 'cut free' version of sequent calculus, since the cut rule allows transitivity. |
15426 | We can build one expanding sequence, instead of a chain of deductions [Burgess] |
Full Idea: Instead of demonstrations which are either axioms, or follow from axioms by rules, we can have one ever-growing sequence of formulas of the form 'Axioms |- ______', where the blank is filled by Axioms, then Lemmas, then Theorems, then Corollaries. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 5.3) |
15408 | 'Tautologies' are valid formulas of classical sentential logic - or substitution instances in other logics [Burgess] |
Full Idea: The valid formulas of classical sentential logic are called 'tautologically valid', or simply 'tautologies'; with other logics 'tautologies' are formulas that are substitution instances of valid formulas of classical sentential logic. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 1.5) |
15418 | Validity (for truth) and demonstrability (for proof) have correlates in satisfiability and consistency [Burgess] |
Full Idea: Validity (truth by virtue of logical form alone) and demonstrability (provability by virtue of logical form alone) have correlative notions of logical possibility, 'satisfiability' and 'consistency', which come apart in some logics. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 3.3) |
15412 | Models leave out meaning, and just focus on truth values [Burgess] |
Full Idea: Models generally deliberately leave out meaning, retaining only what is important for the determination of truth values. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 2.2) | |
A reaction: This is the key point to hang on to, if you are to avoid confusing mathematical models with models of things in the real world. |
15411 | We only need to study mathematical models, since all other models are isomorphic to these [Burgess] |
Full Idea: In practice there is no need to consider any but mathematical models, models whose universes consist of mathematical objects, since every model is isomorphic to one of these. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 1.8) | |
A reaction: The crucial link is the technique of Gödel Numbering, which can translate any verbal formula into numerical form. He adds that, because of the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem only subsets of the natural numbers need be considered. |
15416 | We aim to get the technical notion of truth in all models matching intuitive truth in all instances [Burgess] |
Full Idea: The aim in setting up a model theory is that the technical notion of truth in all models should agree with the intuitive notion of truth in all instances. A model is supposed to represent everything about an instance that matters for its truth. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 3.2) |
15428 | The Liar seems like a truth-value 'gap', but dialethists see it as a 'glut' [Burgess] |
Full Idea: It is a common view that the liar sentence ('This very sentence is not true') is an instance of a truth-value gap (neither true nor false), but some dialethists cite it as an example of a truth-value glut (both true and false). | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 5.7) | |
A reaction: The defence of the glut view must be that it is true, then it is false, then it is true... Could it manage both at once? |
23855 | Creation produced a network or web of determinations [Weil] |
Full Idea: What is sovereign in this world is determinateness, limit. Eternal Wisdom imprisons this universe in a network, a web of determinations. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], III 'Growth') | |
A reaction: Love this, because I take 'determination' to be the defining relationship in ontology. It covers both physical causation and abstract necessities. |
15420 | De re modality seems to apply to objects a concept intended for sentences [Burgess] |
Full Idea: There is a problem over 'de re' modality (as contrasted with 'de dicto'), as in ∃x□x. What is meant by '"it is analytic that Px" is satisfied by a', given that analyticity is a notion that in the first instance applies to complete sentences? | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 3.9) | |
A reaction: This is Burgess's summary of one of Quine's original objections. The issue may be a distinction between whether the sentence is analytic, and what makes it analytic. The necessity of bachelors being unmarried makes that sentence analytic. |
15419 | General consensus is S5 for logical modality of validity, and S4 for proof [Burgess] |
Full Idea: To the extent that there is any conventional wisdom about the question, it is that S5 is correct for alethic logical modality, and S4 correct for apodictic logical modality. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 3.8) | |
A reaction: In classical logic these coincide, so presumably one should use the minimum system to do the job, which is S4 (?). |
15417 | Logical necessity has two sides - validity and demonstrability - which coincide in classical logic [Burgess] |
Full Idea: Logical necessity is a genus with two species. For classical logic the truth-related notion of validity and the proof-related notion of demonstrability, coincide - but they are distinct concept. In some logics they come apart, in intension and extension. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 3.3) | |
A reaction: They coincide in classical logic because it is sound and complete. This strikes me as the correct approach to logical necessity, tying it to the actual nature of logic, rather than some handwavy notion of just 'true in all possible worlds'. |
15422 | Three conditionals theories: Materialism (material conditional), Idealism (true=assertable), Nihilism (no truth) [Burgess] |
Full Idea: Three main theories of the truth of indicative conditionals are Materialism (the conditions are the same as for the material conditional), Idealism (identifying assertability with truth-value), and Nihilism (no truth, just assertability). | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 4.3) |
15423 | It is doubtful whether the negation of a conditional has any clear meaning [Burgess] |
Full Idea: It is contentious whether conditionals have negations, and whether 'it is not the case that if A,B' has any clear meaning. | |
From: John P. Burgess (Philosophical Logic [2009], 4.9) | |
A reaction: This seems to be connected to Lewis's proof that a probability conditional cannot be reduced to a single proposition. If a conditional only applies to A-worlds, it is not surprising that its meaning gets lost when it leaves that world. |
2462 | Control of belief is possible if you know truth conditions and what causes beliefs [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Premeditated cognitive management is possible if knowing the contents of one's thoughts would tell you what would make them true and what would cause you to have them. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
A reaction: I love the idea of 'cognitive management'. Since belief is fairly involuntary, I subject myself to the newspapers, books, TV and conversation which will create the style of beliefs to which I aspire. Why? |
2461 | An experiment is a deliberate version of what informal thinking does all the time [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Experimentation is an occasional and more or less self-conscious exercise in what informal thinking does all the time without thinking about it. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) |
2454 | We can deliberately cause ourselves to have true thoughts - hence the value of experiments [Fodor] |
Full Idea: A creature that knows what makes its thoughts true and what would cause it to have them, could therefore cause itself to have true thoughts. …This would explain why experimentation is so close to the heart of our cognitive style. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) |
2455 | Interrogation and experiment submit us to having beliefs caused [Fodor] |
Full Idea: You can put yourself into a situation where you may be caused to believe that P. Putting a question to someone who is in the know is one species of this behaviour, and putting a question to Nature (an experiment) is another. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) |
2460 | Participation in an experiment requires agreement about what the outcome will mean [Fodor] |
Full Idea: To be in the audience for an experiment you have to believe what the experimenter believes about what the outcome would mean, but not necessarily what the outcome will be. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) |
2458 | Theories are links in the causal chain between the environment and our beliefs [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Theories function as links in the causal chains that run from environmental outcomes to the beliefs that they cause the inquirer to have. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) |
2443 | I say psychology is intentional, semantics is informational, and thinking is computation [Fodor] |
Full Idea: I hold that psychological laws are intentional, that semantics is purely informational, and that thinking is computation (and that it is possible to hold all of these assumptions at once). | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
A reaction: When he puts it baldly like that, it doesn't sound terribly persuasive. Thinking is 'computation'? Raw experience is irrelevant? What is it 'like' to spot an interesting connection between two propositions or concepts? It's not like adding 7 and 5. |
2453 | We are probably the only creatures that can think about our own thoughts [Fodor] |
Full Idea: I think it is likely that we are the only creatures that can think about the contents of our thoughts. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
A reaction: I think this is a major idea. If you ask me the traditional question - what is the essential difference between us and other animals? - this is my answer (not language, or reason). We are the metathinkers. |
2446 | Cartesians consider interaction to be a miracle [Fodor] |
Full Idea: The Cartesian view is that the interaction problem does arise, but is unsolvable because interaction is miraculous. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
A reaction: A rather unsympathetic statement of the position. Cartesians might think that God could explain to us how interaction works. Cartesians are not mysterians, I think, but they see no sign of any theory of interaction. |
2445 | Semantics v syntax is the interaction problem all over again [Fodor] |
Full Idea: The question how mental representations could be both semantic, like propositions, and causal, like rocks, trees, and neural firings, is arguably just the interaction problem all over again. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
A reaction: Interesting way of presenting the problem. If you seem to be confronting the interaction problem, you have probably drifted into a bogus dualist way of thinking. Retreat, and reformulate you questions and conceptual apparatus, till the question vanishes. |
2464 | Type physicalism equates mental kinds with physical kinds [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Type physicalism is, roughly, the doctrine that psychological kinds are identical to neurological kinds. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], App A n.1) | |
A reaction: This gets my general support, leaving open the nature of 'kinds'. Presumably the identity is strict, as in 'Hesperus is identical to Phosphorus'. It seems unlikely that if you and I think the 'same' thought, that we have strictly identical brain states. |
2447 | Hume has no theory of the co-ordination of the mind [Fodor] |
Full Idea: What Hume didn't see was that the causal and representational properties of mental symbols have somehow to be coordinated if the coherence of mental life is to be accounted for. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
A reaction: Certainly the idea that it all somehow becomes magic at the point where the brain represents the world is incoherent - but it is a bit magical. How can the whole of my garden be in my brain? Weird. |
2440 | Propositional attitudes are propositions presented in a certain way [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Propositional attitudes are really three-place relations, between a creature, a proposition, and a mode of presentation (which are sentences of Mentalese). | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §2.II) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure about 'really'! Why do we need a creature? Isn't 'hoping it will rain' a propositional attitude which some creature may or may not have? Fodor wants it to be physical, but it's abstract? |
2450 | Rationality has mental properties - autonomy, productivity, experiment [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Mentalism isn't gratuitous; you need it to explain rationality. Mental causation buys you behaviours that are unlike reflexes in at least three ways: they're autonomous, they're productive, and they're experimental. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
A reaction: He makes his three ways sound all-or-nothing, which is (I believe) the single biggest danger when thinking about the mind. "Either you are conscious, or you are not..." |
2437 | XYZ (Twin Earth 'water') is an impossibility [Fodor] |
Full Idea: There isn't any XYZ, and there couldn't be any, and so we don't have to worry about it. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §2.I) | |
A reaction: Jadeite and Nephrite are real enough, which are virtually indistinguishable variants of jade. You just need Twin Jewellers instead of Twin Earths. We could build them, and employ twins to work there. |
2441 | Truth conditions require a broad concept of content [Fodor] |
Full Idea: We need the idea of broad content to make sense of the fact that thoughts have the truth-conditions that they do. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §2.II) | |
A reaction: There seems to be (as Dummett points out) a potential circularity here, as you can hardly know the truth-conditions of something if you don't already know its content. |
3114 | Concepts aren't linked to stuff; they are what is caused by stuff [Fodor] |
Full Idea: If the words of 'Swamp Man' (spontaneously created, with concepts) are about XYZ on Twin Earth, it is not because he's causally connected to the stuff, but because XYZ would cause his 'water' tokens (in the absence of H2O). | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], App B) | |
A reaction: The sight of the Eiffel tower causes my 'France' tokens, so is my word "France" about the Eiffel Tower? What would cause my 'nothing' tokens? |
2452 | Knowing the cause of a thought is almost knowing its content [Fodor] |
Full Idea: If you know the content of a thought, you know quite a lot about what would cause you to have it. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure where this fits into the great jigsaw of the mind, but it strikes me as an acute and important observation. The truth of a thought is not essential to make you have it. Ask Othello. |
2432 | Is content basically information, fixed externally? [Fodor] |
Full Idea: I assume intentional content reduces (in some way) to information. …The content of a thought depends on its external relations; on the way that the thought is related to the world, not the way that it is related to other thoughts. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §1.2) | |
A reaction: Does this make Fodor a 'weak' functionalist? The 'strong' version would say a thought is merely a location in a flow diagram, but Fodor's 'mentalism' includes a further 'content' in each diagram box. |
2438 | In the information view, concepts are potentials for making distinctions [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Semantics, according to the informational view, is mostly about counterfactuals; what counts for the identity of my concepts is not what I do distinguish but what I could distinguish if I cared to (even using instruments and experts). | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §2.I) | |
A reaction: We all differ in our discriminations (and awareness of expertise), so our concepts would differ, which is bad news for communication (see Idea 223). The view has some plausibility, though. |
2439 | Semantic externalism says the concept 'elm' needs no further beliefs or inferences [Fodor] |
Full Idea: It is the essence of semantic externalism that there is nothing that you have to believe, there are no inferences that you have to accept, to have the concept 'elm'. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §2.I) | |
A reaction: [REMINDER: broad content is filed in 18.C.7, under 'Thought' rather than under language. That is because I am a philospher of thought, rather than of language. |
2457 | If meaning is information, that establishes the causal link between the state of the world and our beliefs [Fodor] |
Full Idea: It is the causal connection between the state of the world and the contents of beliefs that the reduction of meaning to information is designed to insure. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
A reaction: I'm not clear why characterising the contents of a belief in terms of its information has to amount to a 'reduction'. A cup of tea isn't reduced to tea. Connections imply duality. |
2451 | To know the content of a thought is to know what would make it true [Fodor] |
Full Idea: If you know the content of a thought, you thereby know what would make the thought true. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
A reaction: The truthmaker might by physically impossible, and careful thought might show it to be contradictory - but that wouldn't destroy the meaning. |
2433 | For holists no two thoughts are ever quite the same, which destroys faith in meaning [Fodor] |
Full Idea: If what you are thinking depends on all of what you believe, then nobody ever thinks the same thing twice. …That is why so many semantic holists (Quine, Putnam, Rorty, Churchland, probably Wittgenstein) end up being semantic eliminativists. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §1.2b) | |
A reaction: If linguistic holism is nonsense, this is easily settled. What I say about breakfast is not changed by reading some Gibbon yesterday. |
2436 | It is claimed that reference doesn't fix sense (Jocasta), and sense doesn't fix reference (Twin Earth) [Fodor] |
Full Idea: The standard view is that Frege cases [knowing Jocasta but not mother] show that reference doesn't determine sense, and Twin cases [knowing water but not H2O] show that sense doesn't determine reference. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §1.3) | |
A reaction: How about 'references don't contain much information', and 'descriptions may not fix what they are referring to'? Simple really. |
2434 | Broad semantics holds that the basic semantic properties are truth and denotation [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Broad semantic theories generally hold that the basic semantic properties of thoughts are truth and denotation. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §1.2b) | |
A reaction: I think truth and denotation are the basic semantic properties, but I am dubious about whole-hearted broad semantic theories, so I seem to have gone horribly wrong somewhere. |
2459 | Externalist semantics are necessary to connect the contents of beliefs with how the world is [Fodor] |
Full Idea: You need an externalist semantics to explain why the contents of beliefs should have anything to do with how the world is. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
A reaction: Since externalist semantics only emerged in the 1970s, that implies that no previous theory had any notion that language had some connection to how the world is. Eh? |
23848 | The aesthete's treatment of beauty as amusement is sacreligious; beauty should nourish [Weil] |
Full Idea: The aesthete's point of view is sacreligious, not only in matters of religion but even in those of art. It consists in amusing oneself with beauty by handling it and looking at it. Beauty is something to be eaten: it is a food. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Country') | |
A reaction: She is endorsing the 'food' view against the 'handling' view. Beauty should nourish, she says. |
23854 | Beauty is the proof of what is good [Weil] |
Full Idea: When the subject in question is the good, beauty is a rigorous and positive proof. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], III 'Growing') | |
A reaction: Purest platonism! It is incomprehensible to say 'this thing is evil, but it is beautiful'. But there are plenty of things which strike me as beautiful, without connecting that in any way to moral goodness. |
23837 | Respect is our only obligation, which can only be expressed through deeds, not words [Weil] |
Full Idea: Humans have only one obligation: respect. The obligation is only performed if the respect is effectively expressed in a real, not a fictitious, way; and this can only be done through the medium of Man's earthly needs. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Needs') | |
A reaction: She says man's 'eternal destiny' imposes this obligation. I read this as saying that you should not imagine that you treat people respectfully if you are merely polite to them. Col. Pickering and Eliza Doolittle! Respect is the supreme virtue. |
23844 | The most important human need is to have multiple roots [Weil] |
Full Idea: To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognised need of the human soul. …Every human being needs to have multiple roots. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Uprootedness') | |
A reaction: Agree. I think we are just like trees, in that we need roots to grow well, and plenty of space to fully flourish. Identifying those roots is the main task of parents and teachers. |
23838 | The need for order stands above all others, and is understood via the other needs [Weil] |
Full Idea: Order is the first need of all; it evens stands above all needs properly so-called. To be able to conceive it we must know what the other needs are. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Order') | |
A reaction: This may be music to conservative ears, but you should examine Weil's other ideas to see what she has in mind. |
23836 | Obligations only bind individuals, not collectives [Weil] |
Full Idea: Obligations are only binding on human beings. There are no obligations for collectivities, as such. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Needs') | |
A reaction: I take it that 'as such' excludes the institutions created by collectivities, such as parliaments and courts. A nomadic tribe seems to have no duties, as a tribe, apart from mutual obligations among its members. Does this excuse crimes by the tribe? |
23840 | A citizen should be able to understand the whole of society [Weil] |
Full Idea: A man needs to be able to encompass in thought the entire range of activity of the social organism to which he belongs. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Responsibility') | |
A reaction: She is urging the active involvement of citizens in decision making - for which they need appropriate knowledge. |
23843 | Even the poorest should feel collective ownership, and participation in grand display [Weil] |
Full Idea: Participation in collective possessions is important. Where real civic life exists, each feels he has a personal ownership in the public monuments, gardens, ceremonial pomp and circumstances; sumptuousness is thus place within the reach of the poorest. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Collective') | |
A reaction: OK with gardens. Dubious about fobbing the poor off with pomp. Monuments are a modern controversy, when they turn out to commemorate slavery and colonial conquest. I agree with her basic thought. |
23846 | Culture is an instrument for creating an ongoing succession of teachers [Weil] |
Full Idea: Culture - as we know it - is an instrument manipulated by teachers for manufacturing more teachers, who, in their turn, will manufacture still more teachers. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Towns') | |
A reaction: Lot of truth in this. We tend to view our greatest successes in students who become academics and teachers. Culture is very much seen as something which must be 'transmitted' to each new generation. |
23839 | A lifelong head of society should only be a symbol, not a ruler [Weil] |
Full Idea: Wherever a man is placed for life at the head of a social organism, he ought to be a symbol and not a ruler, as is the case with the King of England. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Obedience') | |
A reaction: Nice to hear a radical French thinker endorsing an ancient British tradition! She may not be endorsing a lifelong head of state. Lifelong rulers are the main agents of totalitarianism. |
23842 | Party politics in a democracy can't avoid an anti-democratic party [Weil] |
Full Idea: A democracy where public life is made up of strife between political parties is incapable of preventing the formation of a party whose avowed aim is the overthrow of that democracy. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Opinion') | |
A reaction: We have seen this around 2020 in the USA and the UK. Freedom is compulsory? Weil hates political parties (as did Rousseau). |
23847 | Socialism tends to make a proletariat of the whole population [Weil] |
Full Idea: What is called Socialism tends to force everybody without distinction into the proletarian condition. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Towns') | |
A reaction: For example, Weil favours maximising private house ownership, rather than communally owned housing. She is describing wholesale nationalisation. I would incline towards nationalisation only of all basic central services. |
23845 | The capitalists neglect the people and the nation, and even their own interests [Weil] |
Full Idea: The capitalists have betrayed their calling by criminally neglecting not only the interests of the people, not only those of the nation, but even their own. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Towns') | |
A reaction: It is certainly true that the dedicated capitalist has little loyalty either to the people or to the nation. She doesn't spell out their failure of self-interest. I guess it produces a way of life they don't really want, deep down. |
23841 | By making money the sole human measure, inequality has become universal [Weil] |
Full Idea: By making money the sole, or almost the sole, motive of all actions, the sole, or almost the sole, measure of all things, the poison of inequality has been introduced everywhere. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Equality') | |
A reaction: Presumably this dates right back to the invention of money, and then increases with the endless rise of capitalism. |
23835 | People have duties, and only have rights because of the obligations of others to them [Weil] |
Full Idea: A right is effectual only in relation to its corresponding obligation, springing not from the individual who possesses it, but from others who consider themselves under an obligation to him. In isolation a man only has duties, and only others have rights. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Needs') | |
A reaction: This seems correct, and obviously refutes the idea that people have intrinsic natural rights. However, it may be our sense of what nature requires which gives rise to the obligations we feel towards others. |
23852 | To punish people we must ourselves be innocent - but that undermines the desire to punish [Weil] |
Full Idea: In order to have the right to punish the guilty, we ought first of all to purify ourselves of their crimes. …But once this is accomplished we shall no longer feel the least desire to punish, or as little as possible and with extreme sorrow. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], III 'Growing') | |
A reaction: Elsewhere she endorses punishment, as a social necessity, and a redemption for the wicked. This idea looks like a bit of a change of heart. She may be thinking of Jesus on the mote in someone's eye. |
23850 | The soldier-civilian distinction should be abolished; every citizen is committed to a war [Weil] |
Full Idea: The distinction between soldiers and civilians, which the pressure of circumstances has already almost obliterated, should be entirely abolished. Every individual in the population owes his country the whole of his strength, resources and life itself. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Nation') | |
A reaction: Written in London in 1943. The year carpet bombing seriously escalated. The facts of warfare can change the ethics. |
23851 | Education is essentially motivation [Weil] |
Full Idea: Education - whether its object be children or adults, individuals or an entire people, or even oneself - consists in creating motives. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], III 'Growing') | |
A reaction: I can't disagree. Intellectual motivation is simply what we find interesting, and there is no formula for that. A teacher can teach a good session, and only 5% of the pupils find it interesting. A bad session could be life-changing for one student. |
23849 | Religion should quietly suffuse all human life with its light [Weil] |
Full Idea: The proper function of religion is to suffuse with its light all secular life, public or private, without in any way dominating it. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Nation') | |
A reaction: Even for the non-religious there is something attractive about some view of the world which 'suffuses our lives with light'. It probably describes medieval Christendom, but that contained an awful lot of darkness. |