Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed]', 'The Structure of Appearance' and 'Quine on Quantifying In'

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21 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 5. Objectivity
Fichte's subjectivity struggles to then give any account of objectivity [Pinkard on Fichte]
     Full Idea: For Fichte 'subjectivity' came first, and he was then stuck with the (impossible) task of showing how 'objectivity' arose out of it.
     From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 06
     A reaction: The best available answer to this problem (for idealists) is, I think, Nietzsche's perspectives, in which multiple subjectivities are summed to produce a blurred picture which has a degree of consensus. Fichte later embraced other minds.
4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 5. Conceptions of Set / a. Sets as existing
Classes are a host of ethereal, platonic, pseudo entities [Goodman]
     Full Idea: I will not willingly use apparatus that peoples the world with a host of ethereal, platonic, pseudo entities.
     From: Nelson Goodman (The Structure of Appearance [1951], II.2), quoted by David Lewis - Parts of Classes 2.1
     A reaction: This represents the big gap that opened up with Goodman's former comrade in arms, Quine. Lewis quotes it in order to ask whether he means ethereal or platonic, as they are very different. I sympathise with Goodman.
4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 8. Critique of Set Theory
Two objects can apparently make up quite distinct arrangements in sets [Goodman, by Burgess/Rosen]
     Full Idea: Goodman argues that the set or class {{a}},{a,b}} is supposed to be distinct from the set or class {{b},{a,b}}, even though both are ultimately constituted from the same a and b.
     From: report of Nelson Goodman (The Structure of Appearance [1951]) by JP Burgess / G Rosen - A Subject with No Object I.A.2.a
     A reaction: I'm with Goodman all the way here, even though it is deeply unfashionable, particularly in the circles I move in. If there are trillion grains of sand on a beach, how many sets are we supposed to be committed to?
4. Formal Logic / G. Formal Mereology / 1. Mereology
The counties of Utah, and the state, and its acres, are in no way different [Goodman]
     Full Idea: A class (counties of Utah) is different neither from the individual (state of Utah) that contains its members, nor from any other class (acres of Utah) whose members exhaust the whole. For nominalists, distinction of entity means distinction of content.
     From: Nelson Goodman (The Structure of Appearance [1951], p.26), quoted by Achille Varzi - Mereology 3.1
     A reaction: This is a nice credo for the nominalist version of mereology. You can still have a mereology that commits you to the wholes as well as the parts. Cf. Lewis in Idea 10660.
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 1. Logical Form
Is it the sentence-token or the sentence-type that has a logical form? [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: Do we attribute a logical form to a sentence token because it is a token of a type with that form, or do we attribute a logical form to a sentence type because it is a type of a token with that form?
     From: Kit Fine (Quine on Quantifying In [1990], p.110)
     A reaction: Since I believe in propositions (as the unambiguous thought that lies behind a sentence), I take it that logical form concerns propositions, though strict logicians don't like this, for fear that logic spills into psychology.
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / c. not
Normativity needs the possibility of negation, in affirmation and denial [Fichte, by Pinkard]
     Full Idea: To adopt any kind of normative stance is to commit oneself necessarily to the possibility of negation. It involves doing something correctly or incorrectly, so there must exist the possibility of denying or affirming.
     From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05
     A reaction: This seems to be the key idea for understanding Hegel's logic. Personally I think animals have a non-verbal experience of negation - when a partner dies, for example.
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 4. Substitutional Quantification
Substitutional quantification is referential quantification over expressions [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: Substitutional quantification may be regarded as referential quantification over expressions.
     From: Kit Fine (Quine on Quantifying In [1990], p.124)
     A reaction: This is an illuminating gloss. Does such quantification involve some ontological commitment to expressions? I feel an infinite regress looming.
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 2. Resemblance Nominalism
If all and only red things were round things, we would need to specify the 'respect' of the resemblance [Goodman, by Macdonald,C]
     Full Idea: According to Goodman's 'companionship difficulty', resemblance nominalism has a problem if, say, all and only the red things were the round things, because we cannot distinguish the two different respects in which the things resemble one another.
     From: report of Nelson Goodman (The Structure of Appearance [1951]) by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things Ch.6
     A reaction: Goodman opts for extreme linguististic nominalism in response to this (Idea 7952), whereas Russell opts for a sort of Platonism (4441). The current idea gives Russell a further problem, of needing a universal of the respect of the resemblance.
Without respects of resemblance, we would collect blue book, blue pen, red pen, red clock together [Goodman, by Macdonald,C]
     Full Idea: Goodman's 'imperfect community' problem for Resemblance Nominalism says that without mention of respects in which things resemble, we end up with a heterogeneous collection with nothing wholly in common (blue book, blue pen, red pen, red clock).
     From: report of Nelson Goodman (The Structure of Appearance [1951]) by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things Ch.6
     A reaction: This suggests Wittgenstein's 'family' resemblance as a way out (Idea 4141), but a blue book and a red clock seem totally unrelated. Nice objection! At this point we start to think that the tropes resemble, rather than the objects.
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 3. Predicate Nominalism
If we apply the same word to different things, it is only because we are willing to do so [Goodman, by Macdonald,C]
     Full Idea: Predicate nominalism is the view that what all things to which the same word applies have in common is simply our willingness to apply the same word to them.
     From: report of Nelson Goodman (The Structure of Appearance [1951], Ch.6) by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things
     A reaction: This is Goodman's 'extreme nominalist' position. This seems also to be an anti-realist position, as it denies any 'joints' to nature (Idea 7953). It strikes me as daft. WHY are we willing to apply words in certain ways?
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 4. Necessity from Concepts
Necessary truths derive from basic assertion and negation [Fichte, by Pinkard]
     Full Idea: Fichte thought that everything that involves necessary truths - even mathematics and logic - should be shown to follow from the more basic principles involved in assertion and negation.
     From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05
     A reaction: An interesting proposal, though I am struggling to see how it works. Fichte sees assertion and negation as foundational (Idea 22017), but I take them to be responses to the real world.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / b. Transcendental idealism
Fichte's logic is much too narrow, and doesn't deduce ethics, art, society or life [Schlegel,F on Fichte]
     Full Idea: Only Fichte's principles are deduced in his book, that is, the logical ones, and not even these completely. And what about the practical, the moral and ethical ones. Society, learning, wit, art, and so on are also entitled to be deduced here.
     From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Friedrich Schlegel - works Vol 18 p.34
     A reaction: This is the beginnings of the romantic rebellion against a rather narrowly rationalist approach to philosophy. Schlegel also objects to the fact that Fichte only had one axiom (presumably the idea of the not-Self).
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / d. Absolute idealism
Fichte's key claim was that the subjective-objective distinction must itself be subjective [Fichte, by Pinkard]
     Full Idea: Fichte's key claim was that the difference between the subjective and the objective points of view had to be itself a subjective distinction, something that the 'I' posits.
     From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 09
     A reaction: This seems to lock us firmly into the idealist mental prison and throw away the key.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / a. Other minds
We only see ourselves as self-conscious and rational in relation to other rationalities [Fichte]
     Full Idea: A rational creature cannot posit itself as such a creature with self-consciousness without positing itself as an individual, as one among many rational creatures.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794], p.8), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 n25
     A reaction: [1796 book about his Wissenschaftlehre] This is the transcendental (Kantian) approach to other minds. Wittgenstein's private language argument is similar. Hegel was impressed by this idea (I think).
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 4. Presupposition of Self
The Self is the spontaneity, self-relatedness and unity needed for knowledge [Fichte, by Siep]
     Full Idea: According to Fichte, spontaneity, self-relatedness, and unity are the basic traits of knowledge (which includes conscience). ...This principle of all knowledge is what he calls the 'I' or the Self.
     From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Ludwig Siep - Fichte p.58
     A reaction: This is the idealist view. He gets 'spontaneity' from Kant, which is the mind's contribution to experience. Self-relatedness is the distinctive Fichte idea. Unity presumably means total coherence, which is typical of idealists.
Novalis sought a much wider concept of the ego than Fichte's proposal [Novalis on Fichte]
     Full Idea: Novalis aimed to create a theory of the ego with a much wider scope than Fichte's doctrine of knowledge had been able to establish. ....Without philosophy, imperfect poet - without poetry, imperfect thinker.
     From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Novalis - Logological Fragments I vol.3 p.531
     A reaction: [in his 'Fichte Studies] Since this is at the heart of early romanticism, I take the concept to embrace nature, as well as creative imagination. There is a general rebellion against the narrowness of Fichte.
The self is not a 'thing', but what emerges from an assertion of normativity [Fichte, by Pinkard]
     Full Idea: Fichte said the self is not a natural 'thing' but is itself a normative status, and 'it' can obtain this status, so it seems, only by an act of attributing it to itself. ...He continually identified the 'I' with 'reason' itself.
     From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05
     A reaction: Pinkard says Fichte gradually qualified this claim. Fichte struggled to state his view in a way that avoided obvious paradoxes. 'My mind produces decisions, so there must be someone in charge of them'? Is this transcendental?
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 6. Self as Higher Awareness
Consciousness of an object always entails awareness of the self [Fichte]
     Full Idea: I can be conscious of any object only on the condition that I am also conscious of myself, that is, of the conscious subject. This proposition is incontrovertible.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794], p.112), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05
     A reaction: [from the 1797/8 version of Wissenschaftslehre] Russell might be cross to find that his idea on this was anticipated by Fichte. I still approve of the idea.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 6. Judgement / a. Nature of Judgement
Judgement is distinguishing concepts, and seeing their relations [Fichte, by Siep]
     Full Idea: For Fichte, to judge means to distinguish concepts from one another and to place them in relationship to one another.
     From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Ludwig Siep - Fichte p.59
     A reaction: This idea of Fichte's seems to be the key one for Hegel, and hence (I presume) it is the lynchpin of German Idealism. It seems to describe mathematical knowledge quite well. I don't think it fits judging whether there is a snake in the grass.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / d. Subjective value
Fichte's idea of spontaneity implied that nothing counts unless we give it status [Fichte, by Pinkard]
     Full Idea: Fichte placed emphasis on human spontaneity, on nothing 'counting' for us unless we somehow bestowed some kind of status on it.
     From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 06
     A reaction: This idea evidentally arises from Kant's account of thought. Pinkard says this idea inspired the early Romantics. I would have thought the drive to exist (Spinoza's conatus) would make things count whether we liked it or not.
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 1. Nature
Fichte reduces nature to a lifeless immobility [Schlegel,F on Fichte]
     Full Idea: Fichte reduces the non-Ego or nature to a state of constant calm, standstill, immobility, lack of all change, movement and life, that is death.
     From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Friedrich Schlegel - works vol 12 p.190
     A reaction: The point is that Fichte's nature is a merely logical or conceptual deduction from the spontaneous reason of the self, so it can't have the lively diversity we find in nature.