5897
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0 is a non-successor number, all successors are numbers, successors can't duplicate, if P(n) and P(n+1) then P(all-n) [Peano, by Flew]
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Full Idea:
1) 0 is a number; 2) The successor of any number is a number; 3) No two numbers have the same successor; 4) 0 is not the successor of any number; 5) If P is true of 0, and if P is true of any number n and of its successor, P is true of every number.
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From:
report of Giuseppe Peano (works [1890]) by Antony Flew - Pan Dictionary of Philosophy 'Peano'
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A reaction:
Devised by Dedekind and proposed by Peano, these postulates were intended to avoid references to intuition in specifying the natural numbers. I wonder if they could define 'successor' without reference to 'number'.
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15990
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Every individual thing which exists has an essence, which is its internal constitution [Locke]
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Full Idea:
I take essences to be in everything that internal constitution or frame for the modification of substance, which God in his wisdom gives to every particular creature, when he gives it a being; and such essences I grant there are in all things that exist.
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From:
John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 1), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
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A reaction:
This is the clearest statement I have found of Locke's commitment to essences, for all his doubts about whether we can know such things. Alexander says (ch.13) Locke was reacting against scholastic essence, as pertaining to species.
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15994
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If it is knowledge, it is certain; if it isn't certain, it isn't knowledge [Locke]
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Full Idea:
What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty; and what comes short of certainty, I think cannot be knowledge.
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From:
John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 2), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
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A reaction:
I much prefer that fallibilist approach offered by the pragmatists. Knowledge is well-supported belief which seems (and is agreed) to be true, but there is a small shadow of doubt hanging over all of it.
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20409
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When we judge beauty, it isn't just personal; we judge on behalf of everybody [Kant]
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Full Idea:
It is ridiculous if someone justifies his tast by saying 'this object is beautiful for me'. . .If he pronounces that something is beautiful, then he expects the very same satisfaction of others: he judges not merely for himself, but for everyone.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790], CUP 7 5:213), quoted by Elizabeth Schellekens - Immanuel Kant (aesthetics) 1
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A reaction:
For Kant this would also be the hallmark of rationality - that we expect, or hope for, a consensus when we express a rational judgement. But this expectation is far less in cases of beauty. We do not expect total agreement from very tasteful people.
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22711
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The beautiful is not conceptualised as moral, but it symbolises or resembles goodness [Kant, by Murdoch]
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Full Idea:
Kant insists that the beautiful must not be tainted with the good (that is, not conceptualised in any way which would bring it into the sphere of moral judgement) yet he says that the beautiful symbolises the good, it is an analogy of the good.
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From:
report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Iris Murdoch - The Sublime and the Good p.209
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A reaction:
Kant evidently wanted a very pure view of the aesthetic experience, drained of any overlapping feelings or beliefs. I'm not sure I understand how the beautiful can symbolise or be analogous to the good, while being devoid of it.
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4025
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Kant saw beauty as a sort of disinterested pleasure, which has become separate from the good [Kant, by Taylor,C]
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Full Idea:
Kant, in his third critique, defined beauty in terms of a certain kind of disinterested pleasure;….this is the basis for a declaration of independence of the beautiful relative to the good.
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From:
report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Charles Taylor - Sources of the Self §23.1
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A reaction:
This is a rebellion against the Greeks, especially Plato, and prepares the ground for the idea of 'art for art's sake'. Personally, I'm with Plato.
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20412
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Beauty is only judged in pure contemplation, and not with something else at stake [Kant]
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Full Idea:
If the question is whether something is beautiful, one does not want to know whether there is something that is or that could be at stake, for us or for someone else, in the existence of the thing, but rather how we judge it in mere contemplation.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790], CUP 2 5:204), quoted by Elizabeth Schellekens - Immanuel Kant (aesthetics) 2.3
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A reaction:
This evidently denies that function has anything to do with beauty, and seems to be a prelude to 'art for art's sake'. But a running cheetah cannot be separated from the sheer efficiencey and focus of the performance.
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5643
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Aesthetic values are not objectively valid, but we must treat them as if they are [Kant, by Scruton]
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Full Idea:
The 'Critique of Judgement' argues, then, not for the objective validity of aesthetic values, but for the fact that we must think of them as objectively valid.
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From:
report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy §11.7
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A reaction:
The trouble with these transcendental arguments of Kant is that they render you powerless to discuss the question of whether values are actually objective. We are all trapped in presuppositions, instead of testing suppositions.
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20410
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The judgement of beauty is not cognitive, but relates, via imagination, to pleasurable feelings [Kant]
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Full Idea:
In order to understand whether or not something is beautiful, we do not relate the representation by means of understanding to the object for cognition, but relate it by means of the imagination ..to the subject and its feeling of pleasure or displeasure.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790], CUP 1 5:203), quoted by Elizabeth Schellekens - Immanuel Kant (aesthetics) 2.1
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A reaction:
This is to distinguish the particular type of judgement which counts as 'aesthetic' - the point being that it is not cognitive - it is not a matter of knowledge and facts, but a cool judgement made about a warm feeling of pleasure. I think.
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