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All the ideas for 'Letters to Edward Stillingfleet', 'works' and 'Lecture on Applicability of Mathematics'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 5. Critical Theory

15661	Horkheimer's critical theory was interdisciplinary, and aware of its own context and function [Horkheimer, by Finlayson]
	Full Idea: Horkheimer was chiefly responsible for developing 'critical theory' during the 1930s. ...It was interdisciplinary, reflective, dialectical, and critical. It reflected on the social context that gave rise to it, and its own function within that society.
	From: report of Max Horkheimer (works [1950]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.1:02

6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 4. Mathematical Empiricism / b. Indispensability of mathematics

8732	It is spooky the way mathematics anticipates physics [Weinberg]
	Full Idea: It is positively spooky how the physicist finds the mathematician has been there before him or her.
	From: Steven Weinberg (Lecture on Applicability of Mathematics [1986], p.725), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Thinking About Mathematics 2.3
	A reaction: This suggests that mathematics might be the study of possibilities or hypotheticals, like mental rehearsals for physics. See Hellman's modal structuralism. Maybe mathematicians are reading the mind of God, but I doubt that.

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences

15990	Every individual thing which exists has an essence, which is its internal constitution [Locke]
	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.
	From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 1), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
	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.

11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 1. Certainty

15994	If it is knowledge, it is certain; if it isn't certain, it isn't knowledge [Locke]
	Full Idea: What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty; and what comes short of certainty, I think cannot be knowledge.
	From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 2), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
	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.