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All the ideas for 'Letters to Edward Stillingfleet', 'Causal Connections' and 'Truth'

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8 ideas

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 4. Conceptual Analysis

10838	To explain a concept, we need its purpose, not just its rules of usage [Dummett]
	Full Idea: We cannot in general suppose that we give a proper account of a concept by describing those circumstance in which we do, and those in which we do not, make use of the relevant word. We explain the point of the concept, what we use the word for.
	From: Michael Dummett (Truth [1959], p.231)
	A reaction: Well said. I am beginning to develop a campaign to make sure that analytical philosophy focuses on understanding concepts (in a full 'logos' sort of way), and doesn't just settle for logical form or definition or rules of usage.

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 1. Truth

10837	It is part of the concept of truth that we aim at making true statements [Dummett]
	Full Idea: It is part of the concept of truth that we aim at making true statements.
	From: Michael Dummett (Truth [1959], p.231)
	A reaction: This strikes me as a rather contentious but very interesting claim. An even stronger claim might be that its value (its normative force) is ALL that the concept of truth contributes to speech, other aspects being analysed into something else.

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 2. Defining Truth

10840	We must be able to specify truths in a precise language, like winning moves in a game [Dummett]
	Full Idea: For a particular bounded language, if it is free of ambiguity and inconsistency, it must be possible to characterize the true sentences of the language; somewhat as, for a given game, we can say which moves are winning moves.
	From: Michael Dummett (Truth [1959], p.237)
	A reaction: The background of this sounds rather like Tarski, with truth just being a baton passed from one part of the language to another, though Dummett adds the very un-Tarskian notion that truth has a value.

3. Truth / F. Semantic Truth / 2. Semantic Truth

19171	Tarski's truth is like rules for winning games, without saying what 'winning' means [Dummett, by Davidson]
	Full Idea: Tarski's definition of truth is like giving a definition of what it is to win in various games, without giving a hint as to what winning is (e.g. that it is what one tries to do when playing).
	From: report of Michael Dummett (Truth [1959]) by Donald Davidson - Truth and Predication 7
	A reaction: This led Dummett to his 'normative' account of truth. Formally, the fact that speakers usually aim at truth seems irrelevant, but in life you certainly wouldn't have grasped truth if you thought falsehood was just as satisfactory. The world is involved.

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.

18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 1. Abstract Thought

10839	You can't infer a dog's abstract concepts from its behaviour [Dummett]
	Full Idea: One could train a dog to bark only when a bell rang and a light shone without presupposing that it possessed the concept of conjunction.
	From: Michael Dummett (Truth [1959], p.235)

26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / b. Causal relata

4784	Salmon says processes rather than events should be basic in a theory of physical causation [Salmon, by Psillos]
	Full Idea: Salmon argues that processes rather than events should be the basic entities in a theory of physical causation.
	From: report of Wesley Salmon (Causal Connections [1984]) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §4.2
	A reaction: It increasingly strikes me that the concept of a 'process' ought to be ontologically basic. Edelman says the mind is a process. An 'event' is too loose, and a 'fact' too vague, and heaven knows what Hume meant by an 'object'.