Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Events and Their Names', 'Intuitionism: an Introduction' and 'Upon Nothing: Swansea lecture'

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8 ideas

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 1. Continental Philosophy

8988	Two marxist ideas have dominated in France: base and superstructure, and ideology [Scruton]
	Full Idea: Two tenets of classical Marxism have played a decisive role in French culture during our century: the theory of base and superstructure, and the concept of ideology.
	From: Roger Scruton (Upon Nothing: Swansea lecture [1993], p.7)
	A reaction: It is striking how marxist attitudes permeate even the least political of French philosophical writings, to the point where you wonder if they are even aware of it any more. They largely have marxism and reaction, with liberalism passing them by.

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 6. Deconstruction

8987	On the surface of deconstructive writing, technicalities float and then drift away [Scruton]
	Full Idea: Deconstructive writing has a peculiar surface, in which technicalities float on the syntactic flood and vanish unexplained downstream.
	From: Roger Scruton (Upon Nothing: Swansea lecture [1993], p.2)
	A reaction: Not even the greatest fans of deconstruction can deny this, and Derrida more or less admits it. At first glance it certainly looks more like the ancient idea of rhetoric than it looks anything like dialectic.

8992	Deconstruction is the last spasm of romanticism, now become hopeless and destructive [Scruton]
	Full Idea: The subversive patterns of thought in deconstruction are a last spasm of romanticism: one that has given up hope of an otherworldly redemption, and set out instead to destroy the illusions in which other still believe, the source of their power.
	From: Roger Scruton (Upon Nothing: Swansea lecture [1993], p.29)
	A reaction: It seems to be strongly connected with the failure of marxism in Europe, but it also seems to inherit all the values of the Dada movement.

6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 6. Logicism / d. Logicism critique

8754	Logic is dependent on mathematics, not the other way round [Heyting, by Shapiro]
	Full Idea: Heyting (the intuitionist pupil of Brouwer) said that 'logic is dependent on mathematics', not the other way round.
	From: report of Arend Heyting (Intuitionism: an Introduction [1956]) by Stewart Shapiro - Thinking About Mathematics 7.3
	A reaction: To me, this claim makes logicism sound much more plausible, as I don't see how mathematics could get beyond basic counting without a capacity for logical thought. Logic runs much deeper, psychologically and metaphysically.

7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / c. Reduction of events

8978	Events are made of other things, and are not fundamental to ontology [Bennett]
	Full Idea: Events are not basic items in the universe; they should not be included in any fundamental ontology...all the truths about them are entailed by and explained and made true by truths that do not involve the event concept.
	From: Jonathan Bennett (Events and Their Names [1988], p.12), quoted by Peter Simons - Events 3.1
	A reaction: Given the variable time spans of events, their ability to coincide, their ability to contain no motion, their blatantly conventional component, and their recalcitrance to individuation, I say Bennett is right.

24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 2. State Legitimacy / c. Social contract

8989	The benefits of social freedom outweigh the loneliness, doubt and alienation it brings [Scruton]
	Full Idea: While the goods of freedom, such as rights, property, education and prosperity, can be obtained only at a price - the price of loneliness, doubt and alienation - it is a price worth paying.
	From: Roger Scruton (Upon Nothing: Swansea lecture [1993])
	A reaction: A striking way for a liberal-conservative to confront the accusations of the marxists - by conceding a lot of their criticisms, but living with them. I still don't see why we shouldn't aspire to have both.

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 3. Conservatism

8990	So-called 'liberation' is the enemy of freedom, destroying the very structures that are needed [Scruton]
	Full Idea: The promise of 'liberation' has always been the enemy of freedom - in 1968 as much as in 1789 and 1917. Its first desire, and its only policy, is to destroy the institutions and traditions (the 'structures') which make freedom durable.
	From: Roger Scruton (Upon Nothing: Swansea lecture [1993], p.9)
	A reaction: There is a dilemma, though, if your legal system is corrupt. Far too many political attitudes are formed because of high-profile spectacular cases, instead of looking at daily routines. The latter might make a corrupt legal system still worth saving.

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

10364	Facts are about the world, not in it, so they can't cause anything [Bennett]
	Full Idea: Facts are not the sort of item that can cause anything. A fact is a true proposition (they say); it is not something in the world but is rather something about the world.
	From: Jonathan Bennett (Events and Their Names [1988], p.22), quoted by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 1.1
	A reaction: Compare 10361. Good argument, but maybe 'fact' is ambiguous. See Idea 10365. Events are said to be more concrete, and so can do the job, but their individuation also seems to depend on a description (as Davidson has pointed out).