Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Events and Their Names', 'Mathematics, Science and Language' and 'The Truth in Relativism'

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5 ideas

6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 1. Mathematics
18119 Mathematics is a mental activity which does not use language [Brouwer, by Bostock]
     Full Idea: Brouwer made the rather extraordinary claim that mathematics is a mental activity which uses no language.
     From: report of Luitzen E.J. Brouwer (Mathematics, Science and Language [1928]) by David Bostock - Philosophy of Mathematics 7.1
     A reaction: Since I take language to have far less of a role in thought than is commonly believed, I don't think this idea is absurd. I would say that we don't use language much when we are talking!
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 4. Using Numbers / g. Applying mathematics
18118 Brouwer regards the application of mathematics to the world as somehow 'wicked' [Brouwer, by Bostock]
     Full Idea: Brouwer regards as somehow 'wicked' the idea that mathematics can be applied to a non-mental subject matter, the physical world, and that it might develop in response to the needs which that application reveals.
     From: report of Luitzen E.J. Brouwer (Mathematics, Science and Language [1928]) by David Bostock - Philosophy of Mathematics 7.1
     A reaction: The idea is that mathematics only concerns creations of the human mind. It presumably has no more application than, say, noughts-and-crosses.
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.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / f. Ethical non-cognitivism
22450 If moral systems can't judge other moral systems, then moral relativism is true [Williams,B, by Foot]
     Full Idea: If some societies with divergent moral systems merely confront each other, having no use for the assertion that their own systems are true and the others false except to mark the system to which they adhere, then relativism is a true theory of morality.
     From: report of Bernard Williams (The Truth in Relativism [1974]) by Philippa Foot - Moral Relativism p.3
     A reaction: 'Having no use for' an assertion is not the same as the assertion being impossible. Some liberal cultures refuse to criticise others because their highest value is tolerance, even when the target culture wholly contradicts the critics' other values.
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).