13 ideas
9331 | How do we determine which of the sentences containing a term comprise its definition? [Horwich] |
Full Idea: How are we to determine which of the sentences containing a term comprise its definition? | |
From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §2) | |
A reaction: Nice question. If I say 'philosophy is the love of wisdom' and 'philosophy bores me', why should one be part of its definition and the other not? What if I stipulated that the second one is part of my definition, and the first one isn't? |
14082 | No sortal could ever exactly pin down which set of particles count as this 'cup' [Schaffer,J] |
Full Idea: Many decent candidates could the referent of this 'cup', differing over whether outlying particles are parts. No further sortal I could invoke will be selective enough to rule out all but one referent for it. | |
From: Jonathan Schaffer (Deflationary Metaontology of Thomasson [2009], 3.1 n8) | |
A reaction: I never had much faith in sortals for establishing individual identity, so this point comes as no surprise. The implication is strongly realist - that the cup has an identity which is permanently beyond our capacity to specify it. |
14081 | Identities can be true despite indeterminate reference, if true under all interpretations [Schaffer,J] |
Full Idea: There can be determinately true identity claims despite indeterminate reference of the terms flanking the identity sign; these will be identity claims true under all admissible interpretations of the flanking terms. | |
From: Jonathan Schaffer (Deflationary Metaontology of Thomasson [2009], 3.1) | |
A reaction: In informal contexts there might be problems with the notion of what is 'admissible'. Is 'my least favourite physical object' admissible? |
21925 | For Schelling the Absolute spirit manifests as nature in which self-consciousness evolves [Schelling, by Lewis,PB] |
Full Idea: (Like Schopenhauer) Schelling understood the Absolute - spirit rather than will - to manifest itself as nature in which man evolves with self-consciousness. | |
From: report of Friedrich Schelling (Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature [1799]) by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 4 | |
A reaction: The influence of Spinoza seems strong here. Is his Absolute just Spinoza's 'God'? |
22045 | Metaphysics aims at the Absolute, which goes beyond subjective and objective viewpoints [Schelling, by Pinkard] |
Full Idea: Schelling never lost his youthful conviction that any metaphysics had to be an explication of the 'absolute' as something that went beyond both subjective and objective points of view. | |
From: report of Friedrich Schelling (Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature [1799]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 12 | |
A reaction: Even for a scientific and analytic modern philosopher there must be a target of an ideal account that includes human subjectivity within an objective view of the world. Even Mysterians like McGinn would like that. |
9333 | A priori belief is not necessarily a priori justification, or a priori knowledge [Horwich] |
Full Idea: It is one thing to believe something a priori and another for this belief to be epistemically justified. The latter is required for a priori knowledge. | |
From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §8) | |
A reaction: Personally I would agree with this, because I don't think anything should count as knowledge if it doesn't have supporting reasons, but fans of a priori knowledge presumably think that certain basic facts are just known. They are a priori justified. |
9342 | Understanding needs a priori commitment [Horwich] |
Full Idea: Understanding is itself based on a priori commitment. | |
From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §12) | |
A reaction: This sounds plausible, but needs more justification than Horwich offers. This is the sort of New Rationalist idea I associate with Bonjour. The crucial feature of the New lot is, I take it, their fallibilism. All understanding is provisional. |
9332 | Meaning is generated by a priori commitment to truth, not the other way around [Horwich] |
Full Idea: Our a priori commitment to certain sentences is not really explained by our knowledge of a word's meaning. It is the other way around. We accept a priori that the sentences are true, and thereby provide it with meaning. | |
From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §8) | |
A reaction: This sounds like a lovely trump card, but how on earth do you decide that a sentence is true if you don't know what it means? Personally I would take it that we are committed to the truth of a proposition, before we have a sentence for it. |
9341 | Meanings and concepts cannot give a priori knowledge, because they may be unacceptable [Horwich] |
Full Idea: A priori knowledge of logic and mathematics cannot derive from meanings or concepts, because someone may possess such concepts, and yet disagree with us about them. | |
From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §12) | |
A reaction: A good argument. The thing to focus on is not whether such ideas are a priori, but whether they are knowledge. I think we should employ the word 'intuition' for a priori candidates for knowledge, and demand further justification for actual knowledge. |
9334 | If we stipulate the meaning of 'number' to make Hume's Principle true, we first need Hume's Principle [Horwich] |
Full Idea: If we stipulate the meaning of 'the number of x's' so that it makes Hume's Principle true, we must accept Hume's Principle. But a precondition for this stipulation is that Hume's Principle be accepted a priori. | |
From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §9) | |
A reaction: Yet another modern Quinean argument that all attempts at defining things are circular. I am beginning to think that the only a priori knowledge we have is of when a group of ideas is coherent. Calling it 'intuition' might be more accurate. |
9339 | A priori knowledge (e.g. classical logic) may derive from the innate structure of our minds [Horwich] |
Full Idea: One potential source of a priori knowledge is the innate structure of our minds. We might, for example, have an a priori commitment to classical logic. | |
From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §11) | |
A reaction: Horwich points out that to be knowledge it must also say that we ought to believe it. I'm wondering whether if we divided the whole territory of the a priori up into intuitions and then coherent justifications, the whole problem would go away. |
22057 | Schelling sought a union between the productivities of nature and of the mind [Schelling, by Bowie] |
Full Idea: Schelling's philosophy of nature aims to connect nature's 'unconscious productivity' with the mind's 'conscious productivity'. | |
From: report of Friedrich Schelling (Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature [1799]) by Andrew Bowie - German Philosophy: a very short introduction 3 | |
A reaction: If you have a fairly active view of nature (as Leibniz did), then this is a promising line. I like the unpopular view that the modern idea of spontaneous 'powers' in nature is applicable to explanations of mind. |
22031 | Schelling made organisms central to nature, because mere mechanism could never produce them [Schelling, by Pinkard] |
Full Idea: Schelling made the image of the 'organism' central to his conception of nature, arguing that merely mechanical processes could never produce 'life' (as a self-producing, self-sustaining, self-directing process). | |
From: report of Friedrich Schelling (Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature [1799]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 08 | |
A reaction: At that date this seems a reasonable claim, but subsequent biochemistry has undermined it. |