61 ideas
| 3358 | Metaphysics focuses on Platonism, essentialism, materialism and anti-realism [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: In contemporary metaphysics the major areas of discussion are Platonism, essentialism, materialism and anti-realism. | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], After) |
| 3312 | There are the 'is' of predication (a function), the 'is' of identity (equals), and the 'is' of existence (quantifier) [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: At least since Russell, one has routinely distinguished between the 'is' of predication ('Socrates is wise', Fx), the 'is' of identity ('Morning Star is Evening Star', =), and the 'is' of existence ('the cat is under the bed', Ex). | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 7) | |
| A reaction: This seems horribly nitpicking to many people, but I love it - because it is just true, and it is a truth right at the basis of the confusions in our talk. Analytic philosophy forever! [P.S. 'Tiddles is a cat' - the 'is' membership] |
| 3352 | Analytical philosophy analyses separate concepts successfully, but lacks a synoptic vision of the results [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: Analytical philosophy excels in the piecemeal analysis of causation, perception, knowledge and so on, but there is a striking poverty of any synoptic vision of these independent studies. | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.22) |
| 3329 | Presumably the statements of science are true, but should they be taken literally or not? [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: As our bible, the Book of Science is presumed to contain only true sentences, but it is less clear how they are to be construed, which literally and which non-literally. | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.13) |
| 19160 | A comprehensive theory of truth probably includes a theory of predication [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Theories of truth and theories of predication are closely related: it seems probable that any comprehensive theory of truth will include a theory of predication. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 6) | |
| A reaction: Davidson defends the view that it is this way round. It is tempting to label them both as 'primitive'. Davidson distinguishes a 'theory' about truth from a 'definition'. |
| 19151 | Antirealism about truth prevents its use as an intersubjective standard [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Antirealism, with its limitations of truth to what can be ascertained, deprives truth of its role as an intersubjective standard. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: I like this, because it lifts truth out of individual minds. I take truth to be an ideal - a simple one with little content, which is thus fairly uncontroversial. Truth is the main general purpose of thinking. |
| 19144 | 'Epistemic' truth depends what rational creatures can verify [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The 'epistemic' view of truth asserts an essential tie to epistemology, and introduces a dependence of truth on what can somehow be verified by finite rational creatures. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: This view, which seems to be widely held, strikes me as an elementary confusion. I take truth to be fully successful belief. If you say belief can never be fully successful, then we can't know the truth - but that doesn't destroy the concept of truth. |
| 19148 | There is nothing interesting or instructive for truths to correspond to [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The real objection to the correspondence theory of truth is that there is nothing interesting or instructive to which true sentences correspond. (C.I. Lewis challenged defenders to locate the fact or part of reality to which a truth corresponded). | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: Davidson defended a correspondence view in 'True to the Facts'. Davidson evidently also thinks the same objection applies to claims about truthmakers. If you say 'gold is shiny', the gold is very dispersed, but it is still there. |
| 19166 | The Slingshot assumes substitutions give logical equivalence, and thus identical correspondence [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The Slingshot argument (of Frege, Church and Gödel) assumes that if two sentences are logically equivalent, they correspond to the same thing, and what a sentence corresponds to is not changed if a singular term is replaced by a coreferring term. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 6) | |
| A reaction: This obviously won't work for 'Oedipus thinks he ought to marry Jocasta'. Sentences correspond, I presume, to what they are about, which is often a matter of emphasis or phrasing. Hence the Slingshot sounds like nonsense to me. |
| 19167 | Two sentences can be rephrased by equivalent substitutions to correspond to the same thing [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Slingshot: 'Scott is the author of Waverley' and 'The number of counties in Utah is twenty-nine' can be rephrased by substitution so that they are both about the number twenty-nine, and are thus correspond to the same thing. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 6) | |
| A reaction: [my paraphrase of Davidson's quote from Church 1956:24] These sentences clearly do not correspond to the same thing, so something has gone wrong with the idea that logically equivalent sentences have identical correspondents. |
| 19150 | Coherence truth says a consistent set of sentences is true - which ties truth to belief [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: A pure coherence theory of truth says that all sentences in a consistent set of sentences are true. ...I class this with epistemic views, because it ties truth directly to what is believed. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Neurath] I would have thought that coherence is rather more than mere consistency. Truths which have nothing whatever in common can be consistent with one another. [but see his p.43 n14] |
| 19145 | We can explain truth in terms of satisfaction - but also explain satisfaction in terms of truth [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Truth is easily defined in terms of satisfaction (as Tarski showed), but, alternatively, satisfaction can be taken to be whatever relation yields a correct account of truth. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: Davidson is assessing which is the prior 'primitive' concept, and he votes for truth. A perennial problem in philosophy, and very hard to find reasons for a preference. The axiomatic approach grows from taking truth as primitive. Axioms for satisfaction? |
| 19146 | Satisfaction is a sort of reference, so maybe we can define truth in terms of reference? [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: That the truth of sentences is defined by appeal to the semantic properties of words suggests that, if we could give an account of the semantic properties of words (essentially, of reference or satisfaction), we would understand the concept of truth. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: If you thought that words were prior to sentences, this might be the route to go. Davidson gives priority to sentences, and so prefers to work from the other end, which treats truth as primitive, and then defines reference and meaning. |
| 19174 | Axioms spell out sentence satisfaction. With no free variables, all sequences satisfy the truths [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Axioms specify how each unstructured predicate is satisfied by a particular sequence. Then recursive axioms characterise complex sentences built from simpler ones. Closed sentences have no free variables, so true sentences are satisfied by all sequences. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 7) | |
| A reaction: I take 'all sequences' to mean all combinations of objects in the domain. Thus nothing in domain contradicts the satisfied sentences. Hence Tarski's truth is said to be 'true in a model', where the whole system vouches for the sentence. |
| 19136 | Many say that Tarski's definitions fail to connect truth to meaning [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: It is complained that Tarski's definitions do not establish the connection between truth and meaning that many philosophers hold to be essential. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 1) | |
| A reaction: This, of course, was Davidson's big mission - to build on Tarski's theory a view of truth which dovetailed it with theories of meaning and reference. |
| 19139 | Tarski does not tell us what his various truth predicates have in common [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: There is no indication in Tarski's formal work of what it is that his various truth predicates have in common, and this is part of the content of the concept. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 1) | |
| A reaction: This seems like a good question to raise. If I list all the 'red' things, I can still ask what qualifies them to all appear on the same list. |
| 19147 | Truth is the basic concept, because Convention-T is agreed to fix the truths of a language [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The key role of Convention-T in determining that truth, as characterised by the theory, has the same extension as the intuitive concept of truth makes it seem that it is truth rather than reference that is the basic primitive. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: The key strength of Tarski's account is that it specifies the extension of 'true' for a given language (as expressed in a richer meta-language). |
| 19172 | To define a class of true sentences is to stipulate a possible language [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: When we enquire whether a truth definition defines the class of true sentences in a particular language, we are thinking of the truth definition as stipulating a possible language. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 7) | |
| A reaction: Thus I might say "Nij wonk yang" is true if and only if snow is white, and make my first step towards a new language. An interesting way of looking at Tarski's project. |
| 19153 | Truth is basic and clear, so don't try to replace it with something simpler [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Truth is one of the clearest and most basic concepts we have, so it is fruitless to dream of eliminating it in favor of something simpler or more fundamental. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 3) | |
| A reaction: For redundancy theorists, I suppose, truth would be eliminated in favour of 'assertion'. Replacing it with 'satisfaction' doesn't seem very illuminating. Davidson would say 'reference' is more tricky and elusive than truth. |
| 19170 | Tarski is not a disquotationalist, because you can assign truth to a sentence you can't quote [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: It is clearly a mistake to call Tarski a disquotationalist. ...We say of a sentence not at hand (such as 'You gave the right answer to this question last night, but I can't remember what you said') that it is true or false. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 7) |
| 3326 | Set theory attempts to reduce the 'is' of predication to mathematics [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: Set theory offers the promise of a complete mathematization of the 'is' of predication. | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.13) |
| 3327 | The set of Greeks is included in the set of men, but isn't a member of it [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: Set inclusion is sharply distinguished from set membership (as the set of Greeks is found to be included in, but not a member of, the set of men). | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.13) |
| 3335 | The standard Z-F Intuition version of set theory has about ten agreed axioms [Benardete,JA, by PG] |
| Full Idea: Zermelo proposed seven axioms for set theory, with Fraenkel adding others, to produce the standard Z-F Intuition. | |
| From: report of José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.17) by PG - Db (ideas) |
| 19140 | 'Satisfaction' is a generalised form of reference [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: We can think of 'satisfaction' as a generalised form of reference. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: Just the sort of simple point we novices need from the great minds, to help us see what is going on. One day someone is going to explain Tarski's account of truth in plain English, but probably not in my lifetime. |
| 3332 | Greeks saw the science of proportion as the link between geometry and arithmetic [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: The Greeks saw the independent science of proportion as the link between geometry and arithmetic. | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.15) |
| 3330 | Negatives, rationals, irrationals and imaginaries are all postulated to solve baffling equations [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: The Negative numbers are postulated (magic word) to solve x=5-8, Rationals postulated to solve 2x=3, Irrationals for x-squared=2, and Imaginaries for x-squared=-1. (…and Zero for x=5-5) …and x/0 remains eternally open. | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.14) |
| 3337 | Natural numbers are seen in terms of either their ordinality (Peano), or cardinality (set theory) [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: One approaches the natural numbers in terms of either their ordinality (Peano), or cardinality (set theory). | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.17) |
| 3310 | If slowness is a property of walking rather than the walker, we must allow that events exist [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: Once we conceded that Tom can walk slowly or quickly, and that the slowness and quickness is a property of the walking and not of Tom, we can hardly refrain from quantifying over events (such as 'a walking') in our ontology. | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 6) |
| 12793 | Early pre-Socratics had a mass-noun ontology, which was replaced by count-nouns [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: With their 'mass-noun' ontologies, the early pre-Socratics were blind to plurality ...but the count-noun ontologists came to dominate the field forever after. | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: The mass-nouns are such things as earth, air, fire and water. This is a very interesting historical observation (cited by Laycock). Our obsession with identity seems tied to formal logic. There is a whole other worldview waiting out there. |
| 19173 | Treating predicates as sets drops the predicate for a new predicate 'is a member of', which is no help [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: 'Theaetetus is a member of the set of seated objects' doesn't mention the predicate 'sits', but has a new predicate 'is a member of', with no given semantic role. We are back with Plato's problem with the predicate 'instantiates'. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 7) | |
| A reaction: Plato's problem is the 'third man' problem - a regress in the explanation. In other words, if we are trying to explain predication, treating predicates as sets gets us nowhere. Just as I always thought. But you have to want explanations. |
| 3353 | If there is no causal interaction with transcendent Platonic objects, how can you learn about them? [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: How can you learn of the existence of transcendent Platonic objects if there is no causal interaction with them? | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.22) |
| 3304 | Why should packed-together particles be a thing (Mt Everest), but not scattered ones? [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: Why suppose these particles packed together constitute a macro-entity (namely, Mt Everest), whereas those, of equal number, scattered around, fail to add up to anything beyond themselves? | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 2) |
| 3350 | Could a horse lose the essential property of being a horse, and yet continue to exist? [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: Is being a horse an essential property of a horse? Can we so much as conceive the abstract possibility of a horse's ceasing to be a horse even while continuing to exist? | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.20) |
| 3309 | If a soldier continues to exist after serving as a soldier, does the wind cease to exist after it ceases to blow? [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: If a soldier need not cease to exist merely because he ceases to be a soldier, there is room to doubt that the wind ceases to exist when it ceases to be a wind. | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 6) |
| 3351 | One can step into the same river twice, but not into the same water [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: One can step into the same river twice, but one must not expect to step into the same water. | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.21) |
| 3314 | Absolutists might accept that to exist is relative, but relative to what? How about relative to itself? [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: With the thesis that to be as such is to be relative, the absolutist may be found to concur, but the issue turns on what it might be that a thing is supposed to be relative to. Why not itself? | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 8) |
| 3323 | Maybe self-identity isn't existence, if Pegasus can be self-identical but non-existent [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: 'Existence' can't be glossed as self-identical (critics say) because Pegasus, even while being self-identical, fails to exist. | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.11) |
| 19142 | Probability can be constrained by axioms, but that leaves open its truth nature [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Kolmogorov's axiomatisation of probability puts clear constraints on the concept of probability, but leaves open whether probability is further characterised as relative frequency, degree of belief, or something else. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: Davidson cites this to show the limitations of axiomatic approaches to any topic (e.g. sets, truth, arithmetic). The item in question must be treated as a 'primitive'. This always has the feeling of second-best. |
| 3306 | The clearest a priori knowledge is proving non-existence through contradiction [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: One proves non-existence (e.g. of round squares) by using logic to derive a contradiction from the concept; it is precisely here, in such proofs, that we find the clearest example of a priori knowledge. | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 4) |
| 3349 | If we know truths about prime numbers, we seem to have synthetic a priori knowledge of Platonic objects [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: Assume that we know to be true propositions of the form 'There are exactly x prime numbers between y and z', and synthetic a priori truths about Platonic objects are delivered to us on a silver platter. | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.18) |
| 3341 | Logical positivism amounts to no more than 'there is no synthetic a priori' [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: Logical positivism has been concisely summarised as 'there is no synthetic a priori'. | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.18) |
| 3344 | Assertions about existence beyond experience can only be a priori synthetic [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: No one thinks that the proposition that something exists that transcends all possible experience harbours a logical inconsistency. Its denial cannot therefore be an analytic proposition, so it must be synthetic, though only knowable on a priori grounds. | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.18) |
| 3345 | Appeals to intuition seem to imply synthetic a priori knowledge [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: Appeals to intuition - no matter how informal - can hardly fail to smack of the synthetic a priori. | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.18) |
| 19169 | Predicates are a source of generality in sentences [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Predicates introduce generality into sentences. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 7) | |
| A reaction: Not sure about this. Most words introduce generality. 'From' is a very general word about direction. 'Dogs bark' is as generally about dogs as it is generally about barking. |
| 19149 | If we reject corresponding 'facts', we should also give up the linked idea of 'representations' [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: If we give up facts that make entities true, we ought to give up representations at the same time, for the legitimacy of each depends on the legitimacy of the other. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: Not sure about this, because I'm not sure I know what he means by 'representations'. Surely every sentence is 'about' something? Is that just the references within the sentence, but not the sentence as a whole? |
| 19163 | You only understand an order if you know what it is to obey it [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: We understand an imperative if and only if we know under what conditions what it orders or commands is obeyed. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 6) | |
| A reaction: How could this be wrong? 'Do you understand the order?' 'Yes sir!' 'Well do it then!' 'Do what sir?' |
| 19152 | Utterances have the truth conditions intended by the speaker [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: An utterance has certain truth conditions only if the speaker intends it to be interpreted as having those truth conditions. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 3) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a concession to the rather sensible things that Grice said about meaning. What about malapropisms? Surely there the speaker does not understand the truth conditions of her own utterance? Truth conditions are in the head? |
| 19162 | Meaning involves use, but a sentence has many uses, while meaning stays fixed [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Meaning depends on use, but it is not easy to say how, for uses to which we may put the utterance of a sentence are endless while its meaning remains fixed. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 6) | |
| A reaction: Quite so. The password is 'Swordfish' (or 'Sweet marjoram', if you prefer). |
| 19131 | We recognise sentences at once as linguistic units; we then figure out their parts [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Our interest in the parts of sentences is derivative; we recognise at once that sentences are effective linguistic units, while we must figure out or decide what constitutes the meaningful words and particles. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], Intro) | |
| A reaction: It depends on whether linguistic priority goes to complete thoughts that require expression, or to naming and ostensive definition to relate to elements of the environment. I find it hard to have a strong view on this one. Just So stories? |
| 19156 | Modern predicates have 'places', and are sentences with singular terms deleted from the places [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The notion of 'places' in a predicate is the key to the modern concept of a predicate. Any expression obtained from a sentence by deleting one or more singular terms from the sentence counts as a predicate. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 4) |
| 19176 | The concept of truth can explain predication [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: My strategy is to show how our grasp of the concept of truth can explain predication. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 7) | |
| A reaction: His account of the concept of truth centres on Tarski's theory, but he clearly thinks more is needed than the bare bones offered by Tarski. The point, I think, is that predication is what makes a sentence 'truth-apt'. |
| 19133 | If you assign semantics to sentence parts, the sentence fails to compose a whole [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The puzzle is that once plausible assignments of semantic roles have been made to parts of sentences, the parts do not seem to compose a united whole. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], Intro) | |
| A reaction: It's not clear to me that a sentence does compose a 'whole', given that you can often add or remove bits from sentences, sometimes without changing the meaning. We often, in speech, assemble sentences before we have thought of their full meaning. |
| 19132 | Top-down semantic analysis must begin with truth, as it is obvious, and explains linguistic usage [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Truth is the essential semantic concept with which to begin a top-down analysis of sentences, since truth, or lack of it, is the most obvious semantic property of sentences, and provides the clearest explanation of judging and conveying information. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], Intro) | |
| A reaction: [a bit compressed] Presumably this goes with giving sentences semantic priority. The alternative approach is compositional, and is likely to give reference of terms priority over truth of the sentence. But accurate reference is a sort of truth. |
| 19158 | 'Humanity belongs to Socrates' is about humanity, so it's a different proposition from 'Socrates is human' [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The sentence 'Humanity belongs to Socrates' is about the concept of humanity, unlike the "equivalent" 'Socrates is human', so they express different propositions. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 5) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] I like this a lot, because it shows why we should focus on propositions rather than on sentences, or even utterances. And asking what the sentence is 'about' focuses us on the underlying proposition or thought. |
| 19154 | The principle of charity says an interpreter must assume the logical constants [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The principle of charity says that it is unavoidable that the pattern of sentences to which a speaker assents reflects the semantics of the logical constants. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 3) | |
| A reaction: That is not all the principle says, of course. Davidson seems to assume classical logic here, with a bivalent semantics. I wonder if all speakers use 'false' in the normal way, as well as 'true'? Do all languages even contain 'true'? |
| 19161 | We indicate use of a metaphor by its obvious falseness, or trivial truth [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The sentences that contain metaphors are typically obviously false or trivially true, because these are typically indications that something is intended as a metaphor. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 6) | |
| A reaction: A nice point which sounds correct. Metaphors are famous being false, but the 'obvious' falseness signals the metaphor. If a metaphor is only obscurely false, that makes it difficult to read. |
| 23035 | The good life aims at perfections, or absolute laws, or what is absolutely desirable [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: The differentia of the good life …is controlled by the consciousness of there being some perfection which has to be fulfilled, some law which has to be obeyed, something absolutely desirable whatever the individual may for the time desire. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Prolegomena to Ethics [1882], p.134), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: The 'perfection' suggests Plato, and the 'law' suggests Kant. The idea that something is 'absolutely desirable' is, I suspect, aimed at the utilitarians, who don't care what is desired. I'm no idealist, but have some sympathy with this idea. |
| 23037 | People are improved by egalitarian institutions and habits [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: Man has bettered himself through institutions and habits which tend to make the welfare of all the welfare of each. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Prolegomena to Ethics [1882], p.180), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: I like this a lot. We underestimate how the best social values are promoted by the existence of enlightened institutions, rather than by preaching and teaching. Schools, law courts and churche embody their values. |
| 23043 | All talk of the progress of a nation must reduce to the progress of its individual members [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: Our ultimate standard of worth is an ideal of personal worth. All other values are relative to personal values. To speak of any progress of a nation or society or mankind except as relative to some greater worth of persons is to use words without meaning. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Prolegomena to Ethics [1882], p.193), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: Note that, pre-verificationism, a Victorian talks of plausible words actually being meaningless. This is a good statement of the core doctrine of liberalism. |
| 3334 | Rationalists see points as fundamental, but empiricists prefer regions [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: Rationalists have been happier with an ontology of points, and empiricists with an ontology of regions. | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.16) |
| 3308 | In the ontological argument a full understanding of the concept of God implies a contradiction in 'There is no God' [Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: In the ontological argument a deep enough understanding of the very concept of God allows one to derive by logic a contradiction from the statement 'There is no God'. | |
| From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 4) |