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All the ideas for 'Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction'', 'plays (frags)' and 'Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason'

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11 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 4. Later European Philosophy / c. Eighteenth century philosophy

21463	Hamann, Herder and Jacobi were key opponents of the Enlightenment [Gardner]
	Full Idea: Hamann, Herder and Jacobi are central figues in the reaction against Enlightenment.
	From: Sebastian Gardner (Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason [1999], 10 'immediate')
	A reaction: From a British perspective I would see Hume as the leading such figure. Hamann emphasised the neglect of the role of language. Jacobi was a Christian.

21459	Kant halted rationalism, and forced empiricists to worry about foundations [Gardner]
	Full Idea: Kant's Critique swiftly brought rationalism to a halt, and after Kant empiricism has displayed a nervousness regarding its foundations, and been forced to assume more sophisticated forms.
	From: Sebastian Gardner (Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason [1999], 10 Intro)
	A reaction: See the ideas of Laurence Bonjour for a modern revival of rationalism. After Kant philosophers either went existential, or stared gloomily into the obscure depths. Formal logic was seen as a possible rope ladder down.

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 3. Metaphysical Systems

21460	Only Kant and Hegel have united nature, morals, politics, aesthetics and religion [Gardner]
	Full Idea: Apart from Hegel, no later philosophical system equals in stature Kant's attempt to weld together the diverse fields of natural science, morality, politics, aesthetics and religion into a systematic overarching epistemological and metaphysical unity.
	From: Sebastian Gardner (Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason [1999], 10)
	A reaction: Earlier candidate are Plato and Aristotle. Earlier Enlightenment figures say little about morality or aesthetics. Hobbes ranges widely. Aquinas covered most things.

2. Reason / D. Definition / 2. Aims of Definition

10528	Definitions concern how we should speak, not how things are [Fine,K]
	Full Idea: Our concern in giving a definition is not to say how things are by to say how we wish to speak
	From: Kit Fine (Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction' [2005], p.310)
	A reaction: This sounds like an acceptable piece of wisdom which arises out of analytical and linguistic philosophy. It puts a damper on the Socratic dream of using definition of reveal the nature of reality.

2. Reason / E. Argument / 2. Transcendental Argument

21443	Transcendental proofs derive necessities from possibilities (e.g. possibility of experiencing objects) [Gardner]
	Full Idea: A transcendental proof converts a possibility into a necessity: by saying under what conditions experience of objects is possible, transcendental proofs show those conditions to be necessary for us to the extent that we have any experience of objects.
	From: Sebastian Gardner (Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason [1999], 02 'Transc')
	A reaction: They appear to be hypothetical necessities, rather than true metaphysical necessities. Gardner is discussing Kant, but seems to be generalising. Hypothetical necessities are easy: if it is flying, it is necessarily above the ground.

6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 2. Geometry

21444	Modern geoemtry is either 'pure' (and formal), or 'applied' (and a posteriori) [Gardner]
	Full Idea: There is now 'pure' geometry, consisting of formal systems based on axioms for which truth is not claimed, and which are consequently not synthetic; and 'applied', a branch of physics, the truth of which is empirical, and therefore not a priori.
	From: Sebastian Gardner (Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason [1999], 03 'Maths')
	A reaction: His point is that there is no longer any room for a priori geometry. Might the same division be asserted of arithmetic, or analysis, or set theory?

6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 5. Definitions of Number / d. Hume's Principle

10529	If Hume's Principle can define numbers, we needn't worry about its truth [Fine,K]
	Full Idea: Neo-Fregeans have thought that Hume's Principle, and the like, might be definitive of number and therefore not subject to the usual epistemological worries over its truth.
	From: Kit Fine (Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction' [2005], p.310)
	A reaction: This seems to be the underlying dream of logicism - that arithmetic is actually brought into existence by definitions, rather than by truths derived from elsewhere. But we must be able to count physical objects, as well as just counting numbers.

10530	Hume's Principle is either adequate for number but fails to define properly, or vice versa [Fine,K]
	Full Idea: The fundamental difficulty facing the neo-Fregean is to either adopt the predicative reading of Hume's Principle, defining numbers, but inadequate, or the impredicative reading, which is adequate, but not really a definition.
	From: Kit Fine (Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction' [2005], p.312)
	A reaction: I'm not sure I understand this, but the general drift is the difficulty of building a system which has been brought into existence just by definition.

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 6. Fundamentals / c. Monads

21453	Leibnizian monads qualify as Kantian noumena [Gardner]
	Full Idea: Leibnizian monads clearly satisfy Kant's definition of noumena.
	From: Sebastian Gardner (Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason [1999], 06 'Noumena')
	A reaction: This needs qualifying, because Leibniz clearly specifies the main attributes of monads, where Kant is adamant that we can saying virtually nothing about noumena.

10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 2. Necessity as Primitive

74	Even God could not undo what has been done [Agathon]
	Full Idea: One thing is denied even to God: to make what has been done undone again.
	From: Agathon (plays (frags) [c.410 BCE]), quoted by Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics 1139b09
	A reaction: a quotation - cf the Euthyphro Question

18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 7. Abstracta by Equivalence

10527	An abstraction principle should not 'inflate', producing more abstractions than objects [Fine,K]
	Full Idea: If an abstraction principle is going to be acceptable, then it should not 'inflate', i.e. it should not result in there being more abstracts than there are objects. By this mark Hume's Principle will be acceptable, but Frege's Law V will not.
	From: Kit Fine (Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction' [2005], p.307)
	A reaction: I take this to be motivated by my own intuition that abstract concepts had better be rooted in the world, or they are not worth the paper they are written on. The underlying idea this sort of abstraction is that it is 'shared' between objects.