|
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.
|
|
16703
|
God could make a successive thing so that previous parts cease to exist [Albert of Saxony]
|
|
Full Idea:
Something can be conceived of as successive simpliciter, with respect to both its substance and its state. For example, if Socrates were continually made and made again by the First Cause, as the Seine flow, so nothing of what preexists remains.
|
|
From:
Albert of Saxony (On 'Physics' [1357], III.3), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.4
|
|
A reaction:
This is precisely the problem that modern stage theory faces, of knowing how to connect the stages together.
|
|
16699
|
Successive entities just need parts to succeed one another, without their existence [Albert of Saxony]
|
|
Full Idea:
For existence to hold of completely successive entities it is not required that their parts exist, but that one part succeed another, as a future part succeeds a past part.
|
|
From:
Albert of Saxony (On 'Physics' [1357], III.3 ad 2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.3
|
|
A reaction:
A nice move, but it doesn't quite solve it. How can non-existent things 'succeed one another'? It is worrying for metaphysics that some things have entirely different concepts of persistence from other things.
|
|
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.
|
|
7999
|
All actions come from: body, lower self, perception, means of action, or Fate [Anon (Bhag)]
|
|
Full Idea:
Whatever a man does, good or bad, in thought, word or deed, has these five sources of action: the body, the lower 'I am', the means of perception, the means of action, and Fate.
|
|
From:
Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 18.14/15)
|
|
A reaction:
The 'means of action' will presumably take care of anything we haven't thought of! Nothing quite matches the idea of 'the will' here. A twitch from the first, eating from the second, a startled jump from the third, struck by lightning from the fifth.
|
|
7992
|
The visible forms of nature are earth, water, fire, air, ether; mind, reason, and the sense of 'I' [Anon (Bhag)]
|
|
Full Idea:
The visible forms of nature are eight: earth, water, fire, air, ether; the mind, reason, and the sense of 'I'.
|
|
From:
Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 7.4)
|
|
A reaction:
Presumably there is an implication that there are also invisible forms. The Bhuddists launched an attack on 'I' as one of the categories. The first five appear to be Aristotle's, which must be of scholarly (and chronological) interest.
|
|
7997
|
Only by love can men see me, know me, and come to me, says Krishna [Anon (Bhag)]
|
|
Full Idea:
Only by love can men see me, and know me, and come unto me, says Krishna
|
|
From:
Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 11.54)
|
|
A reaction:
There seems to be a paradox here, as it is unclear how you can love Krishna, if you have not already seen him in some way. This is another paradox of fideism - that faith cannot possibly be the first step in a religion, as faith needs a target.
|
|
7998
|
The three gates of hell are lust, anger and greed [Anon (Bhag)]
|
|
Full Idea:
Three are the gates of this hell, the death of the soul: the gate of lust, the gate of wrath, and the gate of greed. Let a man shun the three.
|
|
From:
Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 16.21)
|
|
A reaction:
Anyone who wishes to procreate, champion justice, and make a living, has to pursue all three. Wisdom consists of pursuing the three appropriately, not in shunning them. How did this bizarre puritanism ever come to grip the human race?
|