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10529
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If Hume's Principle can define numbers, we needn't worry about its truth [Fine,K]
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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.
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From:
Kit Fine (Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction' [2005], p.310)
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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.
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10530
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Hume's Principle is either adequate for number but fails to define properly, or vice versa [Fine,K]
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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.
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From:
Kit Fine (Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction' [2005], p.312)
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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.
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7401
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Heat and colour don't exist, so cannot mislead about the external world [Galileo, by Tuck]
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Full Idea:
Galileo argued that there is no such thing as heat (and hence also as colour) in the external world, so there is no reason to conclude from colour-blindness that we cannot know the truth about the world.
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From:
report of Galileo Galilei (Il Saggiatore ('The Assayer') [1623]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.1
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A reaction:
This key idea, taken up by Gassendi, Descartes and Locke, seems to me to be one of the most important (and, in retrospect, rather obvious) facts ever worked out by the human mind. Why does anyone still doubt it?
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5454
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Tastes, odours and colours only reside in consciousness, and would disappear with creatures [Galileo]
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Full Idea:
I think tastes, odours, colours, and so on are mere names as far as the objects are concerned, and only reside in consciousness. Hence if the living creature were removed, all these qualities would be wiped away and annihilated.
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From:
Galileo Galilei (Il Saggiatore ('The Assayer') [1623]), quoted by Brian Ellis - The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism Ch.3
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A reaction:
A nice bold assertion of the primary/secondary distinction from the first great scientist. I agree, and to disagree (and hence side with Berkeley and Hume) is to head for metaphsical and epistemological confusion.
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16560
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Galileo introduced geometrico-mechanical explanation, based on Archimedes [Galileo, by Machamer/Darden/Craver]
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Full Idea:
The modern idea of explaining with mechanisms became current in the 17th century when Galileo articulated a geometrico-mechanical form of explanation based on Archimedes' simple machines. This became the 'mechanical philosophy'.
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From:
report of Galileo Galilei (Il Saggiatore ('The Assayer') [1623]) by Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C - Thinking About Mechanisms 5.2
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A reaction:
So is Archimedes the source? I would say that mechanical explanation is just commonsense, and is predominant in all human thinking, even in tiny infants.
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10527
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An abstraction principle should not 'inflate', producing more abstractions than objects [Fine,K]
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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.
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From:
Kit Fine (Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction' [2005], p.307)
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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.
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