Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction'', 'Ethics without Principles' and 'The Courtier and the Heretic'

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6 ideas

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.

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.

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.

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / a. Nature of value

18681	The base for values has grounds, catalysts and intensifiers [Dancy,J, by Orsi]
	Full Idea: Dancy distinguishes three parts of the supervenience base of values: 1) those which ground the value ('resultance base'); 2) those which enable the ground to make something good ('enabling conditions'); 3) those which intensify or diminish value.
	From: report of Jonathan Dancy (Ethics without Principles [2004], p. 170-181) by Francesco Orsi - Value Theory 5.2
	A reaction: I really like and admire this. Dancy has focused on what really matters about values (and hence about the whole of ethics), and begun the work of getting a bit of clarity and increased understanding.

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 10. Theocracy

7825	The politics of Leibniz was the reunification of Christianity [Stewart,M]
	Full Idea: The politics of Leibniz may be summed up in one word: theocracy. The specific agenda motivating much of his work was to reunite the Protestant and Catholic churches
	From: Matthew Stewart (The Courtier and the Heretic [2007], Ch. 5)
	A reaction: This would be a typical project for a rationalist philosopher, who thinks that good reasoning will gradually converge on the one truth.