|
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.
|
|
7082
|
Nature requires causal explanations, but society requires clarification by reasons and motives [Weber, by Critchley]
|
|
Full Idea:
Weber coined the distinction between explanation and clarification, saying that natural phenomena require causal explanation, while social phenomena require clarification by giving reasons or offering possible motives for how things are.
|
|
From:
report of Max Weber (works [1905]) by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro Ch.7
|
|
A reaction:
This is music to the ears of property dualists and other non-reductivists, but if you go midway in the hierarchy of animals (a mouse, say) the distinction blurs. Weber probably hadn't digested Darwin, whose big impact came around 1905.
|
|
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.
|
|
22155
|
We are disenchanted because we rely on science, which ignores values [Weber, by Boulter]
|
|
Full Idea:
Weber contends that modern western civilisation is 'disenchanted' because our society's method of arriving at beliefs about the world, that is, the sciences, is unable to address questions of value.
|
|
From:
report of Max Weber (works [1905]) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 6
|
|
A reaction:
This idea, made explicit by Hume's empirical attitude to values, is obviously of major importance. For we Aristotelians values are a self-evident aspect of nature. Boulter says philosophy has added to the disenchantment. I agree.
|