Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'In Defense of Essentialism', 'The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed]' and 'The Actual and the Possible'

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23 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 5. Objectivity
Fichte's subjectivity struggles to then give any account of objectivity [Pinkard on Fichte]
     Full Idea: For Fichte 'subjectivity' came first, and he was then stuck with the (impossible) task of showing how 'objectivity' arose out of it.
     From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 06
     A reaction: The best available answer to this problem (for idealists) is, I think, Nietzsche's perspectives, in which multiple subjectivities are summed to produce a blurred picture which has a degree of consensus. Fichte later embraced other minds.
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / c. not
Normativity needs the possibility of negation, in affirmation and denial [Fichte, by Pinkard]
     Full Idea: To adopt any kind of normative stance is to commit oneself necessarily to the possibility of negation. It involves doing something correctly or incorrectly, so there must exist the possibility of denying or affirming.
     From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05
     A reaction: This seems to be the key idea for understanding Hegel's logic. Personally I think animals have a non-verbal experience of negation - when a partner dies, for example.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / e. Individuation by kind
'Substance theorists' take modal properties as primitive, without structure, just falling under a sortal [Paul,LA]
     Full Idea: Some deep essentialists resist the need to explain the structure under de re modal properties, taking them as primitive. One version (which we can call 'substance theory') takes them to fall under a sortal concept, with no further explanation.
     From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §1)
     A reaction: A very helpful identification of what Wiggins stands for, and why I disagree with him. The whole point of essences is to provide a notion that fits in with sciences, which means they must have an explanatory role, which needs structures.
If an object's sort determines its properties, we need to ask what determines its sort [Paul,LA]
     Full Idea: If the substance essentialist holds that the sort an object belongs to determines its de re modal properties (rather than the other way round), then he needs to give an (ontological, not conceptual) explanation of what determines an object's sort.
     From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §1)
     A reaction: See Idea 14193 for 'substance essentialism'. I find it quite incredible that anyone could think that a thing's sort could determine its properties, rather than the other way round. Even if sortals are conventional, they are not arbitrary.
Substance essentialism says an object is multiple, as falling under various different sortals [Paul,LA]
     Full Idea: The explanation of material constitution given by substance essentialism is that there are multiple objects. A person is essentially human-shaped (falling under the human sort), while their hunk of tissue is accidentally human-shaped (as tissue).
     From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §1)
     A reaction: At this point sortal essentialism begins to look crazy. Persons are dubious examples (with sneaky dualism involved). A bronze statue is essentially harder to dent than a clay one, because of its bronze. If you remake it of clay, it isn't the same statue.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / b. Sums of parts
Absolutely unrestricted qualitative composition would allow things with incompatible properties [Paul,LA]
     Full Idea: Absolutely unrestricted qualitative composition would imply that objects with incompatible properties and objects such as winged pigs or golden mountains were actual.
     From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §5)
     A reaction: Note that this is 'qualitative' composition, and not composition of parts. The objection seems to rule out unrestricted qualitative composition, since you could hardly combine squareness with roundness.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 2. Types of Essence
Deep essentialist objects have intrinsic properties that fix their nature; the shallow version makes it contextual [Paul,LA]
     Full Idea: Essentialism says that objects have their properties essentially. 'Deep' essentialists take the (nontrivial) essential properties of an object to determine its nature. 'Shallow' essentialists substitute context-dependent truths for the independent ones.
     From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], Intro)
     A reaction: If the deep essence determines a things nature, we should not need to say 'nontrivial'. This is my bete noire, the confusion of essential properties with necessary ones, where necessary properties (or predicates, at least) can indeed be trivial.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 6. Essence as Unifier
Deep essentialists say essences constrain how things could change; modal profiles fix natures [Paul,LA]
     Full Idea: The deep essentialist holds that most objects have essential properties such that there are many ways they could not be, or many changes through which they could not persist. Objects' modal profiles characterize their natures.
     From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], Intro)
     A reaction: This is the view I like, especially the last bit. If your modal profile doesn't determine your nature, then what does? Think of how you sum up a person at a funeral. Your modal profile is determined by dispositions and powers.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
Essentialism must deal with charges of arbitrariness, and failure to reduce de re modality [Paul,LA]
     Full Idea: Two objections to deep essentialism are that it falters when faced with a skeptical objection concerning arbitrariness, and the need for a reductive account of de re modality.
     From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], Intro)
     A reaction: An immediate response to the second objection might be to say that modal facts about things are not reducible. The charge of arbitrariness (i.e. total arbitrariness, not just a bit of uncertainty) is the main thing a theory of essences must deal with.
An object's modal properties don't determine its possibilities [Paul,LA]
     Full Idea: I reject the view that an object's de re modal properties determine its relations to possibilia.
     From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §3)
     A reaction: You'll have to read Paul to see why, but I flat disagree with her on this. The whole point of accepting such properties is to determine the modal profile of the thing, and hence see how it can fit into and behave in the world.
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 4. Necessity from Concepts
Necessary truths derive from basic assertion and negation [Fichte, by Pinkard]
     Full Idea: Fichte thought that everything that involves necessary truths - even mathematics and logic - should be shown to follow from the more basic principles involved in assertion and negation.
     From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05
     A reaction: An interesting proposal, though I am struggling to see how it works. Fichte sees assertion and negation as foundational (Idea 22017), but I take them to be responses to the real world.
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 5. Modality from Actuality
A state of affairs is only possible if there has been an actual substance to initiate it [Pruss]
     Full Idea: Non-actual states of affairs are possible if there actually was a substance capable of initiating a causal chain, perhaps non-deterministic, that could lead to the state of affairs that we claim is possible.
     From: Alexander R. Pruss (The Actual and the Possible [2002]), quoted by Jonathan D. Jacobs - A Powers Theory of Modality §4.2
     A reaction: This is roughly my view. There are far fewer possibilities in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio. Logical possibilities and fantasy possibilities are not real possibilities.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 2. Nature of Possible Worlds / a. Nature of possible worlds
'Modal realists' believe in many concrete worlds, 'actualists' in just this world, 'ersatzists' in abstract other worlds [Paul,LA]
     Full Idea: A 'modal realist' believes that there are many concrete worlds, while the 'actualist' believes in only one concrete world, the actual world. The 'ersatzist' is an actualist who takes nonactual possible worlds and their contents to be abstracta.
     From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], Intro)
     A reaction: My view is something like that modal realism is wrong, and actualism is right, and possible worlds (if they really are that useful) are convenient abstract fictions, constructed (if we have any sense) out of the real possibilities in the actual world.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / b. Transcendental idealism
Fichte's logic is much too narrow, and doesn't deduce ethics, art, society or life [Schlegel,F on Fichte]
     Full Idea: Only Fichte's principles are deduced in his book, that is, the logical ones, and not even these completely. And what about the practical, the moral and ethical ones. Society, learning, wit, art, and so on are also entitled to be deduced here.
     From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Friedrich Schlegel - works Vol 18 p.34
     A reaction: This is the beginnings of the romantic rebellion against a rather narrowly rationalist approach to philosophy. Schlegel also objects to the fact that Fichte only had one axiom (presumably the idea of the not-Self).
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / d. Absolute idealism
Fichte's key claim was that the subjective-objective distinction must itself be subjective [Fichte, by Pinkard]
     Full Idea: Fichte's key claim was that the difference between the subjective and the objective points of view had to be itself a subjective distinction, something that the 'I' posits.
     From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 09
     A reaction: This seems to lock us firmly into the idealist mental prison and throw away the key.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / a. Other minds
We only see ourselves as self-conscious and rational in relation to other rationalities [Fichte]
     Full Idea: A rational creature cannot posit itself as such a creature with self-consciousness without positing itself as an individual, as one among many rational creatures.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794], p.8), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 n25
     A reaction: [1796 book about his Wissenschaftlehre] This is the transcendental (Kantian) approach to other minds. Wittgenstein's private language argument is similar. Hegel was impressed by this idea (I think).
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 4. Presupposition of Self
The Self is the spontaneity, self-relatedness and unity needed for knowledge [Fichte, by Siep]
     Full Idea: According to Fichte, spontaneity, self-relatedness, and unity are the basic traits of knowledge (which includes conscience). ...This principle of all knowledge is what he calls the 'I' or the Self.
     From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Ludwig Siep - Fichte p.58
     A reaction: This is the idealist view. He gets 'spontaneity' from Kant, which is the mind's contribution to experience. Self-relatedness is the distinctive Fichte idea. Unity presumably means total coherence, which is typical of idealists.
Novalis sought a much wider concept of the ego than Fichte's proposal [Novalis on Fichte]
     Full Idea: Novalis aimed to create a theory of the ego with a much wider scope than Fichte's doctrine of knowledge had been able to establish. ....Without philosophy, imperfect poet - without poetry, imperfect thinker.
     From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Novalis - Logological Fragments I vol.3 p.531
     A reaction: [in his 'Fichte Studies] Since this is at the heart of early romanticism, I take the concept to embrace nature, as well as creative imagination. There is a general rebellion against the narrowness of Fichte.
The self is not a 'thing', but what emerges from an assertion of normativity [Fichte, by Pinkard]
     Full Idea: Fichte said the self is not a natural 'thing' but is itself a normative status, and 'it' can obtain this status, so it seems, only by an act of attributing it to itself. ...He continually identified the 'I' with 'reason' itself.
     From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05
     A reaction: Pinkard says Fichte gradually qualified this claim. Fichte struggled to state his view in a way that avoided obvious paradoxes. 'My mind produces decisions, so there must be someone in charge of them'? Is this transcendental?
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 6. Self as Higher Awareness
Consciousness of an object always entails awareness of the self [Fichte]
     Full Idea: I can be conscious of any object only on the condition that I am also conscious of myself, that is, of the conscious subject. This proposition is incontrovertible.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794], p.112), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05
     A reaction: [from the 1797/8 version of Wissenschaftslehre] Russell might be cross to find that his idea on this was anticipated by Fichte. I still approve of the idea.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 6. Judgement / a. Nature of Judgement
Judgement is distinguishing concepts, and seeing their relations [Fichte, by Siep]
     Full Idea: For Fichte, to judge means to distinguish concepts from one another and to place them in relationship to one another.
     From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Ludwig Siep - Fichte p.59
     A reaction: This idea of Fichte's seems to be the key one for Hegel, and hence (I presume) it is the lynchpin of German Idealism. It seems to describe mathematical knowledge quite well. I don't think it fits judging whether there is a snake in the grass.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / d. Subjective value
Fichte's idea of spontaneity implied that nothing counts unless we give it status [Fichte, by Pinkard]
     Full Idea: Fichte placed emphasis on human spontaneity, on nothing 'counting' for us unless we somehow bestowed some kind of status on it.
     From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 06
     A reaction: This idea evidentally arises from Kant's account of thought. Pinkard says this idea inspired the early Romantics. I would have thought the drive to exist (Spinoza's conatus) would make things count whether we liked it or not.
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 1. Nature
Fichte reduces nature to a lifeless immobility [Schlegel,F on Fichte]
     Full Idea: Fichte reduces the non-Ego or nature to a state of constant calm, standstill, immobility, lack of all change, movement and life, that is death.
     From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Friedrich Schlegel - works vol 12 p.190
     A reaction: The point is that Fichte's nature is a merely logical or conceptual deduction from the spontaneous reason of the self, so it can't have the lively diversity we find in nature.