9 ideas
| 10735 | Abstraction from objects won't reveal an operation's being performed 'so many times' [Geach] |
| Full Idea: For an understanding of arithmetic the grasp of an operation's being performed 'so many times' is quite indispensable; and abstraction of a feature from groups of nuts cannot give us this grasp. | |
| From: Peter Geach (Abstraction Reconsidered [1983], p.170) | |
| A reaction: I end up defending the empirical approach to arithmetic because remarks like this are so patently false. Geach seems to think we arrive ready-made in the world, just raring to get on with some counting. He lacks the evolutionary perspective. |
| 18933 | Not-Being obviously doesn't exist, and the five modes of Being are all impossible [Gorgias, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: I. Nothing exists. a) Not-Being does not exist. b) Being does not exist as everlasting, as created, as both, as One, or as Many. II. If anything does exist, it is incomprehensible. III. If existence is comprehensible, it is incommunicable. | |
| From: report of Gorgias (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE], B03) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09 | |
| A reaction: [Also Sextus Empiricus, Against Logicians I.65-] For Part I he works through all the possible modes of being he can think of, and explains why none of them are possible. It is worth remembering that Gorgias loved rhetoric, not philosophy! |
| 490 | Everything happens by reason and necessity [Leucippus] |
| Full Idea: Nothing happens at random; everything happens out of reason and by necessity. | |
| From: Leucippus (fragments/reports [c.435 BCE], B002), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 10732 | If concepts are just recognitional, then general judgements would be impossible [Geach] |
| Full Idea: If concepts were nothing but recognitional capacities, then it is unintelligible that I can judge that cats eat mice when neither of them are present. | |
| From: Peter Geach (Abstraction Reconsidered [1983], p.164) | |
| A reaction: Having observed the importance of recognition for the abstractionist (Idea 10731), he then seems to assume that there is nothing more to their concepts. Geach fails to grasp levels of abstraction, and cross-reference, and generalisation. |
| 10731 | For abstractionists, concepts are capacities to recognise recurrent features of the world [Geach] |
| Full Idea: For abstractionists, concepts are essentially capacities for recognizing recurrent features of the world. | |
| From: Peter Geach (Abstraction Reconsidered [1983], p.163) | |
| A reaction: Recognition certainly strikes me as central to thought (and revelatory of memory, since we continually recognise what we cannot actually recall). Geach dislikes this view, but I see it as crucial to an evolutionary view of thought. |
| 10733 | The abstractionist cannot explain 'some' and 'not' [Geach] |
| Full Idea: The abstractionist cannot give a logically coherent account of the features that are supposed to be reached by discriminative attention, corresponding to the words 'some' and 'not'. | |
| From: Peter Geach (Abstraction Reconsidered [1983], p.167) | |
| A reaction: I understand 'some' in terms of mereology, because that connects to experience, and 'not' I take to derive more from psychological experience than from the physical world, building on thwarted expectation, which even animals experience. |
| 10734 | Only a judgement can distinguish 'striking' from 'being struck' [Geach] |
| Full Idea: To understand the verb 'to strike' we must see that 'striking' and 'being struck' are different, but necessarily go together in event and thought; only in the context of a judgment can they be distinguished, when we think of both together. | |
| From: Peter Geach (Abstraction Reconsidered [1983], p.168) | |
| A reaction: Geach seems to have a strange notion that judgements are pure events which can precede all experience, and are the only ways we can come to understand experience. He needs to start from animals (or 'brutes', as he still calls them!). |
| 9866 | Gorgias says rhetoric is the best of arts, because it enslaves without using force [Gorgias, by Plato] |
| Full Idea: Gorgias insists that the art of persuasion is superior to all others because it enslaves all the rest, with their own consent, not by force, and is therefore by far the best of all the arts. | |
| From: report of Gorgias (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE]) by Plato - Philebus 58a | |
| A reaction: A nice point, and it is not unreasonable to rank the arts in order of their power. To enchant, without achieving agreement, and to speak truth without persuading, are both very fine, but there is something about success that cannot be gainsaid. |
| 5864 | Destroy seriousness with laughter, and laughter with seriousness [Gorgias] |
| Full Idea: Destroy the seriousness of others with laughter, and their laughter with seriousness. | |
| From: Gorgias (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE]), quoted by Aristotle - The Art of Rhetoric 1419b | |
| A reaction: This sounds like brilliant tactical advice, which should be on the wall of every barrister's chambers. This is a case of rhetoric having something to teach us which is nothing at all to do with truth. It is more like learning karate. |