13966
|
Analytic philosophy loved the necessary a priori analytic, linguistic modality, and rigour [Soames]
|
|
Full Idea:
The golden age of analytic philosophy (mid 20th c) was when necessary, a priori and analytic were one, all possibility was linguistic possibility, and the linguistic turn gave philosophy a respectable subject matter (language), and precision and rigour.
|
|
From:
Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.166)
|
|
A reaction:
Gently sarcastic, because Soames is part of the team who have put a bomb under this view, and quite right too. Personally I think the biggest enemy in all of this lot is not 'language' but 'rigour'. A will-o-the-wisp philosophers dream of.
|
13974
|
If philosophy is analysis of meaning, available to all competent speakers, what's left for philosophers? [Soames]
|
|
Full Idea:
If all of philosophy is the analysis of meaning, and meaning is fundamentally transparent to competent speakers, there is little room for philosophically significant explanations and theories, since they will be necessary or a priori, or both.
|
|
From:
Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.186)
|
|
A reaction:
He cites the later Wittgenstein as having fallen into this trap. I suppose any area of life can have its specialists, but I take Shakespeare to be a greater master of English than any philosopher I have ever read.
|
21982
|
I only wish I had such eyes as to see Nobody! It's as much as I can do to see real people. [Carroll,L]
|
|
Full Idea:
"I see nobody on the road," said Alice. - "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked. ..."To be able to see Nobody! ...Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people."
|
|
From:
Lewis Carroll (C.Dodgson) (Through the Looking Glass [1886], p.189), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7
|
|
A reaction:
[Moore quotes this, inevitably, in a chapter on Hegel] This may be a better candidate for the birth of philosophy of language than Frege's Groundwork.
|
14288
|
'If A,B' affirms that A⊃B, and also that this wouldn't change if A were certain [Jackson, by Edgington]
|
|
Full Idea:
According to Jackson, in asserting 'If A,B' the speaker expresses his belief that A⊃B, and also indicates that this belief is 'robust' with respect to the antecedent A - the speaker would not abandon A⊃B if he were to learn that A.
|
|
From:
report of Frank Jackson (On Assertion and Indicative Conditionals [1979]) by Dorothy Edgington - Conditionals (Stanf) 4.2
|
|
A reaction:
The point is that you must not believe A⊃B solely on the dubious grounds of ¬A. This is 'to ensure an assertable conditional is fit for modus ponens' - that is, that you really will affirm B when you learn that A is true. Nice idea.
|
13972
|
Two-dimensionalism reinstates descriptivism, and reconnects necessity and apriority to analyticity [Soames]
|
|
Full Idea:
Two-dimensionalism is a fundamentally anti-Kripkean attempt to reinstate descriptivism about names and natural kind terms, to reconnect necessity and apriority to analyticity, and return philosophy to analytic paradigms of its golden age.
|
|
From:
Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.183)
|
|
A reaction:
I presume this is right, and it is so frustrating that you need Soames to spell it out, when Chalmers is much more low-key. Philosophers hate telling you what their real game is. Why is that?
|