7 ideas
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. |
22062 | Mental presentation are not empirical, but concern the strivings of the self [Fichte] |
Full Idea: The intelligence has as the object of its presentation not an empirical perception, but rather only the necessary striving of the self. | |
From: Johann Fichte (Review of 'Aenesidemus' [1792], Wks I:22), quoted by Ludwig Siep - Fichte p.62 | |
A reaction: The embodiment of Fichte's idealism. The 'striving' is the spontaneous application of concepts described the Kant. Kant looks outwards, but Fichte sees only the striving. |
22015 | The thing-in-itself is an empty dream [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
Full Idea: Fichte said that the thing-in-itself (which both Reinhold and Schulze accepted) is only "a piece of whimsy, a pipe-dream, a non-thought". | |
From: report of Johann Fichte (Review of 'Aenesidemus' [1792]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 | |
A reaction: This seems to be a key moment in German philosophy, and the first step towards the idealist interpretation of Kant. |
22330 | Grice said patterns of use are often semantically irrelevant, because it is a pragmatic matter [Grice, by Glock] |
Full Idea: The slogan that meaning is use came under scrutiny by Grice's theory of conversational implicature. He said patterns of use shown in analysis were often semantically irrelevant, snce they are due not meanings of expressions but to pragmatic principles. | |
From: report of H. Paul Grice (Some Models for Implicature [1967]) by Hans-Johann Glock - What is Analytic Philosophy? 2.8 | |
A reaction: I think the simplest objection is that words only have use because they have a meaning; The most interesting part of pragmatics is what you DON'T say in conversation. |
18045 | Grice's maxim of quality says do not assert what you believe to be false [Grice, by Magidor] |
Full Idea: Grice's maxim of quality says one ought not to assert what one believes to be false. | |
From: report of H. Paul Grice (Some Models for Implicature [1967]) by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 5.2 | |
A reaction: The obvious exception is irony, where are truth is asserted, but the listener is supposed to spot that you are not really asserting it. |
18044 | Grice's maxim of manner requires one to be as brief as possible [Grice, by Magidor] |
Full Idea: Grice's maxim of manner requires one to be as brief as possible. | |
From: report of H. Paul Grice (Some Models for Implicature [1967]) by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 5.2 | |
A reaction: An alternative maxim of conversation is that there should not be long silences between contributions - which would probably result if the contributions are all curtly abbreviated. |
18046 | Grice's maxim of quantity says be sufficiently informative [Grice, by Magidor] |
Full Idea: Grice's maxim of quantity says 'make your contributions as informative as required'. | |
From: report of H. Paul Grice (Some Models for Implicature [1967]) by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 5.2 | |
A reaction: Is the 'requirement' of informative for the speaker or for the listener? It is easy to image situations where, one way or the other, the two people don't agree about informativenss. |