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.
|
12177
|
Human artefacts may have essences, in their purposes [Popper]
|
|
Full Idea:
One might adopt the view that certain things of our own making, such as clocks, may well be said to have 'essences', viz. their 'purposes', and what makes them serve these purposes.
|
|
From:
Karl Popper (Conjectures and Refutations [1963], 3.3 n17)
|
|
A reaction:
This is from one of the arch-opponents of essentialism. Could we take him on a slippery slope into essences for evolved creatures, or their organs? His argument says admitting an essence for a clock prevents using it for another purpose.
|
14528
|
Maybe modal thought is unavoidable, as a priori recognition of necessary truth-preservation in reasoning [Hale/Hoffmann,A]
|
|
Full Idea:
There are 'transcendental' arguments saying that modal thought is unavoidable - recognition, a priori, of the necessarily truth-preserving character of some forms of inference is a precondition for rational thought in general, and scientific theorizing.
|
|
From:
Bob Hale/ Aviv Hoffmann (Introduction to 'Modality' [2010], 1)
|
|
A reaction:
So the debate about the status of logical truths and valid inference, are partly debates about whether out thought has to involve modality, or whether it could just be about the actual world. I take possibilities and necssities to be features of nature.
|
12175
|
Galilean science aimed at true essences, as the ultimate explanations [Popper]
|
|
Full Idea:
The third of the Galilean doctrines of science is that the best, the truly scientific theories, describe the 'essences' or the 'essential natures' of things - the realities which lie behind the appearances. They are ultimate explanations.
|
|
From:
Karl Popper (Conjectures and Refutations [1963], 3.3)
|
|
A reaction:
This seems to be the seventeenth century doctrine which was undermined by Humeanism, and hence despised by Popper, but is now making a comeback, with a new account of essence and necessity.
|