42 ideas
| 23064 | So-called wisdom is just pondering things instead of acting [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: What is known as 'wisdom' is ultimately only a perpetual 'thinking it over', i.e. non-action as first impulse. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 01) | |
| A reaction: This may be how most people view wisdom. Wisdom is for the spectators, not the actors (perhaps). Wisdom needs a lot of thought, and I don't associate it with extremely active people. |
| 4697 | There has been a distinct 'Social Turn' in recent philosophy, like the earlier 'Linguistic Turn' [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: The Social Turn is as defining a characteristic of contemporary philosophy as the Linguistic Turn has been of the earlier twentieth century period. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: A helpful observation. It ties in with externalism about concepts (Twin Earth), impossibility of Private Language, and externalism about knowledge. |
| 23072 | Systems are the worst despotism, in philosophy and in life [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle, Aquinas, Hegel - three enslavers of the mind. The worst form of despotism is the system, in philosophy and in everything. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 07) | |
| A reaction: I'm not quite clear why intellectual 'despotism' is a dreadful crime. I revere Aristotle, partly because he is systematic, but I reject about 30% of what he says. Still, many people agree with this idea. |
| 23075 | A text explained ceases to be a text [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: Why embroider upon what excludes commentary? A text explained is not longer a text. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 09) | |
| A reaction: I like that. I'm not a great fan of explicating texts, especially if they are literary, where the whole point is the primary experience, of a novel, poem or play. Philosophy is different, because that is a dialogue between writer and reader. |
| 4731 | Good reasoning will avoid contradiction, enhance coherence, not ignore evidence, and maximise evidence [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: The four basic principles of rationality are 1) avoid contradiction, 2) enhance coherence, 3) avoid ignoring evidence, and 4) maximise evidence. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: I like this, and can't think of any additions. 'Coherence' is the vaguest of the conditions. Maximising evidence is still the driving force of science, even if it does sound quaintly positivist. |
| 4735 | Just as maps must simplify their subject matter, so thought has to be reductionist about reality [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: A map that is identical in all respects with that which is mapped is just useless. So reductionism is not just a good thing - it is essential to thought. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: A useful warning, when thinking about truth. It is folly to want your thoughts to exactly correspond to reality. I want to understand the world, but not if it requires being the world. |
| 4701 | To say a relative truth is inexpressible in other frameworks is 'weak', while saying it is false is 'strong' [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: Weak alethic relativism holds that while a statement may be true in one framework, it is inexpressible in another. Strong alethic relativism is where a sentence is true relative to one framework, but false relative to another. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: The weak version will be Kuhn's 'incommensurability' of scientific theories, while the strong version will be full Protagorean relativism, saying all beliefs are true. |
| 4703 | The epistemic theory of truth presents it as 'that which is licensed by our best theory of reality' [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: The epistemic theory of truth presents it as 'that which is licensed by our best theory of reality'. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Dangerous nonsense. This leaves truth shifting as our theories change, it leads to different truths in different cultures, and no palpable falsehood in ignorant cultures. Don't give it house-room. |
| 4705 | Logical relativism appears if we allow more than one legitimate logical system [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: Logical relativism emerges if one defends the existence of two or more rival systems that one may legitimately choose between, or move back and forth between. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: All my instincts rebel against this possibility. All of Aristotle's and Kant's philosophy would be rendered meaningless. Obviously you can create artificial logics (like games), but I believe there is a truth logic. (Pathetic, isn't it?) |
| 4700 | A third value for truth might be "indeterminate", or a point on a scale between 'true' and 'false' [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: Suggestions for a third value for truth are "indeterminate", or a scale running from "true", through "mostly true", "mainly true", "half true", "mainly false", "mostly false", to "false", or maybe even "0.56 true". | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Anything on a sliding scale sounds wrong, as it seems to be paracitic on an underlying fixed idea of 'true'. "Indeterminate", though, seems just right for the truth of predictions ('sea-fight tomorrow'). |
| 4704 | Wittgenstein reduced Russell's five primitive logical symbols to a mere one [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: While Russell and Whitehead used five primitive logical symbols in their system, Wittgenstein suggested in his 'Tractatus' that this be reduced to one. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This certainly captures why Russell was so impressed by him. In retrospect what looked like progress presumably now looks like the beginning of the collapse of the enterprise. |
| 23066 | Negation doesn't arise from reasoning, but from deep instincts [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: Negation never proceeds from reasoning but from something much more obscure and old. Arguments come afterward, to justify and sustain it. Every no rises out of the blood. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 02) | |
| A reaction: Music to my ears. In the Fregean era no one is allowed to talk about the origins of logical relations in the universal facts of physical existence. You can watch dogs saying no. |
| 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. |
| 23077 | The word 'being' is very tempting, but in fact means nothing at all [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: Whether it is spoken by a grocer or a philosopher, the word 'being', apparently so rich, so tempting, so charged with significance, in fact means nothing at all; incredible that a man in his right mind can use it on any occasion whatever. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 12) | |
| A reaction: I entirely agree. It resembles the redundancy view of 'true' (with which I do not agree). |
| 23068 | People who really believe anti-realism don't bother to prove it [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: When you know quite absolutely that everything is unreal, you then cannot see why you should take the trouble to prove it. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 02) | |
| A reaction: Does the same apply to realists? There are at least genuine arguments in both directions. Presumably the thought is that realists have something they care about, but true anti-realists don't. |
| 4711 | Anti-realists say our theories (such as wave-particle duality) give reality incompatible properties [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: The anti-realist says we have theories about the world that are incompatible with each other, and irreducible to each other. They often cite wave-particle duality, which postulate incompatible properties to reality. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Most physicists, of course, hate this duality, precisely because they can't conceive how the two properties could be real. I say realism comes first, and the theories must try to accommodate that assumption. |
| 4698 | What counts as a fact partly depends on the availability of human concepts to describe them [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: What counts as a fact partly depends on human input, such as the availability of concepts to describe such facts. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: The point must be taken. I am happy to generalise about 'The Facts', meaning 'whatever is the case', but the individuation of specific facts is bound to hit the current problem. |
| 4715 | We may say that objects have intrinsic identity conditions, but still allow multiple accounts of them [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: Those defending the claim that objects exist with identity conditions not imposed by us, do not have to say that there is just one account of those objects possible. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, but the test question is whether the mind of God contains a single unified theory/account. Are multiple accounts the result of human inadequacy? Yes, I surmise. |
| 4719 | Maybe developments in logic and geometry have shown that the a priori may be relative [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: A weaker form of relativism holds that developments in logic, in maths and in geometry have shown how a relativised notion of the a priori is possible. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: This is non-Euclidean geometry, and multiple formalisations of logic. Personally I don't believe it. You can expand these subjects, and pursue whimsical speculations, but I have faith in their stable natural core. Neo-Platonism. |
| 23073 | Convictions are failures to study anything thoroughly [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: We have convictions only if we have studied nothing thoroughly. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 08) | |
| A reaction: Excellent! I cannot imagine studying anything at all in great depth without it resulting in a dwindling expectation of full understanding. Philosophy in spades, but also probably any topic in history. |
| 23078 | Opinions are fine, but having convictions means something has gone wrong [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: To have opinions is inevitable, is natural; to have convictions is less so. Each time I meet someone who has convictions, I wonder what intellectual vice, what flaw has caused him to acquire such a thing. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 12) | |
| A reaction: 'The best lack all conviction/ While the worst are full of passionate intensity' (Yeats). I agree with this. Convictions are so often accompanied by anger. |
| 4720 | Sense-data are only safe from scepticism if they are primitive and unconceptualised [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: The reason sense-data were immune from doubt was because they were so primitive; they were unstructured and below the level of conceptualisation. Once they were given structure and conceptualised, they were no longer safe from sceptical challenge. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: The question of whether sense-data are conceptualised doesn't have to be all-or-nothing. As concepts creep in, so does scepticism, but so what? Sensible philosophers live with scepticism, like a mad aunt in the attic. |
| 4722 | Modern epistemology centres on debates about foundations, and about external justification [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: The two dichotomies which set the agenda in contemporary epistemology are the foundationalist-coherentist debate, and the internalist-externalist debate. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: Helpful. Roughly, foundationalists are often externalists (if they are empiricists), and coherentists are often internalists (esp. if they are rationalists). An eccentric combination would make a good PhD. |
| 4724 | Internalists say the reasons for belief must be available to the subject, and externalists deny this [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: Internalism about justification says that the reasons one has for a belief must be in some sense available to the knowing subject, ..while externalism holds that it is possible for a person to have a justified belief without having access to the reason. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: It strikes me that internalists are talking about the believer being justified, and externalists talk about the belief being justified. I'm with the internalists. If this means cats don't know much, so much the worse for cats. |
| 4723 | Coherence involves support from explanation and evidence, and also probability and confirmation [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: Coherentist justification is more than absence of contradictions, and will involve issues like explanatory support and evidential support, and perhaps issues about probability and confirmation too. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: Something like this is obviously essential. Is the notion of 'relevance' also needed (e.g. to avoid the raven paradox of induction)? Coherence of justification will combine with correspondence for truth. |
| 4709 | Ontological relativists are anti-realists, who deny that our theories carve nature at the joints [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: Ontological relativists are anti-realists in the strong sense; they hold as meaningless the view that our theories carve nature at the joints. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: This pinpoints my disagreement with such relativism, as it seems obvious to me that nature has 'joints', and that we would agree with any sensible alien about lots of things. |
| 4725 | Contextualism says that knowledge is relative to its context; 'empty' depends on your interests [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: Contextualist about knowledge say that "to know" means different things in different context. For example, a warehouse may be empty for a furniture owner, but not for a bacteriologist or a physicist. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: There is obviously some truth in this, but we might say that 'empty' is a secondary quality, or that 'empty for furniture' is not relative. We needn't accept relativism here. |
| 4732 | One may understand a realm of ideas, but be unable to judge their rationality or truth [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: It is possible to conceive of one understanding the meaning of a realm of ideas, but holding that one cannot judge as to the truth or rationality of the claims made in it. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: I think Davidson gives good grounds for challenging this, by doubt whether one 'conceptual scheme' can know another without grasping its rationality and truth-conditions. |
| 23076 | If people always acted without words we would take them for robots [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: It is because of speech that men give the illusion of being free. If they did - without a word - what they do, we would take them for robots. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 09) | |
| A reaction: Love this one. Though it might be said that the power of speech does add an extra dimension of freedom to an action, beyond what any animal could attain. I take the absolute idea of 'being free' to be nonsense. |
| 23065 | If only we could write like a reptile, of endless sensations and no concepts! [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: If only we could reach back before the concept, could write on a level with the senses, record the infinitesimal variations of what we touch, do what a reptile would do if it were to set about writing! | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 02) | |
| A reaction: A lovely thought. It is a huge effort for us to try to imagine a mental life without concepts. And then to express that mental life in words…..! |
| 4710 | Verificationism was attacked by the deniers of the analytic-synthetic distinction, needed for 'facts' [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: Verificationism came under attack from empiricists who were friendly to the banishment of traditional metaphysics, but unfriendly to the analytic-synthetic distinction, on which the idea of a 'factual statement' depended. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: I don't accept this move because I don't consider the 'facts' to be language-dependent. They are pre-linguistic, they outrun that capacity of our language, and they are available to animals. |
| 4717 | If we abandon the analytic-synthetic distinction, scepticism about meaning may be inevitable [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: There may be no way to avoid scepticism about meaning if you abandon the analytic-synthetic distinction in the way Quine does. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: My suspicion was always that Quine's proposal began the slippery road to hell. It appears to be pragmatists who are most drawn to Quine's idea. The proposal that all my analytic propositions could be treated as synthetic totally baffles me. |
| 4706 | Early Quine says all beliefs could be otherwise, but later he said we would assume mistranslation [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: In his earlier work, Quine defended the view that no belief (including logic) is in principle unrevisable, but in his later work (1970) he took the conservative view that we would always impute mistranslation rather than deviancy. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: I take it he was influenced by Davidson's 'principle of charity'. He says that if someone asserts 'p and not-p', we would assume a misunderstanding of 'and' or 'not'. |
| 4734 | Cryptographers can recognise that something is a language, without translating it [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: It makes sense to think that one could recognise that something is a language without necessarily being able to translate it; cryptographers do this all the time. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: Maybe, but cryptographers usually have a lot of context to work with. If we met extraterrestrials if might not be so clear. One can only spot patterns, and crystals have those. |
| 23071 | We could only be responsible if we had consented before birth to who we are [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: The problem of responsibility would have a meaning only if we had been consulted before our birth and had consented to be precisely who we are. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 06) | |
| A reaction: The question could still be asked retrospectively, like agreeing to be in an army into which you have been conscripted. People gripped by deeply anti-social desires would probably welcome the chance to become different. |
| 23070 | We morally dissolve if we spend time with excessive beauty [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: Moral disintegration when we spend time in a place that is too beautiful: the self dissolves upon contact with paradise. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 06) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure whether that is true, but it is worth thinking about the value of experiences which are overwhelming. |
| 23074 | In anxiety people cling to what reinforces it, because it is a deep need [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: In anxiety, a man clings to whatever can reinforce, can stimulate his providential discomfort: to try to cure him of it is to destroy his equilibrium, anxiety being the basis of his existence and his prosperity. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 09) | |
| A reaction: A report from the front line of the age of anxiety, on which I am not qualified to comment. I assume that some anxiety can be a good thing, like nerves before a public performance. |
| 23062 | It is better to watch the hours pass, than trying to fill them [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: I do nothing, granted. But I see the hours pass - which is better than trying to fill them. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 01) | |
| A reaction: As Nietzsche would have pointed out, this came from a man who regularly wrote books. It is, though, certainly worth asking whether the way we fill our time is better than doing nothing. |
| 23069 | Fear cures boredom, because it is stronger [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: Fear is the antidote to boredom: the remedy must be stronger than the disease. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 05) | |
| A reaction: I suspect that this is the motivation of people who indulge in dangerous sports. Maybe all that is need is something daunting, rather than frightening. |
| 23067 | Suicide is pointless, because it always comes too late [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: It's not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 02) | |
| A reaction: A neat thought, but unlikely to be true for those who commit suicide, which presumably results from a sustained and apparently incurable situation. |
| 4727 | The chief problem for fideists is other fideists who hold contrary ideas [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: The chief problem for fideists is other fideists who hold contrary ideas. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: The other problem is trying to find grounds for sticking to the object of one's faith, rather than changing from time to time. |
| 23063 | The first man obviously found paradise unendurable [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: Paradise was unendurable, otherwise the first man would have adapted to it. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 01) | |
| A reaction: Seems a bit harsh. There was evidently one aspect that was missing (knowledge), and he was surprised to find himself ejected for wanting it. Like a holiday in a Mediterranean hotel, with good food. |