5 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. |
| 16285 | A possible world can be seen as a complete and consistent novel [Jeffrey] |
| Full Idea: A novel describes a possible world in as much detail as is possible without exceeding the resources of the agent's language. But if talk of possible worlds seems dangerously metaphysical, focus on the novels themselves, when complete and consistent. | |
| From: Richard Jeffrey (The Logic of Decision [1965], 12.8), quoted by David Lewis - On the Plurality of Worlds | |
| A reaction: Lewis seems to cite this remark from Jeffrey as the source of the idea that ersatz linguistic worlds are like novels. Why won't a novel with one tiny inconsistency count as a possible world? People seem to live in it. |
| 19155 | Instead of gambling, Jeffrey made the objects of Bayesian preference to be propositions [Jeffrey, by Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Jeffrey produced a version of Bayesianism that made no direct use of gambling (as Ramsey had), but treats the objects of preference ...as propositions. | |
| From: report of Richard Jeffrey (The Logic of Decision [1965]) by Donald Davidson - Truth and Predication 3 | |
| A reaction: I'm guessing that Jeffreys launched modern Bayesian theory with this idea. It suggest that one can consider degrees of truth, rather than mere winning or losing. |
| 23812 | Force is what turns man into a thing, and ultimately into a corpse [Weil] |
| Full Idea: To define 'force' - it is that x that turns anybody who is subjected to it into a thing. Exercised to the limit, it turns man into a thing in the most literal sense: it makes a corpse out of him. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Iliad or the Poem of Force [1940], p.183) | |
| A reaction: She celebrates The Iliad as the great examination of force in human affairs. I have felt that sense of reduction to a thing whenever anyone above me in the hierarchy has arbitrarily exerted their power over me. |
| 23813 | Only people who understand force, and don't respect it, are capable of justice [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Only he who has measured the dominion of force, and knows how not to respect it, is capable of love and justice. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Iliad or the Poem of Force [1940], p.212) | |
| A reaction: There are, of course, occasions when we are grateful to people who exercise appropriate force on our behalf. I think she was concerned with what is inappropriate. |