38 ideas
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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
3509 | Externalism may be the key idea in philosophical naturalism [Papineau] |
Full Idea: Some people view an externalist approach to epistemology as the essence of philosophical naturalism. | |
From: David Papineau (Philosophical Naturalism [1993], Intro) | |
A reaction: I suspect philosophers avoid psychology and mental events, simply because they are elusive. Externalism is a theory about justification, and independent of naturalism as a metaphysic. |
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. |
16078 | Clay is intrinsically and atomically the same as statue (and that lacks 'modal properties') [Rudder Baker] |
Full Idea: Arguments for statue being the clay are: that the clay is intrinsically like the statue, that the clay has the same atoms as the statue', that objects don't have modal properties such as being necessarily F, and the reference of 'property' changes. | |
From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], II) | |
A reaction: [my summary of the arguments she identifies - see text for details] Rudder Baker attempts to refute all four of these arguments, in defence of constitution as different from identity. |
16077 | The clay is not a statue - it borrows that property from the statue it constitutes [Rudder Baker] |
Full Idea: I argue that a lump of clay borrows the property of being a statue from the statue. The lump is a statue because, and only because, there is something that the lump constitutes that is a statue. | |
From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], n9) | |
A reaction: It is skating on very thin metaphysical ice to introduce the concept of 'borrowing' a property. I've spent the last ten minutes trying to 'borrow' some properties, but without luck. |
16080 | Is it possible for two things that are identical to become two separate things? [Rudder Baker] |
Full Idea: A strong intuition shared by many philosophers is that some things that are in fact identical might not have been identical. | |
From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], IV) | |
A reaction: This flies in the face of the Kripkean view that if Hesperus=Phosphorus then the identity is necessary. I don't think I have an intuition that some given thing might have been two things - indeed the thought seems totally weird. Amoeba? Statue/clay? |
16076 | Constitution is not identity, as consideration of essential predicates shows [Rudder Baker] |
Full Idea: I want to resuscitate an essentialist argument against the view that constitution is identity, of the form 'x is essentially F, y is not essentially F, so x is not y'. | |
From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], Intro) | |
A reaction: The point is that x might be essentially F and y only accidentally F. Thus a statue is essentially so, but a lump if clay is not essentially a statue. Another case where 'necessary' would do instead of 'essentially'. |
16081 | The constitution view gives a unified account of the relation of persons/bodies, statues/bronze etc [Rudder Baker] |
Full Idea: Constitution-without-identity is superior to constitution-as-identity in that it provides a unified view of the relation between persons and bodies, statues and pieces of bronze, and so on. | |
From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], IV) | |
A reaction: I have a problem with the intrinsic dualism of this whole picture. Clay needs shape, statues need matter - there aren't two 'things' here which have a 'relation'. |
16082 | Statues essentially have relational properties lacked by lumps [Rudder Baker] |
Full Idea: The statue has relational properties which the lump of clay does not have essentially. | |
From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], V) | |
A reaction: She has in mind relations to the community of artistic life. I don't think this is convincing. Is something only a statue if it is validated by an artistic community? That sounds like relative identity, which she doesn't like. |
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. |
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. |
3513 | How does a dualist mind represent, exist outside space, and be transparent to itself? [Papineau] |
Full Idea: Even dualists must explain how the mind represents things, but then their mind-stuff has so many special powers already (being outside space but in time, being transparent to itself etc.) that one more scarcely seems worth worrying about. | |
From: David Papineau (Philosophical Naturalism [1993], 3.1 n1) | |
A reaction: I share the exasperation. It is hard to see how a dualist could even begin to formulate a theory about HOW the mind does so many different things. Could Descartes get a research grant for it? Would we understand God if he tried to explain it to us? |
3514 | Functionalism needs causation and intentionality to explain actions [Papineau] |
Full Idea: The functionalist approach to the mind needs to invoke assumptions about what desires are for and beliefs are about, in order to infer what agents will do. | |
From: David Papineau (Philosophical Naturalism [1993], 3.2) | |
A reaction: Isn't the idea that you discover what desires are for and what beliefs are about by examining their function, and what the agent does? Which end should we start? |
3510 | Epiphenomenalism is supervenience without physicalism [Papineau] |
Full Idea: Supervenience is a necessary condition for physicalism, but it is not sufficient. Epiphenomenalism rules out mental variation without physical variation, but says mental properties are quite distinct from physical properties. | |
From: David Papineau (Philosophical Naturalism [1993], 1.2) | |
A reaction: I take full epiphenomenalism about mind to be incoherent, and not worth even mentioning (see Idea 7379). Papineau seems to be thinking of so-called property dualism (which may also be incoherent!). |
3511 | Supervenience requires all mental events to have physical effects [Papineau] |
Full Idea: The argument for supervenience rests on the principle that any mental difference must be capable of showing itself in differential physical consequences. | |
From: David Papineau (Philosophical Naturalism [1993], 1.8) | |
A reaction: With our current knowledge of the brain, to assume anything less than this sort of correlation would be crazy. |
3515 | Knowing what it is like to be something only involves being (physically) that thing [Papineau] |
Full Idea: Physicalism does not deny that there are conscious experiences, nor that 'it is like something to have them'. The claim is only that this is nothing different from what it is to be a physical system of the relevant kind. | |
From: David Papineau (Philosophical Naturalism [1993], 4.2) | |
A reaction: The implication is that no physicalist is an extreme eliminativist about consciousness, which seems to be correct. We all concede that weather exists, but have a reductive view of it. The key question is whether mind is reducible to physics. |
3512 | If a mental state is multiply realisable, why does it lead to similar behaviour? [Papineau] |
Full Idea: If functionalism implies that there is nothing physically in common among the realisations of a given mental state, then there is no possibility of any uniform explanation of why they all give rise to a common physical result. | |
From: David Papineau (Philosophical Naturalism [1993], 2.2) | |
A reaction: This is the well known interaction problem for dualism. The standard reply is to accept interaction as a given (with no apparent explanation). A miracle, if you like. |
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. |
3516 | The Private Language argument only means people may misjudge their experiences [Papineau] |
Full Idea: I take the moral of the Private Language argument to be that there must be room for error in people's judgements about their experiences, not that those judgements must necessarily be expressed in a language used by a community. | |
From: David Papineau (Philosophical Naturalism [1993], 4.4 n10) | |
A reaction: These two readings don't seem to be in conflict, and the argument must have something to say about the communal nature of thought expressed in language. Language imposes introspection on us? |
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. |
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. |