65 ideas
| 19250 | Everything interesting should be recorded, with records that can be rearranged [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Everything worth notice is worth recording; and those records should be so made that they can readily be arranged, and particularly so that they can be rearranged. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], V) | |
| A reaction: Yet another epigraph for my project! Peirce must have had a study piled with labelled notes, and he would have adored this database, at least in its theory. |
| 19228 | Sciences concern existence, but philosophy also concerns potential existence [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy differs from the special sciences in not confining itself to the reality of existence, but also to the reality of potential being. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I) | |
| A reaction: One might reply that sciences also concern potential being, if their output is universal generalisations (such as 'laws'). I take disposition and powers to be central to existence, which are hence of interest to sciences. |
| 19241 | An idea on its own isn't an idea, because they are continuous systems [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: There is no such thing as an absolutely detached idea. It would be no idea at all. For an idea is itself a continuous system. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], III) | |
| A reaction: This is the new anti-epigraph for this database. This idea is part of Peirce's idea that relations are the central feature of our grasp of the world. |
| 19227 | Philosophy is a search for real truth [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy differs from mathematics in being a search for real truth. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I) | |
| A reaction: This is important, coming from the founder of pragmatism, in rejecting the anti-realism which a lot of modern pragmatists seem to like. |
| 19218 | Metaphysics is pointless without exact modern logic [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The metaphysician who is not prepared to grapple with the difficulties of modern exact logic had better put up his shutters and go out of the trade. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I) | |
| A reaction: This announcement comes before Russell proclaimed mathematical logic to be the heart of metaphysics (though it is contemporary with Frege's work, of which Peirce was unaware). It places Peirce firmly in the analytic tradition. |
| 19229 | Metaphysics is the science of both experience, and its general laws and types [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics is the science of being, not merely as given in physical experience, but of being in general, its laws and types. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I) | |
| A reaction: I agree with this. The question then is whether such a science is possible. Dogmatic empiricists think not. Explanatory empiricists (me) think it is. |
| 19219 | Metaphysical reasoning is simple enough, but the concepts are very hard [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysical reasonings, such as they have hitherto been, have been simple enough for the most part. It is the metaphysical concepts which it is difficult to apprehend. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I) | |
| A reaction: Peirce is not, of course, saying that it is just conceptual, because for him science comes first. It is the woolly concepts that alienate some people from metaphysics. Metaphysicians should challenge the concepts they use much, much more! |
| 19231 | Metaphysics is turning into logic, and logic is becoming mathematics [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics is gradually and surely taking on the character of a logic. And finally seems destined to become more and more converted into mathematics. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I) | |
| A reaction: Remarkably prescient for 1898. I don't think Peirce knew of Frege (and certainly not when he wrote this). It shows that the revolution of Frege and Russell was in the air. It's there in Dedekind's writings. Peirce doesn't seem to be a logicist. |
| 19247 | The one unpardonable offence in reasoning is to block the route to further truth [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: To set up a philosophy which barricades the road of further advance toward the truth is the one unpardonable offence in reasoning. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], IV) | |
| A reaction: This is Popper's rather dubious objection to essentialism in science. Yet Popper tried to do the same thing with his account of induction. |
| 19246 | 'Holding for true' is either practical commitment, or provisional theory [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Whether or not 'truth' has two meanings, I think 'holding for true' has two kinds. One is practical holding for true which alone is entitled to the name of Belief; the other is the acceptance of a proposition, which in pure science is always provisional. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], IV) | |
| A reaction: The problem here seems to be that we can act on a proposition without wholly believing it, like walking across thin ice. |
| 19237 | Deduction is true when the premises facts necessarily make the conclusion fact true [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The question of whether a deductive argument is true or not is simply the question whether or not the facts stated in the premises could be true in any sort of universe no matter what be true without the fact stated in the conclusion being true likewise. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], III) | |
| A reaction: A remarkably modern account, fitting the normal modern view of semantic consequence, and expressing the necessity in the validity in terms of something close to possible worlds. |
| 19256 | Our research always hopes that reality embodies the logic we are employing [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Every attempt to understand anything at least hopes that the very objects of study themselves are subject to a logic more or less identical with that which we employ. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], VIII) | |
| A reaction: The idea that external objects might be subject to a logic has become very unfashionable since Frege, but I love the idea. I'm inclined to think that we derive our logic from the world, so I'm a bit more confident that Peirce. |
| 19238 | The logic of relatives relies on objects built of any relations (rather than on classes) [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: In the place of the class ...the logic of relatives considers the system, which is composed of objects brought together by any kind of relations whatsoever. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], III) | |
| A reaction: Peirce's logic of relations might support the purely structural view of reality defended by Ladyman and Ross. Modern logic standardly expresses its semantics in terms of set theory. Peirce pioneered relations in logic. |
| 17518 | Counting 'coin in this box' may have coin as the unit, with 'in this box' merely as the scope [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: If we count the concept 'coin in this box', we could regard coin as the 'unit', while taking 'in this box' to limit the scope. Counting coins in two boxes would be not a difference in unit (kind of object), but in scope. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Counting') | |
| A reaction: This is a very nice alternative to the Fregean view of counting, depending totally on the concept, and rests more on a natural concept of object. I prefer Ayers. Compare 'count coins till I tell you to stop'. |
| 17516 | If counting needs a sortal, what of things which fall under two sortals? [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: If we accepted that counting objects always presupposes some sortal, it is surely clear that the class of objects to be counted could be designated by two sortals rather than one. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Realist' vii) | |
| A reaction: His nice example is an object which is both 'a single piece of wool' and a 'sweater', which had better not be counted twice. Wiggins struggles to argue that there is always one 'substance sortal' which predominates. |
| 19226 | We now know that mathematics only studies hypotheses, not facts [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: It did not become clear to mathematicians before modern times that they study nothing but hypotheses without as pure mathematicians caring at all how the actual facts may be. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I) | |
| A reaction: 'Modern' here is 1898. As a logical principle this would seem to qualify as 'if-thenism' (see alphabetical themes). It's modern descendant might be modal structuralism (see Geoffrey Hellman). It take maths to be hypotheses abstracted from experience. |
| 17520 | Events do not have natural boundaries, and we have to set them [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: In order to know which event has been ostensively identified by a speaker, the auditor must know the limits intended by the speaker. ...Events do not have natural boundaries. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Concl') | |
| A reaction: He distinguishes events thus from natural objects, where the world, to a large extent, offers us the boundaries. Nice point. |
| 19240 | Realism is the belief that there is something in the being of things corresponding to our reasoning [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: If there is any reality, then it consists of this: that there is in the being of things something which corresponds to the process of reasoning. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], III) | |
| A reaction: A nice definition of realism, a little different from usual. I belief that the normal logic of daily thought corresponds (in its rules and connectives) to the way the world is. We evaluate success in logic by truth-preservation. |
| 19239 | There may be no reality; it's just our one desperate hope of knowing anything [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: What is reality? Perhaps there isn't any such thing at all. It is but a working hypothesis which we try, our one desperate forlorn hope of knowing anything. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], III) | |
| A reaction: I'm not quite sure why the hope is 'forlorn'. We have no current reason to doubt that the hypothesis is working out extremely well. Lovely idea, though. |
| 17519 | To express borderline cases of objects, you need the concept of an 'object' [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: The only explanation of the power to produce borderline examples like 'Is this hazelnut one object or two?' is the possession of the concept of an object. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Counting') |
| 17510 | Speakers need the very general category of a thing, if they are to think about it [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: If a speaker indicates something, then in order for others to catch his reference they must know, at some level of generality, what kind of thing is indicated. They must categorise it as event, object, or quality. Thinking about something needs that much. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Ayers defends the view that such general categories are required, but not the much narrower sortal terms defended by Geach and Wiggins. I'm with Ayers all the way. 'What the hell is that?' |
| 17522 | We use sortals to classify physical objects by the nature and origin of their unity [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: Sortals are the terms by which we intend to classify physical objects according to the nature and origin of their unity. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Concl') | |
| A reaction: This is as opposed to using sortals for the initial individuation. I take the perception of the unity to come first, so resemblance must be mentioned, though it can be an underlying (essentialist) resemblance. |
| 17515 | Seeing caterpillar and moth as the same needs continuity, not identity of sortal concepts [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: It is unnecessary to call moths 'caterpillars' or caterpillars 'moths' to see that they can be the same individual. It may be that our sortal concepts reflect our beliefs about continuity, but our beliefs about continuity need not reflect our sortals. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Realist' vi) | |
| A reaction: Something that metamorphosed through 15 different stages could hardly required 15 different sortals before we recognised the fact. Ayers is right. |
| 17511 | Recognising continuity is separate from sortals, and must precede their use [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: The recognition of the fact of continuity is logically independent of the possession of sortal concepts, whereas the formation of sortal concepts is at least psychologically dependent upon the recognition of continuity. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be entirely correct. I might add that unity must also be recognised. |
| 17517 | Could the same matter have more than one form or principle of unity? [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: The abstract question arises of whether the same matter could be subject to more than one principle of unity simultaneously, or unified by more than one 'form'. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Realist' vii) | |
| A reaction: He suggests that the unity of the sweater is destroyed by unravelling, and the unity of the thread by cutting. |
| 17513 | If there are two objects, then 'that marble, man-shaped object' is ambiguous [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: The statue is marble and man-shaped, but so is the piece of marble. So not only are the two objects in the same place, but two marble and man-shaped objects in the same place, so 'that marble, man-shaped object' must be ambiguous or indefinite. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Prob') | |
| A reaction: It strikes me as basic that it can't be a piece of marble if you subtract its shape, and it can't be a statue if you subtract its matter. To treat a statue as an object, separately from its matter, is absurd. |
| 17523 | Sortals basically apply to individuals [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: Sortals, in their primitive use, apply to the individual. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Concl') | |
| A reaction: If the sortal applies to the individual, any essence must pertain to that individual, and not to the class it has been placed in. |
| 17521 | You can't have the concept of a 'stage' if you lack the concept of an object [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: It would be impossible for anyone to have the concept of a stage who did not already possess the concept of a physical object. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Concl') |
| 17514 | Temporal 'parts' cannot be separated or rearranged [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: Temporally extended 'parts' are still mysteriously inseparable and not subject to rearrangement: a thing cannot be cut temporally in half. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Prob') | |
| A reaction: A nice warning to anyone accepting a glib analogy between spatial parts and temporal parts. |
| 17509 | Some say a 'covering concept' completes identity; others place the concept in the reference [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: Some hold that the 'covering concept' completes the incomplete concept of identity, determining the kind of sameness involved. Others strongly deny the identity itself is incomplete, and locate the covering concept within the necessary act of reference. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], Intro) | |
| A reaction: [a bit compressed; Geach is the first view, and Quine the second; Wiggins is somewhere between the two] |
| 17512 | If diachronic identities need covering concepts, why not synchronic identities too? [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: Why are covering concepts required for diachronic identities, when they must be supposed unnecessary for synchronic identities? | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Prob') |
| 19252 | Objective chance is the property of a distribution [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Chance, as an objective phenomenon, is a property of a distribution. ...In order to have any meaning, it must refer to some definite arrangement of all the things. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], VI) |
| 19232 | In ordinary language a conditional statement assumes that the antecedent is true [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: In our ordinary use of language we always understand the range of possibility in such a sense that in some possible case the antecedent shall be true. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], II) | |
| A reaction: Peirce is discussing Diodorus, and proposes the view nowadays defended by Edgington, though in the end Peirce defends the standard material conditional as simpler. I suspect that this discussion by Peirce is not well known. |
| 19223 | We act on 'full belief' in a crisis, but 'opinion' only operates for trivial actions [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: 'Full belief' is willingness to upon a proposition in vital crises, 'opinion' is willingness to act on it in relatively insignificant affairs. But pure science has nothing at all to do with action. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I) | |
| A reaction: A nice clear statement of the pragmatic view of beliefs. It is not much help in distinguishing full belief about the solar system from mere opinion about remote galaxies. Ditto for historical events. |
| 19253 | We talk of 'association by resemblance' but that is wrong: the association constitutes the resemblance [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Allying certain ideas like 'crimson' and 'scarlet' is called 'association by resemblance'. The name is not a good one, since it implies that resemblance causes association, while in point of fact it is the association which constitutes the resemblance. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], VII) | |
| A reaction: I take it that Hume would have agreed with this. It is an answer to Russell's claim that 'resemblance' must itself be a universal. |
| 19224 | Scientists will give up any conclusion, if experience opposes it [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The scientific man is not in the least wedded to his conclusions. He risks nothing upon them. He stands ready to abandon one or all as experience opposes them. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I) | |
| A reaction: In the age of massive speculative research grants, the idea that 'he risks nothing upon them' is no longer true. Ditto for building aircraft and bridges, which are full of theoretical science. Notoriously, many scientists don't live up to Peirce's idea. |
| 19243 | If each inference slightly reduced our certainty, science would soon be in trouble [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Were every probable inference less certain than its premises, science, which piles inference upon inference, often quite deeply, would soon be in a bad way. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], IV) | |
| A reaction: This seems to endorse Aristotle's picture of demonstration about scientific and practical things as being a form of precise logic, rather than progressive probabilities. Our generalisations may be more certain than the particulars they rely on. |
| 19225 | I classify science by level of abstraction; principles derive from above, and data from below [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: I classify the sciences on Comte's general principles, in order of the abstractness of their objects, so that each science may largely rest for its principles upon those above it in the scale, while drawing its data in part from those below it. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I) | |
| A reaction: He places mathematics at the peak of abstraction. I assume physics is more abstract than biology. So chemistry draws principles from physics and data from biology. Not sure about this. Probably need to read Comte on it. |
| 19234 | 'Induction' doesn't capture Greek 'epagoge', which is singulars in a mass producing the general [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The word 'inductio' is Cicero's imitation of Aristotle's term 'epagoge'. It fails to convey the full significance of the Greek word, which implies the examples are arrayed and brought forward in a mass. 'The assault upon the generals by the singulars'. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], II) | |
| A reaction: Interesting, thought I don't think there is enough evidence in Aristotle to get the Greek idea fully clear. |
| 19235 | How does induction get started? [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Induction can never make a first suggestion. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], II) | |
| A reaction: This seems to lead to the general modern problem of the 'theory-laden' nature of observation. You don't see anything at all without some idea of what you are looking for. How do you spot the 'next instance'. Instance of what? Nice. |
| 19236 | Induction can never prove that laws have no exceptions [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Induction can never afford the slightest reason to think that a law is without an exception. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], II) | |
| A reaction: Part of the general Humean doubts about induction, but very precisely stated, and undeniable. You can then give up on universal laws, or look for deeper reasons to justify your conviction that there are no exceptions. E.g. observe mass, or Higgs Boson. |
| 19251 | The worst fallacy in induction is generalising one recondite property from a sample [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The most dangerous fallacy of inductive reasoning consists in examining a sample, finding some recondite property in it, and concluding at once that it belongs to the whole collection. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], V) | |
| A reaction: The point, I take it, is not that you infer that the whole collection has all the properties of the sample, but that some 'recondite' or unusual property is sufficiently unusual to be treated as general. |
| 19222 | Men often answer inner 'whys' by treating unconscious instincts as if they were reasons [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Men many times fancy that they act from reason, when the reasons they attribute to themselves are nothing but excuses which unconscious instinct invents to satisfy the teasing 'whys' of the ego. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I) | |
| A reaction: A strikely modern thought, supported by a lot of modern neuro-science and psychology. It is crucial to realise that we don't have to accept the best explanation we can think of. |
| 19220 | We may think animals reason very little, but they hardly ever make mistakes! [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Those whom we are so fond of referring to as the 'lower animals' reason very little. Now I beg you to observe that those beings very rarely commit a mistake, while we ---- ! | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I) | |
| A reaction: We might take this as pessimism about reason, but I would take it as inviting a much broader view of rationality. I think nearly all animal behaviour is highly rational. Are animals 'sensible' in what they do? Their rationality is unadventurous. |
| 19255 | Generalisation is the great law of mind [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The generalising tendency is the great law of mind. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], VII) | |
| A reaction: How else could a small and compact mind get a grip on a vast and diverse reality? This must even apply to inarticulate higher animals. |
| 19242 | Generalization is the true end of life [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Generalization, the spelling out of continuous systems, in thought, in sentiment, in deed, is the true end of life. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], III) | |
| A reaction: I take understanding to be the true aim of life, and full grasp of particulars (e.g. of particular people) is as necessary as generalisation. This is still a very nice bold idea. |
| 19249 | 'Know yourself' is not introspection; it is grasping how others see you [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: 'Know thyself' does not mean instrospect your soul. It means see yourself as others would see you if they were intimate enough with you. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], V) | |
| A reaction: When it comes to anger management, I would have thought that introspection had some use. You can see a tantrum coming before even your intimates can. Nice disagreement with Sartre! (Idea 7123) |
| 19257 | Whatever is First must be sentient [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: I think that what is First is ipso facto sentient. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], VIII) | |
| A reaction: He doesn't mention Leibniz's monads, but that looks like the ancestor of Peirce's idea. He doesn't make clear (here) how far he would take the idea. I would just say that whatever is 'First' must be active rather than passive. |
| 19248 | Reasoning involves observation, experiment, and habituation [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The mental operations concerning in reasoning are three. The first is Observation; the second is Experimentation; and the third is Habituation. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], V) | |
| A reaction: I like the breadth of this. Even those who think scientific reasoning has priority over logic (as I do, thinking of it as the evaluation of evidence, with Sherlock Holmes as its role model) will be surprised to finding observation and habituation there. |
| 19221 | Everybody overrates their own reasoning, so it is clearly superficial [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The very fact that everybody so ridiculously overrates his own reasoning, is sufficient to show how superficial the faculty is. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I) | |
| A reaction: A nice remark. The obvious counter-thought is that the collective reasoning of mankind really has been rather impressive, even though people haven't yet figured out how to live at peace with one another. |
| 19233 | Indexicals are unusual words, because they stimulate the hearer to look around [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Words like 'this', 'that', 'I', 'you', enable us to convey meanings which words alone are incompetent to express; they stimulate the hearer to look about him. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], II) | |
| A reaction: Peirce was once of the first to notice the interest of indexicals, and this is a very nice comment on them. A word like 'Look!' isn't like the normal flow of verbiage, and may be the key to indexicals. |
| 23865 | Morality would improve if people could pursue private interests [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The common run of moralists complain that man is moved by his private interest: would to heaven it were so! | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.65) | |
| A reaction: Her point is that currently people have to sacrifice their own interests to communal activities which offer dubious benefits. |
| 19230 | People should follow what lies before them, and is within their power [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Each person ought to select some definite duty that clearly lies before him and is well within his power as the special task of his life. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I) | |
| A reaction: I like that. Note especially that it should be 'well' within his power. Note also that this is a 'duty', and not just a friendly suggestion. Not sure what the basis of the duty is. |
| 23866 | In oppressive societies the scope of actual control is extended by a religion of power [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Every oppressive society is cemented by a religion of power, which falsifies all social relations by enabling the powerful to command over and above what they are able to impose. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.69) | |
| A reaction: A rather acute and accurate observation, I think. Flashy cars, grand uniforms, lots of medals, rituals of deference….. Sometimes I like the order and security this brings, but Simone Weil could quickly change my view. |
| 23871 | No central authority can initiate decentralisation [Weil] |
| Full Idea: It is quite patently impossible for decentralisation to be initiated by the central authority. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.113) | |
| A reaction: This is contradicted by the creation of regional parliaments and mayors, but we see nothing beyond that. A state could crumble into small parts if there were'lots of autonomous regional groups. Easier for weird minorities to take control. |
| 23867 | After a bloody revolution the group which already had the power comes to the fore [Weil] |
| Full Idea: There is no real break in continuity after a bloody struggle for regime change; for the victory just sanctions forces that before the struggle were the decisive factor in community life, patterns which were replacing those of the declining regime. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.73) | |
| A reaction: [from Marx] I assume she has in mind the French Revolution, and perhaps the Russian Revolution, though in the latter the new bourgeois leaders also got swept away. So revolutions are not nearly as dramatic as they appear to be. |
| 23870 | Decentralisation is only possible by co-operation between strong and weak - which is absurd [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The only possibility of salvation would lie in a co-operation between weak and strong, with a view to accomplishing a progressive decentralisation of social life; but the absurdity of such an idea strikes one immediately. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.113) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be a judgement on the anarchist ideal, rather than a bit of modest devolution. The UK government set up regional parliaments. She says centralisation is remorseless. |
| 23863 | Only individual people of good will can achieve social progress [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The enlightened goodwill of men acting in an individual capacity is the only possible principle of social progress. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.57) | |
| A reaction: I identify with this. Virtually every admirable institution in a society can be traced back to the initiative of a few individuals. Every helpful technology was someone's brainwave. |
| 23869 | In the least evil societies people can think, control community life, and be autonomous [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The least evil society is that in which the general run of men are most often obliged to think while acting, have the most opportunities for exercising control over collective life as a whole, and enjoy the greatest amount of independence. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.97) | |
| A reaction: So Simone Weil was a liberal. How do you stop the most dynamic thinkers, social controllers, and exercisers of their own independence from coming to dominate the others? Only liberal institutions, such as the law and education, can do this. |
| 23861 | Marx showed that capitalist oppression, because of competition, is unstoppable [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Marx gives a first-rate account of the mechanism of capitalist oppression; but so good is it that one finds it hard to visualise how this mechanism could cease to function. …The exploitation is the competitive need to expand as rapidly as possible. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.39) | |
| A reaction: [Last bit compressed] This pinpoints the main motivation for desiring to overthrow capitalism. Resistance to that view is presumably the fear that an even worse oppression might replace it. |
| 23868 | The pleasure of completing tasks motivates just as well as the whip of slavery [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The sight of the unfinished task attracts the free man as powerfully as the over-seer's whip stimulates the slave. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.94) | |
| A reaction: This is Weil's key social idea - that freely performed productive work can be, and should be, a joy, as long as it is accompanied by respect and friendship, rather than oppression. Did this idea ever occur to a slave owner? |
| 23864 | Inequality could easily be mitigated, if it were not for the struggle for power [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Inequality could easily be mitigated by the resistance of the weak and the feeling for justice of the strong, …were it not for the intervention of a further factor, namely, the struggle for power. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.62) | |
| A reaction: The implication is that many of 'the strong' are inclined to diminish inequality, but find themselves trapped and unable to do so, because of irresistable capitalist forces. Sounds plausible. |
| 19245 | We are not inspired by other people's knowledge; a sense of our ignorance motivates study [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: It is not the man who thinks he knows it all, that can bring other men to feel their need for learning, and it is only a deep sense that one is miserably ignorant that can spur one on in the toilsome path of learning. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], IV) |
| 19244 | Chemists rely on a single experiment to establish a fact; repetition is pointless [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The chemist contents himself with a single experiment to establish any qualitative fact, because he knows there is such a uniformity in the behavior of chemical bodies that another experiment would be a mere repetition of the first in every respect. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], IV) | |
| A reaction: I take it this endorses my 'Upanishads' view of natural kinds - that for each strict natural kind, if you've seen one you've them all. This seems to fit atoms and molecules, but only roughly fits tigers. |
| 19254 | Our laws of nature may be the result of evolution [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: We may suppose that the laws of nature are results of an evolutionary process. ...But this evolution must proceed according to some principle: and this principle will itself be of the nature of a law. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], VII) | |
| A reaction: Maybe I've missed something, but this seems a rather startling idea that doesn't figure much in modern discussions of laws of nature. Lee Smolin's account of evolving universes comes to mind. |