Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Problem of Empty Names', 'Logical Investigations' and 'A General Principle to Explain Laws of Nature'

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7 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 2. Invocation to Philosophy

19395	Philosophy is sanctified, because it flows from God [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Philosophy is sanctified by having its streams flow from the fountain of God's attributes.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (A General Principle to Explain Laws of Nature [1687], p.69)

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 2. Phenomenology

15570	Phenomenology is the science of essences - necessary universal structures for art, representation etc. [Husserl, by Polt]
	Full Idea: For Husserl, phenomenology must seek the essential aspects of phenomena - necessary, universal structures, such as the essence of art or the essence of representation. He sought a science of these essences.
	From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900]) by Richard Polt - Heidegger: an introduction 2 'Dilthey'

7614	Bracketing subtracts entailments about external reality from beliefs [Husserl, by Putnam]
	Full Idea: In effect, the device of bracketing subtracts entailments from the ordinary belief locution (the entailments that refer to what is external to the thinker's mind).
	From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900]) by Hilary Putnam - Reason, Truth and History Ch.2
	A reaction: This seems to leave phenomenology as pure introspection, or as a phenomenalist description of sense-data. It is also a refusal to explain anything. That sounds quite appealing, like Keats's 'negative capability'.

6893	Phenomenology aims to describe experience directly, rather than by its origins or causes [Husserl, by Mautner]
	Full Idea: Phenomenology, in Husserl, is an attempt to describe our experience directly, as it is, separately from its origins and development, independently of the causal explanations that historians, sociologists or psychologists might give.
	From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900]) by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.421
	A reaction: In this simple definition the concept sounds very like the modern popular use of the word 'deconstruction', though that is applied more commonly to cultural artifacts than to actual sense experience.

5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / e. Empty names

18946	Unreflectively, we all assume there are nonexistents, and we can refer to them [Reimer]
	Full Idea: As speakers of the language, we unreflectively assume that there are nonexistents, and that reference to them is possible.
	From: Marga Reimer (The Problem of Empty Names [2001], p.499), quoted by Sarah Sawyer - Empty Names 4
	A reaction: Sarah Swoyer quotes this as a good solution to the problem of empty names, and I like it. It introduces a two-tier picture of our understanding of the world, as 'unreflective' and 'reflective', but that seems good. We accept numbers 'unreflectively'.

9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 1. Concept of Identity

19394	Inequality can be brought infinitely close to equality [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Equality may be considered as an infinitely small inequality, and we may make inequality approach equality as much as we wish.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (A General Principle to Explain Laws of Nature [1687], p.67)
	A reaction: An interesting response to David Lewis's brusque dismissal of the problem of identity, as all-or-nothing...end of story.

12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 2. Self-Evidence

21216	Husserl says we have intellectual intuitions (of categories), as well as of the senses [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol]
	Full Idea: The novelty of Husserl is to describe that we have intellectual intuitions, intuitions of categories as we have intuitions of sense objects.
	From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900], II.VI.24) by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 2.4.4
	A reaction: This is 'intuitions' in Kant's sense, of something like direct apprehensions. This idea is an axiom of phenomenology, because all mental life must be bracketed, and not just the sense experience part.