39 ideas
| 7490 | Because of Darwin, wisdom as a definite attainable state has faded [Watson] |
| Full Idea: As well as killing the need for God, Darwin's legacy transformed the idea of wisdom, as some definite attainable state, however far off. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.31) | |
| A reaction: Where does this leave philosophy, if it is still (as I like to think) the love of wisdom? The best we can hope for is wisdom as a special sort of journey - touring, rather than arriving. |
| 7461 | The three key ideas are the soul, Europe, and the experiment [Watson] |
| Full Idea: The three key ideas that I have settled on in the history of ideas are: the soul, Europe, and the experiment. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Intro) | |
| A reaction: The soul is a nice choice (rather than God). 'Europe' seems rather vast and indeterminate to count as a key idea. |
| 7464 | The big idea: imitation, the soul, experiments, God, heliocentric universe, evolution? [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Candidates for the most important idea in human history are: mimetic thinking (imitation), the soul, the experiment, the One True God, the heliocentric universe, and evolution. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.03) | |
| A reaction: From this list I would choose the heliocentric universe, because it so dramatically downgraded the importance of our species (effectively we went from everything to nothing). We still haven't recovered from the shock. |
| 6161 | Structuralism is neo-Kantian idealism, with language playing the role of categories of understanding [Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: Structuralism is a form of neo-Kantian idealism, in which the job of creating Kant's phenomenal world has been taken over by language instead of forms of sensibility and categories of the understanding. | |
| From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: A helpful connection, which explains my aversion to any attempt at understanding the world simply by analysing language, either in its ordinary usage, or in its underlying logical form. |
| 7465 | Babylonian thinking used analogy, rather than deduction or induction [Watson] |
| Full Idea: In Babylon thought seems to have worked mainly by analogy, rather than by the deductive or inductive processes we use in the modern world. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.04) | |
| A reaction: Analogy seems to be closely related to induction, if it is comparing instances of something. Given their developments in maths and astronomy, they can't have been complete strangers to the 'modern' way of thought. |
| 6163 | If bivalence is rejected, then excluded middle must also be rejected [Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: If you reject the principle of bivalence (that a proposition is either determinately true or false), then statements are also not subject to the Law of Excluded Middle (P or not-P). | |
| From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: I think Rowlands is wrong about this. Excluded Middle could be purely syntacti, or its semantics could be 'True or Not-True'. Only bivalent excluded middle introduces 'True or False'. Compare Idea 4752. |
| 7466 | Mesopotamian numbers applied to specific things, and then became abstract [Watson] |
| Full Idea: To begin with, in Mesopotamia, counting systems applied to specific commodities (so the symbol for 'three sheep' applied only to sheep, and 'three cows' applied only to cows), but later words for abstract qualities emerged. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.04) | |
| A reaction: It seems from this that we actually have a record of the discovery of true numbers. Delightful. I think the best way to describe what happened is that they began to spot patterns. |
| 6155 | Supervenience is a one-way relation of dependence or determination between properties [Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: Supervenience is essentially a one-way relation of dependence or determination, …which holds, in the first instance, between properties. | |
| From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This definition immediately shows why supervenient properties are in danger of being epiphenomenal (i.e. causally irrelevant). Carefully thought about the notion of a 'one-way' relation will, I think, make it more obscure rather than clearer. |
| 6154 | It is argued that wholes possess modal and counterfactual properties that parts lack [Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: Some have argued that a mereological whole should not be identified with the sum of its parts on the grounds that the former possess certain properties - specifically modal and (perhaps) counterfactual properties - that the latter lacks. | |
| From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: I am not convinced that modal and counterfactual claims should count as properties. If my pen is heated it melts (a property), but if my pen were intelligent it could do philosophy. Intelligence is a property, but the situation isn't. |
| 6157 | Tokens are dated, concrete particulars; types are their general properties or kinds [Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: Tokens are dated, concrete, particular occurrences or instances; types are the general properties that these occurrences exemplify or the kinds to which they belong. | |
| From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: It might be said that types are sets, of which tokens are the members. The question of 'general properties' raises the question of whether universals must exist to make kinds possible. |
| 2614 | Modern phenomenalism holds that objects are logical constructions out of sense-data [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: Nowadays phenomenalism is held to be a theory of perception which says that physical objects are logical constructions out of sense-data. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (Phenomenalism [1947], §1) |
| 6159 | Strong idealism is the sort of mess produced by a Cartesian separation of mind and world [Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: Neo-Kantian idealism, and the excesses of recent versions of it, are precisely the sort of mess one can get oneself into through an uncritical acceptance of the dichotomizing of mind and world along Cartesian internalist lines. | |
| From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: I am unconvinced that internalism about the mind (that its contents can be defined without reference to anything external) leads to this disastrous split. We don't have to abandon the links between an internal mind and the world. |
| 2615 | The concept of sense-data allows us to discuss appearances without worrying about reality [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: The introduction of the term 'sense-datum' is a means of referring to appearances without prejudging the question of what it is, if anything, that they are appearances of. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (Phenomenalism [1947], §1) |
| 6152 | Minds are rational, conscious, subjective, self-knowing, free, meaningful and self-aware [Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: The apparent features of mind which are not obviously physical include: rationality, thought, consciousness, subjectivity, infallible first-person knowledge, freedom, meaning and self-awareness. | |
| From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: A helpful list, some of which can be challenged. Ryle challenges first-person infallibility. Hume challenges self-awareness. Quine challenges meaning. Lots of people (e.g. Spinoza) challenge freedom. The Churchlands seem to challenge consciousness. |
| 6173 | Content externalism implies that we do not have privileged access to our own minds [Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: Content externalism threatens the idea of first-person authority in all its forms, and does so because it calls into question the idea that the access we have to our own mental states is privileged in the way required for such authority. | |
| From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: I am inclined to respond by saying that since we clearly have privileged access to our own minds, that means there must be something wrong with content externalism. |
| 6174 | If someone is secretly transported to Twin Earth, others know their thoughts better than they do [Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: If someone knew that a thinker had, without realising it, been transported to Twin Earth, they would almost certainly be a higher authority on the content of the thinker's thoughts than would the thinker. | |
| From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.8) | |
| A reaction: They would certainly be a higher authority on the truth of the thinker's thoughts, but only in the way that you might think I hold a diamond when I know it is a club. If the thinker believes it is H2O, the fact that it isn't is irrelevant to content. |
| 6158 | Supervenience of mental and physical properties often comes with token-identity of mental and physical particulars [Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: One often finds a supervenience thesis concerning the relation between mental and physical properties combined with a token identity theory concerning the relation between mental and physical particulars. | |
| From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This brings out the important clarifying point that supervenience is said to be between properties, not substances. The point is that supervenience will always cry out for an explanation, preferably a sensible one. |
| 6168 | The content of a thought is just the meaning of a sentence [Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: The content of the thought that the sky is blue is simply the meaning of the sentence "The sky is blue". | |
| From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: This seems to imply that it is logically impossible for a non-language-speaker, such as a chimpanzee, to think that the sky is the same colour as the water. If we allow propositions, we might be able to keep meanings without the sentences. |
| 6167 | Action is bodily movement caused by intentional states [Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: An action is a bodily movement that is caused by intentional states such as beliefs, desires and so on. | |
| From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: A useful definition, and clearly one that has no truck with attempts at giving behaviourist definitions of action. The definition of a 'moral action' needs to be built on this one. Particular types of belief and desire, presumably. |
| 6177 | Moral intuition seems unevenly distributed between people [Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: The faculty of moral intuition seems to be unevenly distributed between people. | |
| From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.11) | |
| A reaction: This would be a good argument if it was thought that the source of moral intuitions was divine, but people vary enormously in their intuitions about maths, about character, about danger. If you believe in any intuition at all, you must accept its variety. |
| 7477 | Modern democracy is actually elective oligarchy [Watson] |
| Full Idea: What we regard as democracy in the twenty-first century is actually elective oligarchy. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.06) | |
| A reaction: Even dictatorships want to be called 'democracies'. The modern system is a bit of a concession to Plato, and he would probably have preferred it to his system, because at least the rulers tend to be more educated than the direct assembly. |
| 7478 | Greek philosophers invented the concept of 'nature' as their special subject [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Greek philosophers may have invented the concept of 'nature' to underline their superiority over poets and religious leaders. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.06) | |
| A reaction: Brilliant. They certainly wrote a lot of books entitled 'Peri Physis' (Concerning Nature), and it was the target of their expertise. A highly significant development, along with their rational methods. Presumably Socrates extends nature to include ethics. |
| 6156 | The 17th century reintroduced atoms as mathematical modes of Euclidean space [Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: The seventeenth century revolution reintroduced the classical concept of the atom in somewhat new attire as an essentially mathematical entity whose primary qualities could be precisely quantified as modes or aspects of Euclidean space. | |
| From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Obviously this very abstract view of atoms didn't last, once they began to identify specific physical atoms, such as oxygen. This view fits in with Newton's use of pure (abstract) points such as the 'centre of gravity'. |
| 6170 | Natural kinds are defined by their real essence, as in gold having atomic number 79 [Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: Part of what it means to be a natural kind is that they are defined by a real essence, a constitution that marks them out as the substance they are (as water is essentially H2O, and gold essentially has atomic number 79). | |
| From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: A 'real essence' would be the opposite of a 'conventional essence', which is just a human way of seeing things. |
| 7462 | DNA mutation suggests humans and chimpanzees diverged 6.6 million years ago [Watson] |
| Full Idea: The basic mutation rate in DNA is 0.71 percent per million years. Working back from the present difference between human and chimpanzee DNA, we arrive at 6.6 million years ago for their divergence. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.01) | |
| A reaction: This database is committed to evolution (a reminder that even databases have commitments), and so facts of this kind are included, even though they are not strictly philosophical. All complaints should be inwardly digested and forgotten. |
| 6178 | It is common to see the value of nature in one feature, such as life, diversity, or integrity [Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: In recent environmental philosophy it is common to see the value of nature identified with one or another natural feature of the environment: life, diversity, ecosystemic integrity and so on. | |
| From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.11) | |
| A reaction: This thought seems to be asking for the Open Question argument. What is so good about life, or diversity? Our strongest intuition must be that the survival of the ecosystem, and whatever makes that possible, is the highest value. |
| 7470 | During the rise of civilizations, the main gods changed from female to male [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Around the time of the rise of the first great civilizations, the main gods changed sex, as the Great Goddess, or a raft of smaller goddesses, were demoted and male gods took their place. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: Why? War, perhaps? |
| 7474 | Hinduism has no founder, or prophet, or creed, or ecclesiastical structure [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Traditional Hinduism has been described as more a way of living than a way of thought; it has no founder, no prophet, no creed and no ecclesiastical structure. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: This contrast strikingly with all later religions, which felt they had to follow the Jews in becoming a 'religion of the book', with a sacred text, and hence a special status for the author(s) of that text. |
| 7479 | Modern Judaism became stabilised in 200 CE [Watson] |
| Full Idea: The Judaism we know today didn't become stabilized until roughly 200 CE. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.07) | |
| A reaction: By that stage it would have been subject to the influences of Christianity, ancient Greek philosophy, and neo-Platonism. |
| 7481 | The Israelites may have asserted the uniqueness of Yahweh to justify land claims [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Archaeology offers datable figures that seem to support the idea that the Israelites of the 'second exile' period converted Yahweh into a special, single God to justify their claims to the land. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.07) | |
| A reaction: The implications for middle eastern politics of this wicked observation are beyond the remit of a philosophy database. |
| 7480 | Monotheism was a uniquely Israelite creation within the Middle East [Watson] |
| Full Idea: No one questions the fact that monotheism was a uniquely Israelite creation within the Middle East. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.07) | |
| A reaction: I take the Middle East to exclude Greece, where they were developing similar ideas. Who knows? |
| 7471 | The Gathas (hymns) of Zoroastrianism date from about 1000 BCE [Watson] |
| Full Idea: The Gathas, the liturgical hymns that make up the 'Avesta', the Zoroastrian canon, are very similar in language to the oldest Sanskrit of Hinduism, so they are not much younger than 1200 BCE. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: This implies a big expansion of religion before the well-known expansion of the sixth century BCE. |
| 7473 | Zoroaster conceived the afterlife, judgement, heaven and hell, and the devil [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Life after death, resurrection, judgement, heaven and paradise, were all Zoroastrian firsts, as were hell and the devil. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: He appears to be the first 'prophet'. |
| 7484 | Jesus never intended to start a new religion [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Jesus never intended to start a new religion. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.08) | |
| A reaction: An intriguing fact, which makes you wonder whether any of the prophets ever had such an intention. |
| 7483 | Paul's early writings mention few striking episodes from Jesus' life [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Paul's writings - letters mainly - predate the gospels and yet make no mention of many of the more striking episodes that make up Jesus' life. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.07) | |
| A reaction: This is not proof of anything, but it seems very significant if we are trying to get at the facts about Jesus. |
| 7475 | Confucius revered the spiritual world, but not the supernatural, or a personal god, or the afterlife [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Confucius was deeply religious in a traditional sense, showing reverence towards heaven and an omnipresent spiritual world, but he was cool towards the supernatural, and does not seem to have believed in either a personal god or an afterlife. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: The implication is that the spiritual world was very remote from us, and beyond communication. Sounds like deism. |
| 7476 | Taoism aims at freedom from the world, the body, the mind, and nature [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Underlying Taoism is a search for freedom - from the world, from the body, from the mind, from nature. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: Of all the world's religions, I think Taoism is the most ridiculouly misconceived. |
| 7463 | The three basic ingredients of religion are: the soul, seers or priests, and ritual [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Anthropologist distinguish three requirements for religion: a non-physical soul which can survive death; individuals who can receive supernatural inspiration; and rituals which can cause changes in the present world. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.01) | |
| A reaction: The latter two, of course, also imply belief in supernatural powers. |
| 7468 | In ancient Athens the souls of the dead are received by the 'upper air' [Watson] |
| Full Idea: An official Athenian war monument of 432 BCE says the souls of the dead will be received by the aither (the 'upper air'), though their bodies remain on earth. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: Intriguing. Did they think anything happened when they got there? There are also ideas about Hades, and the Isles of the Blessed floating around. |