Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Origin of the Work of Art', 'Is Mathematics purely Linguistic?' and 'Time and Free Will'

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3 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / b. Philosophy as transcendent
Later Heidegger sees philosophy as more like poetry than like science [Heidegger, by Polt]
     Full Idea: In his later work Heidegger came to view philosophy as closer to poetry than to science.
     From: report of Martin Heidegger (The Origin of the Work of Art [1935], p.178) by Richard Polt - Heidegger: an introduction 5 'Signs'
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 7. Formalism
Numbers are just verbal conveniences, which can be analysed away [Russell]
     Full Idea: Numbers are nothing but a verbal convenience, and disappear when the propositions that seem to contain them are fully written out.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Is Mathematics purely Linguistic? [1952], p.301)
     A reaction: This is the culmination of the process which began with his 1905 theory of definite descriptions. The intervening step was Wittgenstein's purely formal account of the logical connectives.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 5. Causal Argument
Experienced time means no two mental moments are ever alike [Bergson]
     Full Idea: If duration [experienced time] is what we say, deep-seated psychic states are radically heterogeneous to each other, and it is impossible that any two of them should be quite alike, since they are two different moments in a life-story.
     From: Henri Bergson (Time and Free Will [1889], p.220), quoted by Pete A.Y. Gunter - Bergson p.174
     A reaction: This implies that we are intrinsically unpredictable, and there certainly can't be a regularity account of mental causation. The sense of time is said to make the self radically different from the rest of reality. Bergson later rejected dualism.