29 ideas
| 8195 | Undecidable statements result from quantifying over infinites, subjunctive conditionals, and the past tense [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: I once wrote that there are three linguistic devices that make it possible for us to frame undecidable statements: quantification over infinity totalities, as expressed by word such as 'never'; the subjunctive conditional form; and the past tense. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 4) | |
| A reaction: Dummett now repudiates the third one. Statements containing vague concepts also appear to be undecidable. Personally I have no problems with deciding (to a fair extent) about 'never x', and 'if x were true', and 'it was x'. |
| 8194 | Surely there is no exact single grain that brings a heap into existence [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: There is surely no number n such that "n grains of sand do not make a heap, although n+1 grains of sand do" is true. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 4) | |
| A reaction: It might be argued that there is such a number, but no human being is capable of determing it. Might God know the value of n? On the whole Dummett's view seems the most plausible. |
| 8190 | Intuitionists rely on the proof of mathematical statements, not their truth [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: The intuitionist account of the meaning of mathematical statements does not employ the notion of a statement's being true, but only that of something's being a proof of the statement. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 2) | |
| A reaction: I remain unconvinced that anyone could give an account of proof that didn't discreetly employ the notion of truth. What are we to make of "we suspect this is true, but no one knows how to prove it?" (e.g. Goldbach's Conjecture). |
| 8198 | A 'Cambridge Change' is like saying 'the landscape changes as you travel east' [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: The idea of 'Cambridge Change' is like saying 'the landscape changes as you travel east'. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5) | |
| A reaction: The phrase was coined in Oxford. It is a useful label with which realists can insult solipsists, idealists and other riff-raff. Four Dimensionalists seem to see time in this way. Events sit there, and we travel past them. But there are indexical events. |
| 8192 | I no longer think what a statement about the past says is just what can justify it [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: In distinguishing between what can establish a statement about the past as true and what it is that that statement says, we are repudiating antirealism about the past. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 3) | |
| A reaction: This is a late shift of ground from the champion of antirealism. If Dummett's whole position is based on a 'justificationist' theory of meaning, he must surely have a different theory of meaning now for statements about the past? |
| 8199 | The existence of a universe without sentience or intelligence is an unintelligible fantasy [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: The existence of a universe from which sentience was permanently absent is an unintelligible fantasy. What exists is what can be known to exist. What is true is what can be known to be true. Reality is what can be experienced and known. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as nonsense. The fact that we cannot think about a universe without introducing a viewpoint does not mean that we cannot 'intellectually imagine' its existence devoid of viewpoints. Nothing could ever experience a star's interior. |
| 8193 | Verification is not an individual but a collective activity [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: Verification is not an individual but a collective activity. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 3) | |
| A reaction: This generates problems. Are deceased members of the community included? (Yes, says Dummett). If someone speaks to angels (Blake!), do they get included? Is a majority necessary? What of weird loners? Etc. |
| 8189 | Truth-condition theorists must argue use can only be described by appeal to conditions of truth [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: To demonstrate the necessity of a truth-conditional theory of meaning, a proponent of such a theory must argue that use cannot be described without appeal to the conditions for the truth of statements. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 1) | |
| A reaction: Unlike Dummett, I find that argument rather appealing. How do you decide the possible or appropriate use for a piece of language, if you don't already know what it means. Basing it all on social conventions means it could be meaningless ritual. |
| 8191 | The truth-conditions theory must get agreement on a conception of truth [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: It is not enough for the truth-condition theorist to argue that we need the concept of truth: he must show that we should have the same conception of truth that he has. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 2) | |
| A reaction: Davidson invites us to accept Tarski's account of truth. It invites the question of what the theory would be like with a very robust correspondence account of truth, or a flabby rather subjective coherence view, or the worst sort of pragmatic view. |
| 23831 | The essence of power is illusory prestige [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Prestige, which is an illusion, is the very essence of power. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Power of Words [1934], p.255) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to maintain illusory prestige if there is no actual power behind it. |
| 23830 | A group is only dangerous if it endorses an abstract entity [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Any group which has not secreted an abstract entity will probably not be dangerous. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Power of Words [1934], p.255) | |
| A reaction: Written in the 1930s, the era of many political -isms. No group can be united if it lacks a clear label, and a few simple slogans. |
| 23829 | National leaders want to preserve necessary order - but always the existing order [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Those in command see their duty as defending order, without which no social life can survive; and the only order they conceive is the existing one. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Power of Words [1934], p.249) | |
| A reaction: She sympathises with them, because a new order is such an unknown. But it always struck me as weird that traditions are preserved because they are traditions, and not because they are good. (My old school, for example!). |
| 23828 | National prestige consists of behaving as if you could beat the others in a war [Weil] |
| Full Idea: What is called national prestige consists in behaving always in such a way as to demoralise other nations by giving them the impression that, if it comes to war, one would certainly defeat them. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Power of Words [1934], p.244) | |
| A reaction: It's true. No nation gains prestige because of the happy lives of its citizens, or the creativity of its culture. |
| 23827 | Modern wars are fought in the name of empty words which are given capital letters [Weil] |
| Full Idea: For our contemporaries the role of Helen in the Trojan War is is played by words with capital letters. …When empty words are given capital letters, then, on the slightest pretext, men will begin shedding blood for them and piling up ruin in their name. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Power of Words [1934], p.241) | |
| A reaction: This seems particularly true of the 1930s, where specific dogmatic ideologies seemed to grip and divide people. Simple aggressive nationalism seems to be the cause of current wars, now the fear of Communism has diminished. |
| 8197 | Maybe past (which affects us) and future (which we can affect) are both real [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: Maybe both the past and the future are real, determined by our current temporal perspective. Past is then events capable of having a causal influence upon events near us, and future is events we can affect, but from which we receive no information. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5) | |
| A reaction: This is the Four-Dimensional view, which is opposed to Presentism. Might immediate unease is that it gives encouragement to fortune-tellers, whom I have always dismissed with 'You can't see the future, because it doesn't exist'. |
| 8196 | The present cannot exist alone as a mere boundary; past and future truths are rendered meaningless [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: The idea that only the present is real cannot be sustained. St Augustine pointed out that the present has no duration; it is a mere boundary between past and future, and dependent on them. It also denies truth-value to statements about past or future. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5) | |
| A reaction: To defend Presentism, I suspect that one must focus entirely on the activities of consciousness and short-term memory. All truths, of past or future, must refer totally to such mental events. But what could an event be if there is no enduring time? |
| 20712 | God is 'eternal' either by being non-temporal, or by enduring forever [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: Saying 'God is eternal' means either that God is non-temporal or timeless, or that God has no beginning and no end. The first ('classical') view is found in Anselm, Augustine, Boethius, Aquinas, Calvin and Descartes. | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 8 'Meaning') | |
| A reaction: A God who is outside of time but performs actions is a bit of a puzzle. It seems that Augustine started the idea of a timeless God. |
| 20701 | Can God be good, if he has not maximised goodness? [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: We may wonder whether God can be good since he has not produced more moral goodness than he has. We may wonder whether God is guilty by neglect. | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 3 'Freedom') | |
| A reaction: The orthodox response is that we cannot possibly know what the maximum of moral goodness would look like, so we can't make this judgement. Atheists say that God fails by human standards, which are not particularly high. |
| 20702 | The goodness of God may be a higher form than the goodness of moral agents [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: If we can know that God exists and if God's goodness is not moral goodness, then moral goodness is not the highest form of goodness we know. There is the goodness of God to be reckoned with. | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 3 'Goodness') | |
| A reaction: This idea is to counter the charge that God fails to meet human standards for an ideal moral agent. But it sounds hand-wavy, since we presumably cannot comprehend the sort of goodness that is postulated here. |
| 20703 | How could God have obligations? What law could possibly impose them? [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: We have good reason for resisting the suggestion that God has any duties or obligations. …What can oblige God in relation to his creatures? Could there be a law saying God has such obligations? Where does such a law come from? | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 3 'Goodness') | |
| A reaction: Plato can answer this question. Greek gods are not so supreme that nothing could put them under an obligation, but 'God' has to be supreme in every respect. |
| 20694 | 'Natural theology' aims to prove God to anyone (not just believers) by reason or argument [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: 'Natural theology' is the attempt to show that belief in God's existence can be defended with reference to reason or argument which ought to be acceptable to anyone, not simply to those who believe in God's existence. | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 1 'Other') | |
| A reaction: I assume by 'reason or argument' he primarily means evidence (plus the ontological argument). He cites Karl Barth as objecting to the assumption of natural theology (preferring revelation). Presumably Kierkegaard offers a rival view too. |
| 20706 | A distinct cause of the universe can't be material (which would be part of the universe) [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: If the universe was caused to come into being, it presumably could not have been caused to do so by anything material. For a material object would be part of the universe, and we are now asking for a cause distinct from the universe. | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 5 'God') | |
| A reaction: We're out of our depth here. We only have two modes of existence to offer, material and spiritual, and 'spiritual' means little more than non-material. |
| 20707 | The universe exhibits design either in its sense of purpose, or in its regularity [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: The design argument offers two lines: the first states that the universe displays design in the sense of purpose; the second that it displays design in the sense of regularity. | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 6 'Versions') | |
| A reaction: I would have thought that you would infer the purpose from the regularity. How could you see purpose in a totally chaotic universe? |
| 20708 | If God is an orderly being, he cannot be the explanation of order [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: If God is an instance of something orderly, how can he serve to account for the order of orderly things? | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 6 'b Has') | |
| A reaction: You can at least explain the tidiness of a house by the tidiness of its owner, but obviously that won't explain the phenomenon of tidiness. |
| 20710 | Maybe an abnormal state of mind is needed to experience God? [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: Might it not be possible that experience of God requires an unusual state or psychological abnormality, just as an aerial view of Paris requires that one be in the unusual state of being abnormally elevated? | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 7 'Are the') | |
| A reaction: That would make sense if it were analogous to great mathematical or musical ability, but it sounds more like ouija boards in darkened rooms. Talent has a wonderful output, but people in mystical states don't return with proofs. |
| 20711 | A believer can experience the world as infused with God [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: Maybe someone who believes in God can be regarded as experiencing everything as something behind which God lies. Believers see the world as a world in which God is present. | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 7 'Experiencing') | |
| A reaction: [Attributed to John Hick] This would count as supporting evidence for God, perhaps, if seeing reality as infused with God produces a consistent and plausible picture. But seeing reality as infused with other things might pass the same test. |
| 20709 | The experiences of God are inconsistent, not universal, and untestable [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: A proclaimed experience of God must be rejected because a) there is no agreed test that it is such an experience, b) some people experience God's absence, and c) there is no uniformity of testimony about the experience. | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 7 'Objections') | |
| A reaction: [compressed] I'm not sure that absence of an experience is experience of an absence. Compare it with experiencing the greatness of Beethoven's Ninth. |
| 20697 | One does not need a full understanding of God in order to speak of God [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: In order to speak meaningfully about God, it is not necessary that one should understand exactly the import of one's statements about him. | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 2 'Sayng') | |
| A reaction: Perfectly reasonable. To insist that all discussion of a thing requires exact understanding of the thing is ridiculous. Equally, though, to discuss God while denying all understanding of God is just as ridiculous. |
| 20699 | Paradise would not contain some virtues, such as courage [Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: There are virtues (such as courage) that would not be present in a paradise. | |
| From: Brian Davies (Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [1982], 3 'Evil') | |
| A reaction: Part of a suggestion that morality would be entirely inapplicable in paradise, and so we need dangers etc in the world. |