22 ideas
| 20349 | Metaphysics aims at the essence of things, and a system to show how this explains other truths [Richardson] |
| Full Idea: The core of metaphysics is an account of the 'essence' or 'being' of things. ...And metaphysics needs system, to show how these primary truths reach out into all the other truths, to help us see that, and how, they are true. | |
| From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I like the phrase 'the essential nature' of things, because it doesn't invoke rather dodgy entities called 'essences', but everyone understands the idea of focusing on what is essential, and on things having a distinct 'nature'. |
| 20351 | Metaphysics needs systems, because analysis just obsesses over details [Richardson] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics makes system a virtue, contrary to the tendency of analysis, which breaks a problem into ever finer parts and then absorbs itself in these. | |
| From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I disagree, because it seems to rule out analytic metaphysics. I prefer Bertrand Russell's view. Admittedly analysis oftens gets stuck in the bog, especially if it hopes for salvation in logic, only to discover its certainties endlessly receding. |
| 20350 | Metaphysics generalises the data, to get at the ontology [Richardson] |
| Full Idea: The evidence lies at the periphery of the [metaphysical] system and runs in from there, through decreasingly specific accounts of the data, to the central ontology. | |
| From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Philosophy is the study of high level generalisations, IMHO. Studying them means studying the reasons for asserting them. Richardson puts it very nicely. |
| 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. |
| 17064 | 1: Coherence is a symmetrical relation between two propositions [Thagard, by Smart] |
| Full Idea: 1: Coherence and incoherence are symmetrical between pairs of propositions. | |
| From: report of Paul Thagard (Explanatory Coherence [1989], 1) by J.J.C. Smart - Explanation - Opening Address p.04 |
| 17065 | 2: An explanation must wholly cohere internally, and with the new fact [Thagard, by Smart] |
| Full Idea: 2: If a set of propositions explains a further proposition, then each proposition in the set coheres with that proposition, and propositions in the set cohere pairwise with one another. | |
| From: report of Paul Thagard (Explanatory Coherence [1989], 2) by J.J.C. Smart - Explanation - Opening Address p.04 |
| 17066 | 3: If an analogous pair explain another analogous pair, then they all cohere [Thagard, by Smart] |
| Full Idea: 3: If two analogous propositions separately explain different ones of a further pair of analogous propositions, then the first pair cohere with one another, and so do the second (explananda) pair. | |
| From: report of Paul Thagard (Explanatory Coherence [1989], 3) by J.J.C. Smart - Explanation - Opening Address p.04 |
| 17067 | 4: For coherence, observation reports have a degree of intrinsic acceptability [Thagard, by Smart] |
| Full Idea: 4: Observation reports (for coherence) have a degree of acceptability on their own. | |
| From: report of Paul Thagard (Explanatory Coherence [1989], 4) by J.J.C. Smart - Explanation - Opening Address p.04 | |
| A reaction: Thagard makes this an axiom, but Smart rejects that and says there is no reason why observation reports should not also be accepted because of their coherence (with our views about our senses etc.). I agree with Smart. |
| 17068 | 5: Contradictory propositions incohere [Thagard, by Smart] |
| Full Idea: 5: Contradictory propositions incohere. | |
| From: report of Paul Thagard (Explanatory Coherence [1989], 5) by J.J.C. Smart - Explanation - Opening Address p.04 | |
| A reaction: This has to be a minimal axiom for coherence, but coherence is always taken to be more than mere logical consistency. Mutual relevance is the first step. At least there must be no category mistakes. |
| 17069 | 6: A proposition's acceptability depends on its coherence with a system [Thagard, by Smart] |
| Full Idea: 6: Acceptability of a proposition in a system depends on its coherence with the propositions in that system. | |
| From: report of Paul Thagard (Explanatory Coherence [1989], 6) by J.J.C. Smart - Explanation - Opening Address p.04 | |
| A reaction: Thagard tried to build an AI system for coherent explanations, but I would say he has no chance with these six axioms, because they never grasp the nettle of what 'coherence' means. You first need rules for how things relate. What things are comparable? |
| 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. |
| 20356 | Humans dominate because, unlike other animals, they have a synthesis of conflicting drives [Richardson] |
| Full Idea: In contrast to the other animals, man has cultivated an abundance of contrary drives and impulses within himself: thanks to this synthesis, he is master of the earth. | |
| From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], §966) | |
| A reaction: If this is true, it presents the fundamental challenge of politicial philosophy - to visual a successful social system for a creature which does not have a clear and focused nature. For Nietzsche, this 'synthesis' continually evolves. |
| 20366 | A mind that could see cause and effect as a continuum would deny cause and effect [Richardson] |
| Full Idea: An intellect that could see cause and effect as a continuum and a flux, and not, as we do, in terms of an arbitrary division and dismemberment, would repudiate the concept of cause and effect. | |
| From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], §112) | |
| A reaction: Maybe we do see it as a continuum? The racket swings and the ball is propelled, but the contact is a unity, not two separate events. |
| 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? |