Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Letters to Hegel' and 'Protocol Sentences'

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4 ideas

9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 6. Constitution of an Object

6019	If someone squashed a horse to make a dog, something new would now exist [Mnesarchus]
	Full Idea: If, for the sake of argument, someone were to mould a horse, squash it, then make a dog, it would be reasonable for us on seeing this to say that this previously did not exist but now does exist.
	From: Mnesarchus (fragments/reports [c.120 BCE]), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 179.11
	A reaction: Locke would say it is new, because the substance is the same, but a new life now exists. A sword could cease to exist and become a new ploughshare, I would think. Apply this to the Ship of Theseus. Is form more important than substance?

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / f. Foundationalism critique

10486	If we are rebuilding our ship at sea, we should jettison some cargo [Boolos on Neurath]
	Full Idea: If we are sailors rebuilding our ship plank by plank on the open sea, then I know of some cargo we might want to jettison.
	From: comment on Otto Neurath (Protocol Sentences [1932]) by George Boolos - Must We Believe in Set Theory? p.128
	A reaction: This may just be an assertion of Ockham's Razor, but the interest is that the Neurath image demands internal standards of economy etc, whereas reality itself seems to be a right mess.

8485	We must always rebuild our ship on the open sea; we can't reconstruct it properly in dry-dock [Neurath]
	Full Idea: We are like sailors who must rebuild their ship out on the open sea, never able to dismantle it in a dry-dock and reconstruct it there out of the best materials.
	From: Otto Neurath (Protocol Sentences [1932]), quoted by Alex Orenstein - W.V. Quine Ch.8
	A reaction: This is the classic statement of the anti-foundationalist picture of knowledge. It is often quoted by Quine. A tricky issue. I have a lot of sympathy with Bonjour's rationalist foundationalism.

16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 4. Presupposition of Self

22073	The basis of philosophy is the Self prior to experience, where it is the essence of freedom [Schelling]
	Full Idea: The highest principle of all philosophy is the Self insofar as it is purely and simply Self, not yet conditioned by an object, but where it is formulated by freedom. The alpha and omega of all philosophy is freedom.
	From: Friedrich Schelling (Letters to Hegel [1795], 1795 02 04), quoted by Jean-François Courtine - Schelling p.83
	A reaction: A common later response to this (e.g. in Schopenhauer) is that there is no concept of the Self prior to experience. The idealists seem to adore free will, while offering no reply to Spinoza on the matter, with whom they were very familiar.