Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'On Medical Experience' and 'The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme'

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6 ideas

3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 12. Rejecting Truthmakers

19044	Saying truths fit experience adds nothing to truth; nothing makes sentences true [Davidson]
	Full Idea: The notion of fitting the totality of experience ...adds nothing intelligible to the simple concept of being true. ....Nothing, ...no thing, makes sentences and theories true: not experience, not surface irritations, not the world.
	From: Donald Davidson (The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme [1974], p.11), quoted by Willard Quine - On the Very Idea of a Third Dogma p.39
	A reaction: If you don't have a concept of what normally makes a sentence true, I don't see how you go about distinguishing what is true from what is false. You can't just examine the sentence to see if it has the 'primitive' property of truth. Holism is involved....

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?

12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 5. Empiricism Critique

6400	Without the dualism of scheme and content, not much is left of empiricism [Davidson]
	Full Idea: The third dogma of empiricism is the dualism of scheme and content, of organizing system and something waiting to be organized, which cannot be made intelligible and defensible. If we give it up, it is not clear that any distinctive empiricism remains.
	From: Donald Davidson (The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme [1974], p.189)
	A reaction: The first two dogmas were 'analyticity' and 'reductionism', as identified by Quine in 1953. Presumably Hume's Principles of Association (Idea 2189) would be an example of a scheme. A key issue is whether there is any 'pure' content.

13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 6. Relativism Critique

6398	Different points of view make sense, but they must be plotted on a common background [Davidson]
	Full Idea: Different points of view make sense, but only if there is a common co-ordinate system on which to plot them.
	From: Donald Davidson (The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme [1974], p.184)
	A reaction: This seems right to me. I am very struck by the close similarities between people from wildly differing cultural backgrounds, as seen, for example, at the Olympic Games.

19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / b. Indeterminate translation

6399	Criteria of translation give us the identity of conceptual schemes [Davidson]
	Full Idea: Studying the criteria of translation is a way of focusing on criteria of identity for conceptual schemes.
	From: Donald Davidson (The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme [1974], p.184)
	A reaction: This is why it was an inspired idea of Quine's to make translation a central topic in philosophy. We must be cautious, though, about saying that the language is the conceptual scheme, as that leaves animals with no scheme at all.

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / f. The Mean

7453	Galen's medicine followed the mean; each illness was balanced by opposite treatment [Galen, by Hacking]
	Full Idea: Galen ran medicine on the principle of the mean; afflictions must be treated by contraries; hot diseases deserve cold medicine and moist illnesses want drying agents. (Paracelsus rebelled, treating through similarity).
	From: report of Galen (On Medical Experience [c.169]) by Ian Hacking - The Emergence of Probability Ch.5
	A reaction: This must be inherited from Aristotle, with the aim of virtue for the body, as Aristotle wanted virtue for the psuché. In some areas Galen is probably right, that natural balance is the aim, as in bodily temperature control.