4 ideas
| 10356 | Relativism can be seen as about the rationality of different cultural traditions [MacIntyre, by Kusch] |
| Full Idea: MacIntyre formulates relativism in terms of rationality rather than truth or objectivity. Things are rational relative to some particular tradition, but not rational as such. | |
| From: report of Alasdair MacIntyre (Whose Justice? Which Rationality? [1988], p.352) by Martin Kusch - Knowledge by Agreement Ch.19 | |
| A reaction: Personally I had always taken it to be about truth, and I expect any account of rationality to be founded on a notion of truth. There can clearly be cultural traditions of evidence, and possibly even of logic (though I doubt it). |
| 7319 | If we give up synonymy, we have to give up significance, meaning and sense [Grice/Strawson] |
| Full Idea: If we are to give up the notion of sentence-synonymy as senseless, we must give up the notion of sentence-significance (of a sentence having meaning) as senseless too. But then perhaps we might as well give up the notion of sense. | |
| From: P Grice / P Strawson (In Defense of a Dogma [1956]), quoted by Alexander Miller - Philosophy of Language 4.2 | |
| A reaction: This is very prescient. Nearly all American philosophers seem to embrace Quine's view of analyticity (the philosophical equivalent of Americans putting a man on the moon?), but have they digested the implications (which Quine later largely admits)? |
| 7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
| Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
| From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
| A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate'). |
| 23080 | Liberals debate how conservative or radical to be, but don't question their basics [MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Contemporary debates within modern political systems are almost exclusively between conservative liberals, liberal liberals, and radical liberals. There is little place for the criticism of the system itself. | |
| From: Alasdair MacIntyre (Whose Justice? Which Rationality? [1988]), quoted by John Kekes - Against Liberalism 01 | |
| A reaction: [No page number given] Kekes seems to be more authoritarian, and MacIntyre is a communitarian (which can be rather authoritarian). I'm dubious about both. |