11 ideas
| 12772 | Philosophy is a value- and attitude-driven enterprise [Fraassen] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is a value- and attitude-driven enterprise; philosophy is in false consciousness when it sees itself otherwise. | |
| From: Bas C. van Fraassen (The Empirical Stance [2002], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: It is one thing to be permeated with values, and another to be value-driven. Truth, reason and logic are (I take it) granted a high value in philosophy, just as the offside rule is in football. I am trying to place reality in charge, not humanity. |
| 12771 | Is it likely that a successful, coherent, explanatory ontological hypothesis is true? [Fraassen] |
| Full Idea: How likely is it that a truly successful, coherent, explanatory ontological hypothesis is true? | |
| From: Bas C. van Fraassen (The Empirical Stance [2002], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: Van Fraassen announces "I reject metaphysic" (p.3), so we know where he stands. Anything becomes less certain as it moves to a higher level of generality. Should we abandon generalisation? There is much illumination in metaphysics. |
| 12773 | Analytic philosophy has an exceptional arsenal of critical tools [Fraassen] |
| Full Idea: Analytical philosophy can rightly pride itself on having produced the greatest critical arsenal the world has ever known. | |
| From: Bas C. van Fraassen (The Empirical Stance [2002], 1.6) | |
| A reaction: This is, of course, in the context of a scathing attack on the desire to use analytical methods to do speculative metaphysics. I say that if these are the best tools, then we should push forward with them to see how far we can get. |
| 12770 | We may end up with a huge theory of carefully constructed falsehoods [Fraassen] |
| Full Idea: The specter that faces us is that we may end up having explained all that is dreamt of in our philosophies by intricately crafted postulates that are false. | |
| From: Bas C. van Fraassen (The Empirical Stance [2002], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: This is more persuasive that Idea 12769. People who cannot bear to live with a total absence of explanation (with Keats's 'negative capability') are most in danger from this threat. |
| 11257 | The Pythagoreans were the first to offer definitions [Politis, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle praises the Pythagoreans for being the first to offer definitions. | |
| From: report of Vassilis Politis (Aristotle and the Metaphysics [2004]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 2.4 | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a hugely important step in the development of Greek philosophy which is hardly ever mentioned. |
| 11235 | 'True of' is applicable to things, while 'true' is applicable to words [Politis] |
| Full Idea: It is crucial not to confuse 'true' with 'true of'. 'True of' is applicable to things, while 'true' is applicable to words. | |
| From: Vassilis Politis (Aristotle and the Metaphysics [2004], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: A beautifully simple distinction which had never occurred to me, and which (being a thoroughgoing realist) I really like. |
| 11277 | Maybe 'What is being? is confusing because we can't ask what non-being is like [Politis] |
| Full Idea: We may be unfamiliar with the question 'What is being?' because there appear to be no contrastive questions of the form: how do beings differ from things that are not beings? | |
| From: Vassilis Politis (Aristotle and the Metaphysics [2004], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: We can, of course, contrast actual beings with possible beings, or imaginary beings, or even logically impossible beings, but in those cases 'being' strikes me as an entirely inappropriate word. |
| 11248 | Necessary truths can be two-way relational, where essential truths are one-way or intrinsic [Politis] |
| Full Idea: An essence is true in virtue of what the thing is in itself, but a necessary truth may be relational, as the consequence of the relation between two things and their essence. The necessary relation may be two-way, but the essential relation one-way. | |
| From: Vassilis Politis (Aristotle and the Metaphysics [2004], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: He is writing about Aristotle, but has in mind Kit Fine 1994 (qv). Politis cites Plato's answer to the Euthyphro Question as a good example. The necessity comes from the intrinsic nature of goodness/piety, not from the desire of the gods. |
| 12769 | Inference to best explanation contains all sorts of hidden values [Fraassen] |
| Full Idea: The very phrase 'inference to the best explanation' should wave a red flag for us. What is good, better, best? What values are slipped in here, under a common name, and where do they come from? | |
| From: Bas C. van Fraassen (The Empirical Stance [2002], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: A point worth making, but overstated. If we are going to refuse to make judgements for fear that some wicked 'value' might creep in, our lives will be reduced to absurdity. |
| 12768 | We accept many scientific theories without endorsing them as true [Fraassen] |
| Full Idea: The choice among theories in science may be a choice to accept in some sense falling far short of endorsement as true. | |
| From: Bas C. van Fraassen (The Empirical Stance [2002], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: When put like this, it is hard to deny the force of Van Fraassen's reservations about science. Lots of people, including me, use scientific theories as working assumptions for life, with nothing like full confidence in their truth. |
| 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'). |