5 ideas
| 11074 | 'It is true that this follows' means simply: this follows [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: The proposition: "It is true that this follows from that" means simply: this follows from that. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics [1938], p.38), quoted by Robert Hanna - Rationality and Logic 6 | |
| A reaction: Presumably this remark is simply expressing Wittgenstein's later agreement with the well-known view of Ramsey. Early Wittgenstein had endorsed a correspondence view of truth. |
| 11073 | Two and one making three has the necessity of logical inference [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: "But doesn't it follow with logical necessity that you get two when you add one to one, and three when you add one to two? and isn't this inexorability the same as that of logical inference? - Yes! it is the same. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics [1938], p.38), quoted by Robert Hanna - Rationality and Logic 6 | |
| A reaction: This need not be a full commitment to logicism - only to the fact that the inferential procedures in mathematics are the same as those of logic. Mathematics could still have further non-logical ingredients. Indeed, I think it probably does. |
| 4691 | If all mental life were conscious, we would be unable to see things, or to process speech [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: If there were nothing more to our mind than our conscious awareness, then we would be unable to see anything or to process speech. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (The Making of a Philosopher [2002], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: A vital point. Traditional dualism has left us a simplistic exaggeration of the role of consciousness, and the misapprehension that most of what we do is conscious - which it clearly isn't, once you think about it. |
| 4690 | If meaning is speaker's intentions, it can be reduced to propositional attitudes, and philosophy of mind [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: The importance of Grice's analysis of speaker meaning is that it offers the prospect of analysing the whole phenomenon of linguistic meaning in terms of propositional attitudes… thus turning semantics into a department of the philosophy of mind. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (The Making of a Philosopher [2002], Ch. 5) | |
| A reaction: Although meaning being truth conditions is the most cited theory, the reduction of semantics to an aspect of mind also seems almost orthodox now. But how do the symbols 'represent' the attitudes? |
| 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'). |