Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Inventing Logical Necessity' and 'The Scientific Image'

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5 ideas

10. Modality / A. Necessity / 6. Logical Necessity

12189	Logical necessity involves a decision about usage, and is non-realist and non-cognitive [Wright,C, by McFetridge]
	Full Idea: Wright espouses a non-realist, indeed non-cognitive account of logical necessity. Crucial to this is the idea that acceptance of a statement as necessary always involves an element of decision (to use it in a necessary way).
	From: report of Crispin Wright (Inventing Logical Necessity [1986]) by Ian McFetridge - Logical Necessity: Some Issues §3
	A reaction: This has little appeal to me, as I take (unfashionably) the view that that logical necessity is rooted in the behaviour of the actual physical world, with which you can't argue. We test simple logic by making up examples.

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 7. Chance

23900	Chance is compatible with necessity, and the two occur together [Weil]
	Full Idea: Chance is not the contrary of necessity; it is not incompatible with necessity. On the contrary, it never appears except at the same time as necessity.
	From: Simone Weil (The Scientific Image [1941], p.175)
	A reaction: She illustrates it with the six terminating results of a die throw, and the innumerabe ways the throw can occur. This thought strikes me as relevant to discussions of free will. …But I'm not sure I fully understand it.

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / b. Language holism

7320	Holism cannot give a coherent account of scientific methodology [Wright,C, by Miller,A]
	Full Idea: Crispin Wright has argued that Quine's holism is implausible because it is actually incoherent: he claims that Quine's holism cannot provide us with a coherent account of scientific methodology.
	From: report of Crispin Wright (Inventing Logical Necessity [1986]) by Alexander Miller - Philosophy of Language 4.5
	A reaction: This sounds promising, given my intuitive aversion to linguistic holism, and almost everything to do with Quine. Scientific methodology is not isolated, but spreads into our ordinary (experimental) interactions with the world (e.g. Idea 2461).

21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 4. Beauty

23899	The secret of art is that beauty is a just blend of unity and its opposite [Weil]
	Full Idea: A just blend of unity and that which opposes it is the condition of the beautiful, and it is the secret of art.
	From: Simone Weil (The Scientific Image [1941], p.169)
	A reaction: Rather sweeping, but the observation strikes me as fairly accurate. It seems to work for most novels, paintings and music, though more recent art may provide counterexamples.

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues

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').