12 ideas
6396 | A sentence is held true because of a combination of meaning and belief [Davidson] |
Full Idea: A sentence is held true because of two factors: what the holder takes the sentence to mean, and what he believes. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.20) | |
A reaction: A key question is whether a belief (e.g. an imagistic one, or one held by an animal) could be true, even though no sentence is involved. Linguistic philosophers tend to avoid this question, or assume the answer is 'no'. |
11145 | Having a belief involves the possibility of being mistaken [Davidson] |
Full Idea: Someone cannot have a belief unless he understands the possibility of being mistaken. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.170) | |
A reaction: If you pretend to throw a ball for a dog, but don't release it, the dog experiences being mistaken very dramatically. |
6397 | The concept of belief can only derive from relationship to a speech community [Davidson] |
Full Idea: We have the idea of belief from its role in the interpretation of language; as a private attitude it is not intelligible except in relation to public language. So a creature must be a member of a speech community to have the concept of belief. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.22) | |
A reaction: This shows how Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument (e.g. Idea 4152) hovers behind Davidson's philosophy. The idea is quite persuasive. A solitary creature just follows its mental states. The question of whether it believes them is a meta-thought. |
6392 | Thought depends on speech [Davidson] |
Full Idea: The thesis I want to refine and then argue for is that thought depends on speech. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.8) | |
A reaction: This has the instant and rather implausible implication that animals don't think. He is not, of course, saying that all thought is speech, which would leave out thinking in images. You can't do much proper thought without concepts and propositions. |
6393 | A creature doesn't think unless it interprets another's speech [Davidson] |
Full Idea: A creature cannot have a thought unless it is an interpreter of the speech of another. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.9) | |
A reaction: His use of the word 'creature' shows that he is perfectly aware of the issue of whether animals think, and he is, presumably, denying it. At first glance this sounds silly, but maybe animals don't really 'think', in our sense of the word. |
11144 | Concepts are only possible in a language community [Davidson] |
Full Idea: A private attitude is not intelligible except as an adjustment to the public norms provided by language. It follows that a creature must be a member of speech community if it is to have the concept of belief. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.170) | |
A reaction: This obviously draws on Wittgenstein's private language argument, and strikes me as blatantly wrong, because I take higher animals to have concepts without language. Pure vision gives rise to concepts. I don't even think they are necessarily conscious. |
6395 | An understood sentence can be used for almost anything; it isn't language if it has only one use [Davidson] |
Full Idea: Once a sentence is understood, an utterance of it may be used to serve almost any extra-linguistic purpose; an instrument that could be put to only one use would lack autonomy of meaning, which means it should not be counted as language. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.17) | |
A reaction: I find this point very appealing, in opposition to the Wittgenstein view of meaning as use. Passwords seem to me a striking case of the separation of meaning and use. I like the phrase 'autonomy of meaning'. Random sticks can form a word. |
6394 | The pattern of sentences held true gives sentences their meaning [Davidson] |
Full Idea: Although most utterances are not concerned with truth, it is the pattern of sentences held true that gives sentences their meaning. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.14) | |
A reaction: Davidson's distinctive version of meaning holism, as opposed to Quine's rather behaviouristic version. I agree that we relate to people through the pattern of sentences they hold true, but I am unconvinced that this 'gives sentences their meaning'. |
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'). |
21236 | Instead of gravitational force, we now have a pervasive gravitational field [Farmelo] |
Full Idea: Physics replaced the notion that bodies exert gravitational force on each other by the more effective picture that the bodies in the universe give rise to a pervasive gravitational field which exerts a force on each particle. | |
From: Graham Farmelo (The Strangest Man [2009], 08) | |
A reaction: This still uses the word 'force'. I sometimes get the impression that gravity is the curvature of space, but gravity needs more. Which direction along the curvature are particles attracted? The bottom line is the power of the bodies. |
21235 | The Schrödinger waves are just the maths of transforming energy values to positions [Farmelo] |
Full Idea: Dirac showed that the Schrödinger waves were simply the mathematical quantities involved in transforming the description of a quantum based on its energy values to one based on possible values of its position. | |
From: Graham Farmelo (The Strangest Man [2009], 08) | |
A reaction: Does this eliminate actual physical 'waves' from the theory? |
21234 | Experiments show that fundamental particles of one type are identical [Farmelo] |
Full Idea: It is an established experimental fact ...that every single fundamental particle in the universe is the same and identical to all other particles of the same type. | |
From: Graham Farmelo (The Strangest Man [2009], 07) | |
A reaction: A loud groan is heard from the tomb of Leibniz. I'm unclear how experiments can establish this. If electrons have internal structure (which is not ruled out) then uniformity is highly unlikely. |