8 ideas
10993 | Ramsey's Test: believe the consequent if you believe the antecedent [Ramsey, by Read] |
Full Idea: Ramsey's Test for conditionals is that a conditional should be believed if a belief in its antecedent would commit one to believing its consequent. | |
From: report of Frank P. Ramsey (Law and Causality [1928]) by Stephen Read - Thinking About Logic Ch.3 | |
A reaction: A rather pragmatic approach to conditionals |
14279 | Asking 'If p, will q?' when p is uncertain, then first add p hypothetically to your knowledge [Ramsey] |
Full Idea: If two people are arguing 'If p, will q?' and are both in doubt as to p, they are adding p hypothetically to their stock of knowledge, and arguing on that basis about q; ...they are fixing their degrees of belief in q given p. | |
From: Frank P. Ramsey (Law and Causality [1928], B 155 n) | |
A reaction: This has become famous as the 'Ramsey Test'. Bennett emphasises that he is not saying that you should actually believe p - you are just trying it for size. The presupposition approach to conditionals seems attractive. Edgington likes 'degrees'. |
6894 | Mental terms can be replaced in a sentence by a variable and an existential quantifier [Ramsey] |
Full Idea: Ramsey Sentences are his technique for eliminating theoretical terms in science (and can be applied to mental terms, or to social rights); a term in a sentence is replaced by a variable and an existential quantifier. | |
From: Frank P. Ramsey (Law and Causality [1928]), quoted by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.469 | |
A reaction: The technique is used by functionalists and results in a sort of eliminativism. The intrinsic nature of mental states is eliminated, because everything worth saying can be expressed in terms of functional/causal role. Sounds wrong to me. |
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'). |
4051 | People will volunteer for euthanasia because they think other people want them dead [Kamisar] |
Full Idea: In the process of voluntary euthanasia we will sweep up some who are not really tired of life, but think others are tired of them. | |
From: Yale Kamisar (Against Euthanasia [1958], p.78) | |
A reaction: We could permit such choices. Or set up systems to eliminate such cases. |
4050 | We only allow voluntary euthanasia to someone who is both sane and crazed by pain [Kamisar] |
Full Idea: It seems that voluntary euthanasia can only be carried out by someone who is both sane, and crazed by pain. | |
From: Yale Kamisar (Against Euthanasia [1958], p.77) | |
A reaction: A fair point, despite its obvious exaggeration. How much pain must someone experience before we permit them to choose euthanasia? |
9418 | All knowledge needs systematizing, and the axioms would be the laws of nature [Ramsey] |
Full Idea: Even if we knew everything, we should still want to systematize our knowledge as a deductive system, and the general axioms in that system would be the fundamental laws of nature. | |
From: Frank P. Ramsey (Law and Causality [1928], §A) | |
A reaction: This is the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis view. Cf. Idea 9420. |
9420 | Causal laws result from the simplest axioms of a complete deductive system [Ramsey] |
Full Idea: Causal laws are consequences of those propositions which we should take as axioms if we knew everything and organized it as simply as possible in a deductive system. | |
From: Frank P. Ramsey (Law and Causality [1928], §B) | |
A reaction: Cf. Idea 9418. |