98 ideas
| 18559 | Philosophy is empty if it does not in some way depend on matters of fact [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Save, maybe, for purely formal (e.g. logical) theories, philosophical claims whose correctness does not depend, however indirectly, on matters of fact are empty: they are neither true nor false. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I subscribe to this view. I'd even say that logic is empty if it is not answerable to the facts. The facts are nature, so this is a naturalistic manifesto. |
| 19073 | True philosophy aims at absolute unity, while our understanding sees only separation [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Everything deserving the name of philosophy has constantly been based on the consciousness of an absolute unity, where the understanding sees and accepts only separation. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §213) | |
| A reaction: Puzzled by the role of 'understanding' here. I tend to cite that as the highest aspiration of philosophy. Hegel seems to offer a higher understanding of unity, and a weaker analytic understanding, which is part of our limited psychology. |
| 15624 | Free thinking has no presuppositions [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Thinking that is free is without presuppositions. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §41 Add1) | |
| A reaction: Fat chance, I would have thought. Hegel's project was indeed to try to get right to the bottom of the presuppositions. My picture is always of holding one thing presupposed while you examine another, and then switching to other presuppositions. |
| 15631 | The ideal of reason is the unification of abstract identity (or 'concept') and being [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Abstract identity (which is what here is also called 'concept') and being are the two moments that reason seeks to unify; this unification is the Ideal of reason. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §49) | |
| A reaction: Not sure I understand this, but I connect it to Aristotle's approach to the problem of being, which was to abandon the head-on approach, and aim to understand the identities of particulars and kinds. |
| 15612 | Older metaphysics naively assumed that thought grasped things in themselves [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The older metaphysics has the naïve presupposition that thinking grasps what things are in-themselves, that things only are what they genuinely are when they are captured in thought. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §28 Add) | |
| A reaction: His 'older' metaphysics is prior to Kant's critique. The less naïve version is more aware of antinomies and dialectical conflicts within thought. |
| 21768 | Logic is metaphysics, the science of things grasped in thoughts [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Logic coincides with metaphysics, with the science of things grasped in thoughts. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §24), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'Logic' | |
| A reaction: Not a very clear definition, given that thinking about a table appears to be a 'thing grasped in thought'. Presumably it refers to things which can only be grasped in thought, which seems to make it entirely a priori. |
| 21984 | We must break up the rigidity that our understanding has imposed [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The battle of reason is the struggle to break up the rigidity to which the understanding has reduced everything. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], I §80Z p.115), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7 | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a combination of Nietzsche and later Wittgenstein, and may be one of the ideas that launches 'continental' philosophy. Recent French thinkers talk continually of 'liberation'. |
| 22081 | Let thought follow its own course, and don't interfere [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Let thought follow its own course; and I think badly whenever I add something of my own. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §24 Add 2), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - Hegel p.100 | |
| A reaction: The idea that reason has a course of its own is a mega-assumption, which I would only accept after a lot of persuasion, which I doubt that Hegel can provide. The modern analytic idea of metaphysics as logic has a similar basis. |
| 15626 | Categories create objective experience, but are too conditioned by things to actually grasp them [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: It is the categories that elevate mere perception into objectivity, into experience; but these concepts ...are conditioned by the given material. ...Hence the understanding, or cognition through categories, cannot become cognizant of things-in-themselves. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §43-4) | |
| A reaction: As one often fears with Hegel, this sounds like a deep insight, but is less persuasive when translated into simpler English (if I've got it right!). Being 'conditioned by the material' strikes me as just what is needed for good categories. |
| 15616 | If truth is just non-contradiction, we must take care that our basic concepts aren't contradictory [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: If truth were nothing more than lack of contradiction, one would have to examine first of all, with regard to each concept, whether it does not on its own account, contain an inner contradiction. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §33 Rem) | |
| A reaction: This is a very nice thought, which modern analytic philosophers, steeped in logic, should think about. It is always presumed that a contradiction is between a proposition and its negation, not some inner feature. |
| 15615 | Older metaphysics became dogmatic, by assuming opposed assertions must be true and false [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The older metaphysics became dogmatism because, given the nature of finite determinations, it had to assume that of two opposed assertions (of the kind that those propositions were) one must be true and the other false. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §32) | |
| A reaction: While dialethism in logic looks very dubious to me, I have every sympathy with Hegel when it comes to the reasonings of ordinary language. There it is much harder to know whether you are addressing truly opposed assertions. |
| 21767 | Dialectic is seen in popular proverbs like 'pride comes before a fall' [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: In the domain of individual ethics, we find the consciousness of dialectic in those universally familiar proverbs 'pride goes before a fall' and 'too much wit outwits itself'. ...Joy relieves itself in tears, and melancholy can be revealed in a smile. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §81), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'The Method' | |
| A reaction: 'Too clever by half' is the English version. Hegel's dialectic suggests that each concept somehow implies its opposite, rather than a mere mercurial drift from one extreme to the other. Most pride doesn't lead to a fall. |
| 15638 | Dialectic is the moving soul of scientific progression, the principle which binds science together [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The dialectical constitutes the moving soul of scientific progression, and it is the principle through which alone immanent coherence and necessity enter into the content of science. ..[Add 1] It is the principle of all motion, of all life. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §81) |
| 15639 | Socratic dialectic is subjective, but Plato made it freely scientific and objective [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: It is in the Platonic philosophy that dialectic first occurs in a form which is freely scientific, and hence also objective. With Socrates, dialectical thinking still has a predominantly subjective shape, consistent with his irony. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §81 Add1) | |
| A reaction: I don't understand how dialectic can be 'objective', given that it is a method rather than a belief. Plato certainly seems to elevate dialectic into something almost mystical, because of what is said to be within its power. |
| 19070 | Superficial truth is knowing how something is, which is consciousness of bare correctness [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Truth is at first taken to mean that I know how something is. This is truth, however, only in reference to consciousness; it is formal truth, bare correctness. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §213) | |
| A reaction: I would translate this idea as saying that bare correctness is conscious awareness of the truthmaker for some statement. Hegel then offers a 'deeper' account of the nature of truth. I would say awareness is quite separate from the concept of truth. |
| 5644 | In Hegel's logic it is concepts (rather than judgements or propositions) which are true or false [Hegel, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The terms of Hegel's logic are not judgements or propositions, but rather concepts: and it is concepts, in this view, that are true or false. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.12 | |
| A reaction: Quite alien to normal studies of logic, but I can make sense of a correspondence theory of truth for concepts, which might be more interesting than normal propositional or predicate logic. Does the concept of, say, a 'natural law' correspond to anything? |
| 19072 | In the deeper sense of truth, to be untrue resembles being bad; badness is untrue to a thing's nature [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: When truth is viewed in the deeper sense, to be untrue means much the same as to be bad. A bad man is an untrue man, and man who does not behave as his notion or his vocation requires. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §213) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 19071 for the 'deeper sense'. This seems to confirm that Hegel's deeper concept of truth resembles authenticity. I guess it will be something fulfilling the essence of the thing. Doctors must be proper doctors. Gold must be true gold? |
| 19071 | The deeper sense of truth is a thing matching the idea of what it ought to be [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Truth in the deeper sense is the identity between objectivity and the notion. It is in this deeper sense of truth that we speak of a true state or work of art. These are true if they are as they ought to be (their reality corresponds to their notion). | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §213) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a correspondence theory, but not as we know it, Jim. He seems to have a value built into truth, which sounds to me like existentialist 'authenticity'. I like what he is saying, but I would analyse it into two or more components. |
| 21595 | Excluded middle is the maxim of definite understanding, but just produces contradictions [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The law of excluded middle is ...the maxim of the definite understanding, which would fain avoid contradiction, but in doing so falls into it. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], p.172), quoted by Timothy Williamson - Vagueness 1.5 | |
| A reaction: Not sure how this works, but he would say this, wouldn't he? |
| 15628 | The idea that contradiction is essential to rational understanding is a key modern idea [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The thought that the contradiction which is posited by the determinations of the understanding in what is rational is essential and necessary, has to be considered one of the most important and profound advances of the philosophy of modern times. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §48) | |
| A reaction: This is the aspect of Kant's philosophy which launched the whole career of Hegel. Hegel is the philosopher of the antinomies. Graham Priest is his current representative on earth. |
| 15629 | Tenderness for the world solves the antinomies; contradiction is in our reason, not in the essence of the world [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The solution to the antinomies is as trivial as they are profound; it consists merely in a tenderness for the things of this world. The stain of contradiction ought not to be in the essence of what is in the world; it must belong only to thinking reason. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §48 Rem) | |
| A reaction: A rather Wittgensteinian remark. I love his 'tenderness for the things of this world'! I'm not clear why our thinking should be considered to be inescapably riddled with basic contradictions, as Hegel seems to imply. Just make more effort. |
| 15630 | Antinomies are not just in four objects, but in all objects, all representations, all objects and all ideas [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The main point that has to be made is that antinomy is found not only in Kant's four particular objects taken from cosmology, but rather in all objects of all kinds, in all representations, concepts and ideas. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §48 Rem) | |
| A reaction: I suppose Heraclitus and Empedocles, with their oppositional accounts of reality, are the ancestors of this worldview. I just don't feel that sudden flood of insight from this idea of Hegel that comes from some of the other great philsophical theories. |
| 15634 | Thought about particulars is done entirely through categories [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: As an activity of the particular, thinking has the categories as its only product and content. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §62) | |
| A reaction: There seems to be an interesting implication in this remark (taken in isolation!) that one can somehow transcend the categories when one begins to think about the universal. Are the universal and the categories not connected? |
| 22078 | Even simple propositions about sensations are filled with categories [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Categories, like 'being', or 'individuality', are already mingled into every proposition, even when it has a completely sensible content, such as "this leaf is green". | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §246 Add), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - Hegel p.95 | |
| A reaction: This is the source of the idea that observation is theory-laden (which tracks back to Kant). Not Duhem, who gets the credit among analytic philosophers. Quine obviously never read Hegel. But the idea is overrated. |
| 18564 | Do categories store causal knowledge, or typical properties, or knowledge of individuals? [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Psychologists have attempted to determine whether a concept of a category stores some causal knowledge about the members, some knowledge about their typical properties, or some knowledge about specific members. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 1.3.2) | |
| A reaction: I take there to be a psychological process of 'generalisation', so that knowledge of individuals is not and need not be retained. I am dubious about entities called 'properties', so I will vote for causal (including perceptual) knowledge. |
| 18604 | Are quick and slow categorisation the same process, or quite different? [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Are categorisation under time pressure and categorisation without time pressure ...two different cognitive competences? | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 5.1.1) | |
| A reaction: This is a psychologist's question. Introspectively, they do seem to be rather different, as there is no time for theorising and explaining when you are just casting your eyes over the landscape. |
| 18573 | For each category of objects (such as 'dog') an individual seems to have several concepts [Machery] |
| Full Idea: I contend that the best available evidence suggests that for each category of objects an individual typically has several concepts. For instance, instead of having a single concept of dog, an individual has in fact several concepts of dog. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 3) | |
| A reaction: Machery's book is a sustained defence of this hypothesis, with lots of examples from psychology. Any attempt by philosophers to give a neat and tidy account of categorisation looks doomed. |
| 18602 | A thing is classified if its features are likely to be generated by that category's causal laws [Machery] |
| Full Idea: A to-be-classified object is considered a category member to the extent that its features were likely to have been generated by the category's causal laws. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.4.4) | |
| A reaction: [from Bob Rehder, psychologist, 2003] This is an account of categorisation which arises from the Theory Theory view of concepts, of which I am a fan. I love this idea, which slots neatly into the account I have been defending. Locke would like this. |
| 18565 | There may be ad hoc categories, such as the things to pack in your suitcase for a trip [Machery] |
| Full Idea: There may be ad hoc categories, as when people think about the things to pack in a small suitcase for a trip abroad. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 1.4.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be obviously correct, though critics might say that 'category' is too grand a term for such a grouping. |
| 18570 | There may be several ways to individuate things like concepts [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers have rarely explained why they believe that there is a single correct way of individuating concepts. Many entities can be legitimately individuated in several ways. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 2.1.3) | |
| A reaction: I cite this under 'individuation' because I think that is a very garbled concept. I agree with this point, even though I don't really know exactly what individuation is supposed to be. |
| 21981 | The one substance is formless without the mediation of dialectical concepts [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: As intuitively accepted by Spinoza without a previous mediation by dialectic, substance is as it were a dark shapeless abyss which engulfs all definite content as radically null, and produces from itself nothing that has a positive substance of its own. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], I §151Z p.215), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.6 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be an expression of idealism, since only what is conceptualised can exist. |
| 15637 | Essence is the essential self-positing unity of immediacy and mediation [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The entire second part of the 'Logic', the doctrine of Essence, deals with the essential self-positing unity of immediacy and mediation. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §65) | |
| A reaction: He is referring to his book 'Science of Logic'. I don't really understand this, but that essence 'posits' the unity of a thing catches my attention. |
| 15613 | Real cognition grasps a thing from within itself, and is not satisfied with mere predicates [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: In genuine cognition ...an object determines itself from within itself, and does not acquire its predicates in an external way. If we proceed by way of predication, the spirit gets the feeling that the predicates cannot exhaust what they are attached to. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §28 Add) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be a glimpse of Hegel's notoriously difficult account of essence. Place this alongside Locke's distinction between Nominal and Real essences. Once we have the predicates, we want to grasp their source. |
| 15636 | The Cogito is at the very centre of the entire concern of modern philosophy [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The proposition 'Cogito Ergo Sum' stands at the very centre, so to speak, of the entire concern of modern philosophy. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §64 Rem) | |
| A reaction: I distinguish two approaches to philosophy: the Parmenidean (which starts from the nature of being), and the Cartesian (which starts from the fact of consciousness). This remark confirms that Hegel is firmly in the latter school. |
| 22300 | Existence is just a set of relationships [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Everything that exists stands in correlation, and this correlation is the veritable nature of existence. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], p.235 (1892)), quoted by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 23 'Abs' |
| 15609 | The sensible is distinguished from thought by being about singular things [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The distinction of the sensible from thought is to be located in that fact that the determination of the sensible is singularity. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §20 Rem) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 15608, where we find that thought concerns universals. What a very clear thinker Hegel was! |
| 15625 | Sense perception is secondary and dependent, while thought is independent and primitive [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: What can be perceived by the senses is really secondary and not self-standing, while thoughts, on the contrary, are what is genuinely independent and primitive. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §41 Add2) | |
| A reaction: Although this is post-Kant, it strikes me as a perfect slogan for rationalism. Personally I would say that such a dichotomy is becoming a historical relic, in the light of modern understanding of the brain. Experience and thought are inextricable. |
| 15619 | Empiricism made particular knowledge possible, and blocked wild claims [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Empiricism resulted from a need for concrete content, as opposed to abstract theories that cannot advance from universal generalizations to the particular, and for a firm hold against the possibility of proving any claim at all in the field. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §37) | |
| A reaction: That sounds about right, and makes you wonder why Hegel wasn't an empiricist. |
| 15620 | Empiricism contains the important idea that we should see knowledge for ourselves, and be part of it [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: We must recognise the important principle of freedom that lies in Empiricism; namely, that what ought to count in our human knowing, we ought to see for ourselves, and to know ourselves as present in it. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §38 Rem) | |
| A reaction: Like Idea 15619, this is an interesting and perceptive remark, from a philosopher who seems a long way from empiricism. I presume he will be thinking mainly of Hume, via Kant. Personally I prefer Locke. |
| 15622 | Empiricism unknowingly contains and uses a metaphysic, which underlies its categories [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Empiricism operates without knowing that it contains a metaphysics and is engaged in it, and that it is using categories and their connections in a totally uncritical and unconscious manner. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §38 Rem) | |
| A reaction: I doubt whether this is true of modern empiricists, who have been challenged so often from within their own ranks on so many things. I'm not even sure that it is true of Locke and Hume, apart from the way in which all philosophers are unaware of things. |
| 15621 | Empiricism of the finite denies the supersensible, and can only think with formal abstraction [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Inasmuch as Empiricism restricts itself to what is finite, the consistent carrying through of its programme denies the supersensible altogether, ..and it leaves thinking with abstraction only, [i.e.] with formal universality and identity. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §38 Rem) | |
| A reaction: I'm not clear how a denial of empiricism allows you (with intellectual integrity) to embrace 'the supersensible'. The set theoretic account of higher levels of infinity looks like a nice test case. |
| 15632 | The Humean view stops us thinking about perception, and finding universals and necessities in it [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The Humean standpoint proclaims the thinking of our perceptions to be inadmissible; i.e. the eliciting of the universal and necessary out of those perceptions. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §50) | |
| A reaction: Obviously Hume permits 'relations of ideas', but presumably the point is that his approach only legitimates a rather passive abstraction from experience, rather than an active application of a priori concepts to it. A fair criticism. See Bonjour. |
| 15623 | Humean scepticism, unlike ancient Greek scepticism, accepts the truth of experience as basic [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Humean scepticism should be very carefully distinguished from Greek scepticism. In Humean scepticism, the truth of the empirical, the truth of feeling and intuition is taken as basic. ..Greek scepticism turned itself against the sensible. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §39 Rem) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, and Hume himself was quite contemptuous of the sort of scepticism found in the ideas of Sextus Empiricus. |
| 18616 | If a term doesn't pick out a kind, keeping it may block improvements in classification [Machery] |
| Full Idea: If a hypothesised natural kind term fails to pick out a natural kind, keeping this theoretical term is likely to prevent the development of a new classification system that would identify the relevant kinds. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 8.2.3) | |
| A reaction: I'm persuaded. This is why metaphysicians should stop talking about 'properties'. |
| 18614 | Vertical arguments say eliminate a term if it picks out different natural kinds in different theories [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Vertical arguments for eliminativism of theoretical terms note that distinct types of generalisation do not line up with each other. ...It is argued that the theoretical term picks out more than one natural kind. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 8.2.3) | |
| A reaction: He mentions 'depression', as behavioural and cognitive; the former includes apes, and the latter doesn't. It is a nice principle for tidying up theories. |
| 18615 | Horizontal arguments say eliminate a term if it fails to pick out a natural kind [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Horizontal arguments for eliminativism of theoretical terms say that some terms should be eliminated if they do not pick out a natural kind. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 8.2.3) | |
| A reaction: This is the one Machery likes, but I would say that it is less obvious than the 'vertical' version, since picking out a natural kind may not be the only job of a theoretical term. (p.238: Machery agrees!) |
| 18609 | Psychologists use 'induction' as generalising a property from one category to another [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Typically, psychologists use 'induction' to refer to the capacity to generalise a property from a category (the source) to another category (the target). | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 7.1.1) | |
| A reaction: This is because psychologists are interested in the ongoing activities of thought. Philosophers step back a bit, to ask how the whole thing could get started. Philosophical induction has to start with individuals and single observations. |
| 18610 | 'Ampliative' induction infers that all members of a category have a feature found in some of them [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Induction is 'ampliative' when it infers that all or most members of a category possess a property from the fact that some of its members have this property. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 7.1.1) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a simple step in reasoning, but actually it is more like explanation, and will involve overall coherence and probability, rather than a direct conclusion. This invites sceptical questions. The last one observed may be the exception. |
| 15617 | In abstraction, beyond finitude, freedom and necessity must exist together [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Considered as abstractly confronting one another, freedom and necessity pertain to finitude only and are valid only on its soil. A freedom with no necessity in it, and a mere necessity without freedom, are determinations that are abstract and thus untrue. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §35 Add) | |
| A reaction: This is, presumably, the Hegelian dialectical nature of things, that contradictories are bound together. We must struggle hard to undestand a freedom bound by necessity, and a necessity which contains freedom. (Good luck). |
| 18562 | Connectionists cannot distinguish concept-memories from their background, or the processes [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Connectionists typically do not distinguish between processes and memory stores, and, more importantly, it is unclear whether connectionists can draw a distinction between the knowledge stored in a concept and the background. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: In other words connectionism fails to capture the structured nature of our thinking. There is an innate structure (which, say I, should mainly be seen as 'mental files'). |
| 18561 | We can identify a set of cognitive capacities which are 'higher order' [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Categorization, deduction, induction, analogy-making, linguistic understanding, and planning - all of these are higher cognitive capacities. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: His 'lower' competences are perceptual and motor. I say the entry to the higher competences are abstraction, idealisation and generalisation. If you can't do these (chimpanzees!) you will not be admitted. |
| 15608 | The act of thinking is the bringing forth of universals [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Thinking as an activity is the active universal, and indeed the self-actuating universal, since the act, or what is brought forth, is precisely the universal. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §20) | |
| A reaction: One should contemplate animal thought in the light of this remark. Thought requires the recognition of types of things, and resemblances, and repetitions, and patterns. Language consists almost entirely of universals. |
| 21986 | Hegel's system has a vast number of basic concepts [Hegel, by Moore,AW] |
| Full Idea: For Hegel the full system of concepts ...contains many more than Kant's twelve. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], I §60Z) by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7 | |
| A reaction: This offers some sort of conceptual scheme, but not the structured one that Kant proposes. The sequence of dialectical mediation imposes some sort of shape on the concepts. |
| 18574 | Concepts for categorisation and for induction may be quite different [Machery] |
| Full Idea: In general, concepts that are used when we categorise and concepts that are used when we reason inductively could have little in common. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 3.2.1) | |
| A reaction: In the end he is going to reject concepts altogether, so he would say this. Friends of concepts would be very surprised if the mind were so uneconomical in its activities, given that induction seems to be up to its neck in categorisation. |
| 18588 | Concept theories aim at their knowledge, processes, format, acquisition, and location [Machery] |
| Full Idea: A theory of concepts should determine the knowledge stored in them, and the cognitive processes that use concepts. Ideally it should also characterise their format, their acquisition, and (increasingly) localise them in the brain. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4) | |
| A reaction: Machery reveals his dubious scientism in the requirement to localise them in the brain. That strikes me as entirely irrelevant to both philosophy and psychology. I want the format, acquisition and knowledge. |
| 18611 | We should abandon 'concept', and just use 'prototype', 'exemplar' and 'theory' [Machery] |
| Full Idea: The notion of 'concept' ought to be eliminated from the theoretical vocabulary of psychology, and replaced by the notions of prototype, exemplar, and theory. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 8) | |
| A reaction: Machery's main thesis. I think similarly about 'property' in metaphysics. It embraces different ideas, and if we eliminated 'property' (and used predicate, class, fundamental power, complex power) we would do better. Psychologists have dropped 'memory'. |
| 15607 | We don't think with concepts - we think the concepts [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: There is a saying that, when we have grasped a concept, we still do not know what to think with it. But there is nothing to be thought with a concept save the concept itself. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §03 Rem) | |
| A reaction: Analytic philosophers should read Hegel on concepts, because he approaches the matter so very differently, and seems to be the root of the continental approach to such things. He seems to me to talk more sense than Frege on the subject. |
| 15610 | Active thought about objects produces the universal, which is what is true and essential of it [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: When thinking is taken as active with regard to ob-jects, as the thinking-over of something, then the universal - as the product of the activity - contains the value of the matter, what is essential, inner, true. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §21) | |
| A reaction: I prefer to talk of 'general terms' rather than 'universals'. If 'tiger' is coined for the first one, but must be applicable to subsequent tigers, it has to generalise what they all have in common. Locke's 'nominal' essence, I would say. |
| 18567 | In the philosophy of psychology, concepts are usually introduced as constituents of thoughts [Machery] |
| Full Idea: In the philosophy of psychology, concepts are usually introduced as constituents, components, or parts of thoughts. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 1.4.3) | |
| A reaction: My instincts are against this. I take the fundamentals of concepts to be mental responses to distinct individual items in the world. Thought builds up from that. He says psychologists themselves don't see it this way. Influence of Frege. |
| 18569 | In philosophy theories of concepts explain how our propositional attitudes have content [Machery] |
| Full Idea: A philosophical theory of concepts is a semantic theory for our propositional attitudes: it explains how our thoughts can have the content they have. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 2.1.2) | |
| A reaction: I suppose this is what I am interested in. I want to know in what way concepts form a bridge between content and world. I am more interested in the propositions, and less interested in our attitudes towards them. |
| 18563 | By 'concept' psychologists mean various sorts of representation or structure [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Psychologists use 'concept' interchangeably with 'mental representation', 'category representation', 'knowledge representation', 'knowledge structure', 'semantic representation', and 'conceptual structures'. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: [Machery gives references for each of these] Machery is moving in to attack these, but we look to psychologists to give some sort of account of what a concept might consist of, such that it could be implemented by neurons. |
| 18558 | Concept theorists examine their knowledge, format, processes, acquisition and location [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Psychological theories of concepts try to describe the knowledge stored in concepts, the format of concepts, the cognitive processes that use the concepts, the acquisition of concepts, and the localization of concepts in the brain. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I suppose it would the first two that are of central interest. What individuates a concept (its 'format') and what are the contents of a concept. The word 'stored' seems to imply a mental files view. |
| 18557 | Psychologists treat concepts as long-term knowledge bodies which lead to judgements [Machery] |
| Full Idea: In psychology, concepts are characterized as those bodies of knowledge that are stored in long-term memory and used most higher cognitive competences when these processes result in judgements. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Machery mounts an attack on this idea. I like the 'mental files' idea, where a concept starts as a label, and then acquires core knowledge, and then further information. The 'concept' is probably no more than a label, and minimal starter information. |
| 18560 | Psychologist treat concepts as categories [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Psychologists often use 'concept' and 'category' interchangeably. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: Well they shouldn't. Some concepts are no more than words, and don't categorise anything. Some things may be categorised by a complex set of concepts. |
| 18592 | The concepts OBJECT or AGENT may be innate [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Several concepts, such as OBJECT or AGENT, may be innate. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.1.4) | |
| A reaction: It is one thing to say that we respond to objects and agents, and another to say that we have those 'concepts'. Presumably birds, and even bees, have to relate to similar features. Add PROCESS? |
| 18566 | Concepts should contain working memory, not long-term, because they control behaviour [Machery] |
| Full Idea: We ought to reserve the term 'concept' for the bodies of knowledge in working memory, and not for our knowledge of long-term memory, because the former, and not the latter, 'control behaviour'. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 1.4.1) | |
| A reaction: [He cites the psychologist Barsalou 1993] Some more theoretical concepts can only be recalled with difficulty, and control our theorising rather than our behaviour. But we act on some theories, so there is no clear borderline. |
| 18584 | One hybrid theory combines a core definition with a prototype for identification [Machery] |
| Full Idea: One hybrid theory of concepts says they have both a core and an identification procedure. The core is a definition (necessary and sufficient conditions), while the identification procedure consists of a prototype (the properties typical of a category). | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 3.3.1) | |
| A reaction: This combines the classical and prototype theories of concepts. I like it because it fits the idea of 'mental files' nicely (see Recanati). If concepts are files (as in a database) they will have aspects like labels, basic info, and further details. |
| 18585 | Heterogeneous concepts might have conflicting judgements, where hybrid theories will not [Machery] |
| Full Idea: The Heterogeneity Hypothesis, but not the hybrid theory of concepts, predicts that the coreferential bodies of knowledge it posits will occasionally lead to conflicting outcomes, such as inconsistent judgements. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 3.3.2) | |
| A reaction: Machery's book champions the Heterogeneous Hypothesis. Hybrid views say the aspects of a concept are integrated, but Heterogeneity says there are separate processes. My preferred 'file' approach would favour integration. |
| 18578 | Concepts as definitions was rejected, and concepts as prototypes, exemplars or theories proposed [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Since the rejection of the classical theory of concepts (that they are definitions), three paradigms have successively emerged in the psychology of concepts: the prototype paradigm, the exemplar paradigm, and the theory paradigm. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4) | |
| A reaction: I am becoming a fan of the 'theory theory' proposal, because the concepts centre around what explains the phenomenon, which fits my explanatory account of essentialism. Not that it's right because it agrees with me, of course..... |
| 18575 | The concepts for a class typically include prototypes, and exemplars, and theories [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Across domains (such as biology and psychology) classes of physical objects, substances and events are typically represented by a prototype, by a set of exemplars, and by a theory. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 3.2.3) | |
| A reaction: In other words he thinks that all of the major psychological theories of concepts are partially correct, and he argues for extensive pluralism in the true picture. Bad news for neat philosophy, but real life is a right old mess. |
| 18591 | Classical theory can't explain facts like typical examples being categorised quicker [Machery] |
| Full Idea: The nail in the coffin of the classical theory is its lack of explanatory power. For example it doesn't explain the fact that typical x's are categorised more quickly and more reliably than atypical x's. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.1.3) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Rosch and Mervis: 1975:ch 5] This research launched the 'prototype' theory, which has since been challenged by the 'exemplar' and 'theory theory' rivals (and neo-empiricism, and idealisation). |
| 18583 | Many categories don't seem to have a definition [Machery] |
| Full Idea: For many categories there is simply no definition to learn (such as Wittgenstein's example of a 'game'). | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.1.4) |
| 18590 | Classical theory implies variety in processing times, but this does not generally occur [Machery] |
| Full Idea: If a concept is defined by means of another, such as MURDER by means of KILL, then processing the former concept should take longer in the classical theory, but several experiments show that this is not the case. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.1.3) | |
| A reaction: For the philosopher there is no escaping the findings of neuroscience when it comes to the study of concepts. This invites the question of the role, if any, of philosophy. I take philosophy to concern the big picture, or it is nothing. |
| 18594 | Knowing typical properties of things is especially useful in induction [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Knowing which properties are typical of a class is particularly useful when you have to draw inductions about the members of a class. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.2.1) |
| 18593 | The term 'prototype' is used for both typical category members, and the representation [Machery] |
| Full Idea: The term 'prototype' is used ambiguously to designate the most typical members of a category, and the representation of a category. (I use the term in the second sense). | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.2.1 n25) |
| 18595 | Prototype theories are based on computation of similarities with the prototype [Machery] |
| Full Idea: The most important property of prototype theories is that cognitive processes are assumed to involve the computation of the similarity between prototypes and other representations. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.2.3) | |
| A reaction: [He cites J.A.Hampton 1998, 2006] This presumably suits theories of the mind as largely computational (e.g. Fodor's account, based on the Turing machine). |
| 18596 | Prototype theorists don't tell us how we select the appropriate prototype [Machery] |
| Full Idea: We are typically not told how prototypes are selected, that is, what determines whether a specific prototype is retrieved from memory in order to be involved in the categorisation process. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.2.4) | |
| A reaction: One of the aims of this database is to make people aware of ideas that people have already thought of. This one was spotted 2,400 years ago. It's the Third Man problem. How do you even start to think about a particular thing? |
| 18603 | Maybe concepts are not the typical properties, but the ideal properties [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Barsalou (1983,1985) introduced the idea of ideals instead of prototypes. An ideal is a body of knowledge about the properties a thing should possess (rather than its typical actual properties). ... A 'bully' might be perfect, rather than typical. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.5.3) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Machery offers this as an interesting minor variant, with little experimental support. I take idealisation to be one of the three key mental operations that enable us to think about the world (along with abstraction and generalisation). |
| 18605 | It is more efficient to remember the prototype, than repeatedly create it from exemplars [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Instead of regularly producing a prototype out of the exemplars stored in long-term memory, it seems more efficient to extract a prototype from category members during concept learning and to use this prototype when needed. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 6.3.2) | |
| A reaction: [This is a critique of Barsalou's on-the-fly proposal for prototypes] If the exemplar theory is right, then some sort of summary must occur when faced with a new instance. So this thought favours prototypes against exemplars. |
| 18606 | The prototype view predicts that typical members are easier to categorise [Machery] |
| Full Idea: The prototype paradigm of concepts makes the strong prediction that typical members should be easier to categorise than atypical members. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 6.4.1) | |
| A reaction: This is why philosophers should approach the topic of concepts with caution. Clearly empirical testing is going to settle this matter, not abstract theorising. |
| 18597 | Concepts as exemplars are based on the knowledge of properties of each particular [Machery] |
| Full Idea: The exemplar paradigm of concepts is built around the idea that concepts are sets of exemplars. In turn, an exemplar is a body of knowledge about the properties believed to be possessed by a particular member of a class. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.3.1) | |
| A reaction: I like the fact that this theory is rooted in particulars, where the prototype theory doesn't seem to say much about how prototypes are derived. But you have to do more than just contemplate a bunch of exemplars. |
| 18598 | Exemplar theories need to explain how the relevant properties are selected from a multitude of them [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Exemplar theories have a selection problem. Given that individuals have an infinite number of properties, they need to explain why exemplars represent such and such properties, instead of others. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.3.1) | |
| A reaction: I have the impression that this idea rests on the 'abundant' view of properties - that every true predicate embodies a property. A sparse view of properties might give a particular quite a restricted set of properties. |
| 18599 | In practice, known examples take priority over the rest of the set of exemplars [Machery] |
| Full Idea: An object that is extremely similar to a specific known category member, but only moderately similar to others, is more likely to be categorised as a category member than an object that is moderately similar to most known category members. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.3.3) | |
| A reaction: This research finding is a problem for the Exemplar Theory, in which all the exemplars have equal status. It is even a problem for the Prototype Theory, since the known member may not be like the prototype. |
| 18600 | Theory Theory says category concepts are knowledge stores explaining membership [Machery] |
| Full Idea: According to theory theorists, a concept of a category stores some knowledge that can explain the properties of the category members. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.4.1) | |
| A reaction: This is the account of essentialism which I defended in my PhD thesis. So naturally I embrace a theory of the nature of concepts which precisely dovetails with my view. I take explanation to be the central concept in metaphysics. |
| 18601 | Theory Theory says concepts are explanatory knowledge, and concepts form domains [Machery] |
| Full Idea: The two core ideas of the Theory Theory are that concepts are bodies of knowledge that underlie explanation, where explanation rests on folk examples, and concepts are organised in domains which use similar knowledge. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.4.1) | |
| A reaction: Folk explanation is opposed to scientific explanation, as expounded by Hempel etc. This sounds better and better, since the domains reflect the structure of reality. Machery defends Theory Theory as part of the right answer, but it's my favourite bit. |
| 18607 | Theory theorists rely on best explanation, rather than on similarities [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Theory theorists deny that categorisation depends on similarity; they often propose that categorisation involves some kind of inference to the best explanation. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 6.5.1) | |
| A reaction: Love it. Any theory of concepts should, in my view, be continuous with a plausible account of animal minds, and best explanations are not their strong suit. Maybe its explanations for slow categorising, and something else when it's quick. |
| 18608 | If categorisation is not by similarity, it seems to rely on what properties things might have [Machery] |
| Full Idea: It seems that when subjects are not categorising by similarity, they are relying on what properties objects can and cannot have - that is, on some modal knowledge. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 6.5.1) | |
| A reaction: I would call this essentialist categorisation, based on the inner causal powers which generate the modal profile of the thing. We categorise bullets and nails very differently, because of their modal profiles. |
| 18587 | The theory account is sometimes labelled as 'knowledge' or 'explanation' in approach [Machery] |
| Full Idea: The theory paradigm is sometimes called 'the knowledge approach' (Murphy 2002) or 'explanation-based views' (Komatsu 1992). | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4) | |
| A reaction: The word 'explanation' is music to my ears, so I am immediately sympathetic to the theory theory of concepts, even if it falls at the final hurdle. |
| 18577 | The word 'grandmother' may be two concepts, with a prototype and a definition [Machery] |
| Full Idea: If a prototype of grandmothers represents them as grey-haired old women, and a definition of grandmothers represents them as being necessarily the mother of a parent ....we may fail to recognise that 'grandmother' represents two distinct concepts. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 3.3.4) | |
| A reaction: He is referring to two distinct theories about what a concept is. He argues that both theories apply, so words do indeed represent several different concepts. Nice example. |
| 18589 | For behaviourists concepts are dispositions to link category members to names [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Behaviourists identified concepts with a mere disposition to associate category members with a given name. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.1.1) | |
| A reaction: This is one reason why the word 'disposition' triggers alarm bells in the immediately post-behaviourist generation of philosophers. The proposal is far too linguistic in character. |
| 18612 | Americans are more inclined to refer causally than the Chinese are [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Tests suggest that American subjects were significantly more likely than Chinese subjects to have intuitions in line with causal-historical theories of reference. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 8.1.3) | |
| A reaction: This is an example of 'experimental philosophy' in action (of which Machery is a champion). The underlying idea is that Americans are generally more disposed to think causally than the Chinese are. So more scientific? What do the Hopi do? |
| 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'). |
| 18613 | Artifacts can be natural kinds, when they are the object of historical enquiry [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Some artifacts are the objects of inquiry in the social sciences ...such as prehistoric tools ...and hence, artifacts are bona fide natural kinds. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 8.2.1) | |
| A reaction: Presumably if a bird's nest can be a natural kind, then so can a flint axe, but then so can a mobile phone, for an urban anthropologist. 'Natural' is, to put it mildly, a tricky word. |
| 15614 | Old metaphysics tried to grasp eternal truths through causal events, which is impossible [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: When finite things are grasped according to the determinations of cause and effect they are known in their finitude. But objects of reason cannot be determined through such finite predicates, and the attempt to do this was the defect of older metaphysics. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §28 Add) | |
| A reaction: This sounds the launching point for a grand philosophical system which makes scientifically inclined philosophers feel very nervous indeed. I think I prefer the old (pre-Kantian) metaphysics. |
| 15635 | The older conception of God was emptied of human features, to make it worthy of the Infinite [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: In earlier times, every type of so-called anthropomorphic representation was banished from God as finite, and hence unworthy of the Infinite; and as a result he had already grown into something remarkably empty. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §62 Rem) | |
| A reaction: Hegel favoured Christianity, because of its human aspect. His description fits Islam, where indeed the concept of God seems so drain of particularity that there is little in it to doubt, which might explain the durability of that religion. |
| 21980 | God is the absolute thing, and also the absolute person [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: It is true that God ...is the absolute thing: he is however no less the absolute person. That he is the absolute person however is a point which the philosophy of Spinoza never reached. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], I §151Z p.214), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.6 | |
| A reaction: Moore says Hegel was a Spinozist, in his commitment to a single substance, but his idea of God is very different, presumably because consciousness and concepts are so important to Hegel. Hegel needs a Lockean abstract notion of 'person' here. |
| 15618 | If God is the abstract of Supremely Real Essence, then God is a mere Beyond, and unknowable [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: When the concept of God is apprehended merely as that of the abstract of Supremely Real Essence, then God becomes for us a mere Beyond, and there can be no further talk of the cognition of God. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §36 Add) |
| 15633 | We establish unification of the Ideal by the ontological proof, deriving being from abstraction of thinking [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: One unification through which the Ideal is to be established starts from the abstraction of thinking and goes on to the determination for which being alone remains; this is the ontological proof that God is there. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §51) | |
| A reaction: It should come as no surprise that a philosopher who so passionately endorses pure thinking, in opposition to empiricism, should end up endorsing the highly implausible ontological argument for God's existence. Jacquette gets existence from reason. |