9 ideas
12149 | Indexicals are a problem for beliefs being just subject-proposition relations [Perry] |
Full Idea: The essential indexical is a problem for the view that belief is a relation between subjects and propositions conceived as bearers of truth and falsity. | |
From: John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979], 'Intro') | |
A reaction: My immediate reaction would be that it depends on how you conceive of 'propositions'. If they are objective, you have a problem. I take them to be subjective events in brains, and the indexical meaning to be evident within the proposition. |
12151 | If we replace 'I' in sentences about me, they are different beliefs and explanations of behaviour [Perry] |
Full Idea: If I leave a trail of sugar, and realise 'that I am making a mess', ...when we replace the word 'I' with other designations of me, we no longer have an explanation of my behaviour, or an attribution of the same belief, so it is an 'essential indexical'. | |
From: John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979], 'Intro') | |
A reaction: [compressed] A famous observation of Perry's, which leads him to challenge traditional accounts of belief and of propositions. I don't think I see a problem, if we have a thoroughly non-linguistic account of essentially unambiguous propositions. |
18412 | Indexicals individuate certain belief states, helping in explanation and prediction [Perry] |
Full Idea: We use sentences with indexicals or relativized propositions to individuate belief states, for the purposes of classifying believers in ways useful for explanation and prediction. | |
From: John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979], 'Obvious') | |
A reaction: He goes on to apparently connect this with some sort of moral integrity involved in 'owning up' to the fact that the person in question is you (who has spilled the sugar etc.). |
12150 | Indexicals reveal big problems with the traditional idea of a proposition [Perry] |
Full Idea: The problem of the essential indexical reveals that something is badly wrong with the traditional doctrine of propositions. | |
From: John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979], 'Prob') | |
A reaction: See the reaction to 12149. The traditional view of propositions, or at least Russell's view, seems to be that they are same as facts, which strikes me as daft. I take propositions to be brain events, probably expressed in mentalese. |
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'). |
20579 | Modern totalitarianism results from lack of social ties or shared goals [Arendt, by Oksala] |
Full Idea: Arendt claims that modern totalitarianism's primary condition is an atomised mass society: isolated individuals who have no strong ties to communities and who are indifferent to shared political goals. | |
From: report of Hannah Arendt (The Origins of Totalitarianism [1968]) by Johanna Oksala - Political Philosophy: all that matters Ch.9 | |
A reaction: I think the lack of ties simply describes large modern cities. Not sure about the lack of shared goals. Hitler and Stalin rode on the back of apparent shared goals. Working classes strike me as sharing more goals than middle classes. |
20580 | The ideal subject for dictators is not a fanatic, but someone who can't distinguish true from false [Arendt, by Oksala] |
Full Idea: The ideal subject of totalitarianism is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced communist, but anyone who has lost the ability to make distinctions between fact and fiction and between true and false. | |
From: report of Hannah Arendt (The Origins of Totalitarianism [1968]) by Johanna Oksala - Political Philosophy: all that matters Ch.9 | |
A reaction: We are currently living with an apparent attempt by Donald Trump to become a totalitarian President of the U.S.A., by constantly disseminating lies, and labelling all of his critics as 'fake news'. |
15203 | Tense is essential for thought and action [Perry, by Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Tense plays a crucial role in thought and action. | |
From: report of John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979]) by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 3 a | |
A reaction: This is important, because much of our metaphysics is dominated by a detached 'scientific' description of reality, which is given a rather passive character. If processes take centre stage, which they should, then our own processes are part of it. |
15204 | Actual tensed sentences cannot be tenseless, because they can cite their own context [Perry, by Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: In the new tenseless theory, no tensed token sentence can be equivalent to a tenseless token, because the former, unlike the latter, draws attention to the context in which it is tokened. | |
From: report of John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979]) by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 3 a | |
A reaction: So the problem about indexicals was worrying fans of the tenseless B-series view of time (and so it should). I'm inclined to translate sentences containing indexicals into their actual propositions, which tend to avoid them. 'Time/person of utterance'. |