19 ideas
| 19259 | If 2-D conceivability can a priori show possibilities, this is a defence of conceptual analysis [Vaidya] |
| Full Idea: Chalmers' two-dimensional conceivability account of possibility offers a defence of a priori conceptual analysis, and foundations on which a priori philosophy can be furthered. | |
| From: Anand Vaidya (Understanding and Essence [2010], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I think I prefer Williamson's more scientific account of possibility through counterfactual conceivability, rather than Chalmers' optimistic a priori account. Deep topic, though, and the jury is still out. |
| 19262 | Essential properties are necessary, but necessary properties may not be essential [Vaidya] |
| Full Idea: When P is an essence of O it follows that P is a necessary property of O. However, P can be a necessary property of O without being an essence of O. | |
| From: Anand Vaidya (Understanding and Essence [2010], 'Knowledge') | |
| A reaction: This summarises the Kit Fine view with which I sympathise. However, I dislike presenting essence as a mere list of properties, which is only done for the convenience of logicians. But was Jessie Owens a great athlete after he lost his speed? |
| 19267 | Define conceivable; how reliable is it; does inconceivability help; and what type of possibility results? [Vaidya] |
| Full Idea: Conceivability as evidence for possibility needs four interpretations. How is 'conceivable' defined or explained? How strongly is the idea endorsed? How does inconceivability fit in? And what kind of possibility (logical, physical etc) is implied? | |
| From: Anand Vaidya (Understanding and Essence [2010], 'Application') | |
| A reaction: [some compression] Williamson's counterfactual account helps with the first one. The strength largely depends on whether your conceptions are well informed. Inconceivability may be your own failure. All types of possibility can be implied. |
| 19268 | Inconceivability (implying impossibility) may be failure to conceive, or incoherence [Vaidya] |
| Full Idea: If we aim to derive impossibility from inconceivability, we may either face a failure to conceive something, or arrive at a state of incoherence in conceiving. | |
| From: Anand Vaidya (Understanding and Essence [2010], 'Application') | |
| A reaction: [summary] Thus I can't manage to conceive a multi-dimensional hypercube, but I don't even try to conceive a circular square. In both cases, we must consider whether the inconceivability results from our own inadequacy, rather than from the facts. |
| 19265 | Can you possess objective understanding without realising it? [Vaidya] |
| Full Idea: Is it possible for an individual to possess objectual understanding without knowing they possess the objectual understanding? | |
| From: Anand Vaidya (Understanding and Essence [2010], 'Objections') | |
| A reaction: Hm. A nice new question to loose sleep over. We can't demand a regress of meta-understandings, so at some point you just understand. Birds understand nests. Equivalent: can you understand P, but can't explain P? Skilled, but inarticulate. |
| 19260 | Gettier deductive justifications split the justification from the truthmaker [Vaidya] |
| Full Idea: In the Gettier case of deductive justification, what we have is a separation between the source of the justification and the truthmaker for the belief. | |
| From: Anand Vaidya (Understanding and Essence [2010], 'Distinction') | |
| A reaction: A very illuminating insight into the Gettier problem. As a fan of truthmakers, I'm wondering if this might quickly solve it. |
| 19266 | In a disjunctive case, the justification comes from one side, and the truth from the other [Vaidya] |
| Full Idea: The disjunctive belief that 'either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona', which Smith believes, derives its justification from the left disjunct, and its truth from the right disjunct. | |
| From: Anand Vaidya (Understanding and Essence [2010], 'Application') | |
| A reaction: The example is from Gettier's original article. Have we finally got a decent account of the original Gettier problem, after fifty years of debate? Philosophical moves with delightful slowness. |
| 19264 | Aboutness is always intended, and cannot be accidental [Vaidya] |
| Full Idea: A representation cannot accidentally be about an object. Aboutness is in general an intentional relation. | |
| From: Anand Vaidya (Understanding and Essence [2010], 'Objections') | |
| A reaction: 'Intentional' with a 't', not with an 's'. This strikes me as important. Critics dislike the idea of 'representation' because if you passively place a representation and its subject together, what makes the image do the representing job? Answer: I 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'). |
| 21075 | The state of nature always involves the threat of war [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The state of nature is a state of war. For even if it does not involve active hostilities, it involves a constant threat of their breaking out. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace [1795], 2) | |
| A reaction: Kant is siding with Hobbes against Rousseau, despite Rousseau's claim that Hobbes's pessimism concerns a more advanced situation that the true (and peaceful) state of nature. |
| 20569 | Kant made the social contract international and cosmopolitan [Kant, by Oksala] |
| Full Idea: Kant developed the social contract theory into an international and cosmopolitan idea. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace [1795]) by Johanna Oksala - Political Philosophy: all that matters Ch.6 | |
| A reaction: That is, the contract both operates between states, and rises above them. I found this idea rather thrilling when I first met it (listening to Onora O'Neill). But then I remain a child of the Englightenment. |
| 21079 | The a priori general will of a people shows what is right [Kant] |
| Full Idea: It is precisely the general will as it is given a priori, within a single people or in the mutual relationships of various peoples, which alone determines what is right among men. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace [1795], App 1) | |
| A reaction: The clearest quotation for showing Kant's debt to Rousseau. Why should Rousseau bother to have a real assembly of the people, if the General Will can be worked out a priori? Indeed, the a priori version must be deemed superior to any meeting. |
| 21077 | Each nation should, from self-interest, join an international security constitution [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Each nation, for the sake of its own security, can and ought to demand of the others that they should enter along with it into a constitution, similar to the civil one, within which the rights of each could be secured. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace [1795], 2.2nd) | |
| A reaction: Not sure how close the United Nations takes us to this. You have to admire Kant for this one. |
| 21078 | A constitution must always be improved when necessary [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Changes for the better are necessary, in order that the constitution may constantly approach the optimum end prescribed by laws of right. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace [1795], App 1) | |
| A reaction: This should be a clause in every constitution. It is crazy to feel trapped by a misjudgement or outdated view of your ancestors. |
| 21076 | Equality is where you cannot impose a legal obligation you yourself wouldn't endure [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Rightful equality within a state is a relationship among citizens where no-one can put anyone else under a legal obligation without submitting simultaneously to a law which requires that he can be put under the same kind of obligation by the other person. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace [1795], 2.1st n) | |
| A reaction: This appears only to be legal equality, rather than political or economic or social equality. |
| 20570 | There is now a growing universal community, and violations of rights are felt everywhere [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The peoples of the earth have entered in varying degrees into a universal community, and it has developed to the point where a violation of rights in one part of the world is felt everywhere. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace [1795], 'Third') | |
| A reaction: I hope slavery was at the forefront of his mind when he wrote that. It is only in very recent times (since about 1960?) that major violations of rights are felt to matter to the whole human race. A long way to go, though. |
| 20571 | There are political and inter-national rights, but also universal cosmopolitan rights [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The idea of a cosmopolitan right is not fantastic and overstrained; it is a necessary complement to the unwritten code of political and international right, transforming it into a universal right of humanity. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace [1795], 'Third') | |
| A reaction: The interesting thought is that there are no 'natural rights', but there can be universal rights insofar as there exists a universal community. See the UN Declaration of Human Rights c.1948. |
| 21073 | Hiring soldiers is to use them as instruments, ignoring their personal rights [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The hiring of men to kill or be killed seems to mean using them as mere machines and insturments in the hands of someone else (the state), which cannot easily be reconciled with the rights of man in one's own person. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace [1795], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: Kant was not a pacificist, though this makes him sound like one. Some men go off to war with enthusiasm, and then regret it. Exploitation of rational beings may be the worst sin in Kant's Enlightenment world. |
| 21074 | Some trust in the enemy is needed during wartime, or peace would be impossible [Kant] |
| Full Idea: It must remain possible, even in wartime, to have some sort of trust in the attitude of the enemy, otherwise peace could not be concluded and the hostilities would turn into a war of extermination. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace [1795], 1.6) | |
| A reaction: Consider the 'unconditional surrender' approach to the Nazis in 1944, and the peace of May 1945, made with very different Germans. How do you make peace with an enemy you cannot trust? |