Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Interview with Baggini and Stangroom' and 'Dialogue on Things and Words'

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6 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / e. Philosophy as reason

6855	Interesting philosophers hardly every give you explicitly valid arguments [Martin,M]
	Full Idea: Notice that very few philosophers - certainly almost none of the ones who are interesting to read - give you explicitly valid arguments.
	From: Michael Martin (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.134)
	A reaction: I never thought that was going to happen in philosophy. What I do get is, firstly, lots of interesting reasons for holding beliefs, and a conviction that good beliefs need good reasons, and, secondly, a really coherent view of the world.

2. Reason / E. Argument / 1. Argument

6856	Valid arguments can be rejected by challenging the premises or presuppositions [Martin,M]
	Full Idea: Putting forward a valid argument isn't necessarily going to succeed in getting someone to see things your way, because if they don't accept the conclusion, they ask which premises they should reject, or whether an illegitimate assumption is being made.
	From: Michael Martin (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.136)
	A reaction: Valid arguments are still vital. It is just that good philosophers realise the problem noted here, and spend huge stretches of discussion on establishing acceptance of premises, and showing that there are no dodgy presuppositions.

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 5. Truth Bearers

19389	Truth is a characteristic of possible thoughts [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Truth really belongs to the class of thoughts which are possible.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Dialogue on Things and Words [1677], p.7)
	A reaction: I like the fact that this ties truth to 'thoughts', rather than peculiar abstract unthought entities called 'propositions', but I take it that thoughts which are possible but not thought will thereby not exist, so they can't be true.

19388	True and false seem to pertain to thoughts, yet unthought propositions seem to be true or false [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: B: I concede that truth and falsity both pertain to thoughts and not to things. A: But this contradicts your previous opinion that a proposition remains true even when you are not thinking about it.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Dialogue on Things and Words [1677], p.7)
	A reaction: I don't trigger the truth of a proposition by thinking about it - I see that it is true. But I dislike the idea that reality is full of propositions, which seems to be mad metaphysics. So I deny unthought propositions are true, because there aren't any.

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 1. Perception

6857	An error theory of perception says our experience is not as it seems to be [Martin,M]
	Full Idea: You can end up with an error theory of perception, which says our experience is not as it seems to be, as bizarre as that might be.
	From: Michael Martin (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.140)
	A reaction: This is because of the clash between subjective and objective aspects of perception. It is an enticing proposal, just the sort of thing I pay philosophers to come up with. Given oddities like blindsight, I think it should be taken seriously.

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues

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').