Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Morality as system of hypothetical imperatives' and 'Intellectual Autobiography'

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15 ideas

3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / a. What makes truths

18901	Truthmakers are facts 'of' a domain, not something 'in' the domain [Sommers]
	Full Idea: A fact is an existential characteristic 'of' the domain; it is not something 'in' the domain. To search for truth-making facts in the world is indeed futile.
	From: Fred Sommers (Intellectual Autobiography [2005], 'Existence')
	A reaction: Attacking Austin on truth. Helpful. It is hard to see how a physical object has a mysterious power to 'make' a truth. No energy-transfer seems involved in the making. Animals think true thoughts; I suspect that concerns their mental maps of the world.

4. Formal Logic / A. Syllogistic Logic / 3. Term Logic

18904	'Predicable' terms come in charged pairs, with one the negation of the other [Sommers, by Engelbretsen]
	Full Idea: Sommers took the 'predicable' terms of any language to come in logically charged pairs. Examples might be red/nonred, massive/massless, tied/untied, in the house/not in the house. The idea that terms can be negated was essential for such pairing.
	From: report of Fred Sommers (Intellectual Autobiography [2005]) by George Engelbretsen - Trees, Terms and Truth 2
	A reaction: If, as Rumfitt says, we learn affirmation and negation as a single linguistic operation, this would fit well with it, though Rumfitt doubtless (as a fan of classical logic) prefers to negation sentences.

18895	Logic which maps ordinary reasoning must be transparent, and free of variables [Sommers]
	Full Idea: What would a 'laws of thought' logic that cast light on natural language deductive thinking be like? Such a logic must be variable-free, conforming to normal syntax, and its modes of reasoning must be transparent, to make them virtually instantaneous.
	From: Fred Sommers (Intellectual Autobiography [2005], 'How We')
	A reaction: This is the main motivation for Fred Sommers's creation of modern term logic. Even if you are up to your neck in modern symbolic logic (which I'm not), you have to find this idea appealing. You can't leave it to the psychologists.

5. Theory of Logic / D. Assumptions for Logic / 4. Identity in Logic

18897	Predicate logic has to spell out that its identity relation '=' is an equivalent relation [Sommers]
	Full Idea: Because predicate logic contrues identities dyadically, its account of inferences involving identity propositions needs laws or axioms of identity, explicitly asserting that the dyadic realtion in 'x=y' possesses symmetry, reflexivity and transitivity.
	From: Fred Sommers (Intellectual Autobiography [2005], 'Syllogistic')

5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 1. Logical Form

18893	Translating into quantificational idiom offers no clues as to how ordinary thinkers reason [Sommers]
	Full Idea: Modern predicate logic's methods of justification, which involve translation into an artificial quantificational idiom, offer no clues to how the average person, knowing no logic and adhering to the vernacular, is so logically adept.
	From: Fred Sommers (Intellectual Autobiography [2005], Intro)
	A reaction: Of course, people are very logically adept when the argument is simple (because, I guess, they can test it against the world), but not at all good when the reasoning becomes more complex. We do, though, reason in ordinary natural language.

5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / c. not

18903	Sommers promotes the old idea that negation basically refers to terms [Sommers, by Engelbretsen]
	Full Idea: If there is one idea that is the keystone of the edifice that constitutes Sommers's united philosophy it is that terms are the linguistic entities subject to negation in the most basic sense. It is a very old idea, tending to be rejected in modern times.
	From: report of Fred Sommers (Intellectual Autobiography [2005]) by George Engelbretsen - Trees, Terms and Truth 2
	A reaction: Negation in modern logic is an operator applied to sentences, typically writing '¬Fa', which denies that F is predicated of a, with Fa being an atomic sentence. Do we say 'not(Stan is happy)', or 'not-Stan is happy', or 'Stan is not-happy'? Third one?

5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 7. Predicates in Logic

18894	Predicates form a hierarchy, from the most general, down to names at the bottom [Sommers]
	Full Idea: We organise our concepts of predicability on a hierarchical tree. At the top are terms like 'interesting', 'exists', 'talked about', which are predicable of anything. At the bottom are names, and in between are predicables of some things and not others.
	From: Fred Sommers (Intellectual Autobiography [2005], 'Category')
	A reaction: The heirarchy seem be arranged simply by the scope of the predicate. 'Tallest' is predicable of anything in principle, but only of a few things in practice. Is 'John Doe' a name? What is 'cosmic' predicable of? Challenging!

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism

18900	Unfortunately for realists, modern logic cannot say that some fact exists [Sommers]
	Full Idea: Unfortunately for the fate of realist philosophy, modern logic's treatment of 'exists' is resolutely inhospitable to facts as referents of phrases of the form 'the existence or non-existence of φ'.
	From: Fred Sommers (Intellectual Autobiography [2005], 'Realism')
	A reaction: Predicate logic has to talk about objects, and then attribute predicates to them. It tends to treat a fact as 'Fa' - this object has this predicate, but that's not really how we understand facts.

19. Language / B. Reference / 1. Reference theories

18898	In standard logic, names are the only way to refer [Sommers]
	Full Idea: In modern predicate logic, definite reference by proper names is the primary and sole form of reference.
	From: Fred Sommers (Intellectual Autobiography [2005], 'Reference')
	A reaction: Hence we have to translate definite descriptions into (logical) names, or else paraphrase them out of existence. The domain only contains 'objects', so only names can uniquely pick them out.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / e. Ethical cognitivism

22392	Morality is inescapable, in descriptive words such as 'dishonest', 'unjust' and 'uncharitable' [Foot]
	Full Idea: There is a sense in which morality is inescapable - in moral epithets such as 'dishonest', 'unjust', 'uncharitable'; these do not cease to apply to a man because he is indifferent to the ends of morality: they may indeed apply because of his indifference.
	From: Philippa Foot (Morality as system of hypothetical imperatives [1972], p.172 n15)
	A reaction: Odysseus was admired for lying, and charity wasn't a virtue in the ancient world. They won't go away as factual descriptions, but the values attached to them vary quite a lot.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / b. Rational ethics

23685	Reason is not a motivator of morality [Foot, by Hacker-Wright]
	Full Idea: In her middle period she changed her mind, and attacks moral rationalism.
	From: report of Philippa Foot (Morality as system of hypothetical imperatives [1972]) by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought Intro
	A reaction: That is, she doubted whether moral reasons are sufficient to motivate moral actions, which presumably therefore need desires, as the Humeans claimed. Reasons rely on merely hypothetical rules.

23691	Rejecting moral rules may be villainous, but it isn't inconsistent [Foot]
	Full Idea: The man who rejects morality because he sees no reason to obey its rules can be convicted of villainy but not of inconsistency.
	From: Philippa Foot (Morality as system of hypothetical imperatives [1972], p.161)
	A reaction: This is 'middle period' Foot, when she decided that Hume was right about the need for a desire as moral motivator. Before and after this time, she thought there were reasons to be moral, as well as desires.

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').

23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 1. Deontology

22391	Saying we 'ought to be moral' makes no sense, unless it relates to some other system [Foot]
	Full Idea: 'One ought to be moral' makes no sense at all unless the 'ought' has the moral subscript, giving a tautology, or else relates morality to some other system such as prudence or etiquette.
	From: Philippa Foot (Morality as system of hypothetical imperatives [1972], p.169 n18)
	A reaction: This aims to undercut the Kantian view that morality is an absolute call to duty (filling us with wonder, like the starry heavens). Foot aims to root morality in the real world.

23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 4. Categorical Imperative

22389	Morality no more consists of categorical imperatives than etiquette does [Foot]
	Full Idea: Moral judgements have no better claim to be categorical imperatives than do statements about matters of etiquette.
	From: Philippa Foot (Morality as system of hypothetical imperatives [1972], p.164)
	A reaction: Her claim is that all moral judgements are responses to situations, and so are hypothetical. This judgement of hers is the culmination of a careful discussion.