5 ideas
| 21697 | The Struthionic Fallacy is that of burying one's head in the sand [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The Struthionic Fallacy is that of burying one's head in the sand [which I name from the Greek for 'ostrich'] | |
| From: Willard Quine (Lecture on Nominalism [1946], §4) | |
| A reaction: David Armstrong said this is the the fallacy involved in a denial of universals. Quine is accusing Carnap and co. of the fallacy. |
| 21698 | All relations, apart from ancestrals, can be reduced to simpler logic [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Much of the theory of relations can be developed as a virtual theory, in which we seem to talk of relations, but can explain our notation in terms {finally] of just the logic of truth-functions, quantification and identity. The exception is ancestrals. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Lecture on Nominalism [1946], §8) | |
| A reaction: The irreducibility of ancestrals is offered as a reason for treating sets as universals. |
| 21696 | Nominalism rejects both attributes and classes (where extensionalism accepts the classes) [Quine] |
| Full Idea: 'Nominalism' is distinct from 'extensionalism'. The main point of the latter doctrine is rejection of properties or attributes in favour of classes. But class are universals equally with attributes, and nominalism in the defined sense rejects both. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Lecture on Nominalism [1946], §3) | |
| A reaction: Hence Quine soon settled on labelling himself as an 'extensionalist', leaving proper nominalism to Nelson Goodman. It is commonly observed that science massively refers to attributes, so they can't just be eliminated. |
| 5963 | Some say emotion is a sort of reason, and others say virtue concerns emotion [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers make the emotions varieties of reason, on the ground that all desire and grief and anger are judgments, while others declare that the virtues have to do with emotions, as when fear is the province of courage. | |
| From: Plutarch (68: Generation of the soul in 'Timaeus' [c.85], 1025d) | |
| A reaction: The second idea comes from Aristotle, but the second is interesting, and corresponds to the views coming from modern neuroscience, where even the most basic thought seems to involve emotion. What could be the motivation for 'pure' reason? |
| 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'). |