17 ideas
21489 | Super-ordinate disciplines give laws or principles; subordinate disciplines give concrete cases [Peirce, by Atkin] |
Full Idea: In Peirce's system, a super-ordinate discipline provides general laws or principles for subordinate disciplines, which in turn provide concrete examples of those general laws. | |
From: report of Charles Sanders Peirce (works [1892]) by Albert Atkin - Peirce 1 'System' | |
A reaction: Does he really mean that subordinate disciplines have no principles or laws? That can't be right. |
19095 | Pragmatic 'truth' is a term to cover the many varied aims of enquiry [Peirce, by Misak] |
Full Idea: In Peirce's naturalist view of truth, it is a catch-all for the particular local aims of enquiry - empirical adequacy, predictive power, coherence, simplicity, elegance, explanatory power, a reliable guide to action, fruitfulness, great understanding. | |
From: report of Charles Sanders Peirce (works [1892]) by Cheryl Misak - Pragmatism and Deflationism 1 | |
A reaction: The aims I cited in my thesis on explanation. One given, for me, is that truth is an ideal, which may or may not be attainable, to varying degrees. It is just what thinking aims at. I suspect, though, that these listed items have one thing in common. |
19097 | Peirce did not think a belief was true if it was useful [Peirce, by Misak] |
Full Idea: Peirce was not in the slightest bit tempted by the thought that a belief is true if it is useful. | |
From: report of Charles Sanders Peirce (works [1892]) by Cheryl Misak - Pragmatism and Deflationism 2 | |
A reaction: All students of the pragmatic theory of truth should start with this idea, because it rejects the caricature view of pragmatic truth, a view which is easily rebutted. James seems to have been guilty of this sin. |
21494 | If truth is the end of enquiry, what if it never ends, or ends prematurely? [Atkin on Peirce] |
Full Idea: Two related worries about Peirce's account of truth are (from Royce) what are we to make of truth if enquiry never reaches an end, and (from Russell) what are we to make of truth if enquiry ends prematurely? | |
From: comment on Charles Sanders Peirce (works [1892]) by Albert Atkin - Peirce 3 'issues' | |
A reaction: The defence of Peirce must be that the theory is not holistic - referring to the whole Truth about absolutely everything. The discovery of the periodic table seems to me to support Peirce. In many areas basic enquiry has reached an end. |
21493 | Pure mathematics deals only with hypotheses, of which the reality does not matter [Peirce] |
Full Idea: The pure mathematician deals exclusively with hypotheses. Whether or not there is any corresponding real thing, he does not care. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (works [1892], CP5.567), quoted by Albert Atkin - Peirce 3 'separation' | |
A reaction: [Dated 1902] Maybe we should identify a huge branch of human learning as Hyptheticals. Professor of Hypotheticals at Cambridge University. The trouble is it would have to include computer games. So why does maths matter more than games? |
19102 | Bivalence is a regulative assumption of enquiry - not a law of logic [Peirce, by Misak] |
Full Idea: Peirce takes bivalence not to be a law of logic, but a regulative assumption of enquiry. | |
From: report of Charles Sanders Peirce (works [1892]) by Cheryl Misak - Pragmatism and Deflationism 2 n10 | |
A reaction: I like this. For most enquiries it's either true or not true, it's either there or it's not there. When you aren't faced with these simple dichotomies (in history, or quantum mechanics) you can relax, and allow truth value gaps etc. |
10352 | The real is the idea in which the community ultimately settles down [Peirce] |
Full Idea: The real is the idea in which the community ultimately settles down. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (works [1892]), quoted by Martin Kusch - Knowledge by Agreement Ch.16 | |
A reaction: If this is anti-realism, then I don't like it. If it is realist, then it is probably a bit on the optimistic side (if you think about cultures that are into witchcraft and voodoo). |
13498 | Peirce and others began the mapping out of relations [Peirce, by Hart,WD] |
Full Idea: It was Peirce and Schröder in the nineteenth century who began a systematic taxonomy of relations. | |
From: report of Charles Sanders Peirce (works [1892], 4) by William D. Hart - The Evolution of Logic 4 |
21491 | Peirce's later realism about possibilities and generalities went beyond logical positivism [Peirce, by Atkin] |
Full Idea: The realism about possibilities, generalities, tendencies and habits that we find in Peirce's later maxim is something that the logical positivists would have been uncomfortable with. | |
From: report of Charles Sanders Peirce (works [1892]) by Albert Atkin - Peirce 2 'Concl' | |
A reaction: Atkin examines the various later statements of the earlier maxim, given here in Idea 21490. Ryle and Quine express the empiricist and logical positivist approach to dispositions. |
16376 | The possible can only be general, and the force of actuality is needed to produce a particular [Peirce] |
Full Idea: The possible is necessarily general ..It is only actuality, the force of existence, which bursts the fluidity of the general and produces a discrete unit. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (works [1892]), quoted by François Recanati - Mental Files 13.1 | |
A reaction: [Papers 4 1967:147] This was quoted by Prior, and is often cited. Recanati is interested in the notion of a singular thought being tied to actuality, by generating a mental file. |
19107 | Inquiry is not standing on bedrock facts, but standing in hope on a shifting bog [Peirce] |
Full Idea: Inquiry is not standing upon a bedrock of fact. It is walking up a bog, and can only say, this ground seems to hold for the present. Here I will stay until it begins to give way. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (works [1892], CP 5.589), quoted by Gottfried Leibniz - Letter to Newton 4 | |
A reaction: [I don't know which article this lovely quote comes from] |
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'). |
7257 | All modern social systems seem to be conspiracies of the rich [More,T] |
Full Idea: When I consider any social system that prevails in the modern world, I can't see it as anything but a conspiracy of the rich to advance their own interests under the pretext of organizing society. | |
From: Thomas More (Utopia [1516], Bk 2) | |
A reaction: I'm afraid this is my own view of most conservative politics. I don't deny that there is a good case to be made for the conservative view (by Burke and Scruton, for example), but the rich will always latch onto its coat-tails. Cf. Idea 122. |
7254 | If you try to get elected, you should be permanently barred from seeking office [More,T] |
Full Idea: In Utopia, anyone who deliberately tries to get himself elected to a public office is permanently disqualified from holding one. | |
From: Thomas More (Utopia [1516], Bk 2) | |
A reaction: This echoes a thought found in Plato (Idea 2149). I've always liked this idea. Why can't we have elections were a group of the best people are invited to stand? Well, yes, it would lead to corruption... Still, the best should be pushed to the front. |
7255 | Only Utopians fail to see glory in warfare [More,T] |
Full Idea: Utopians are practically the only people on earth who fail to see anything glorious in war. | |
From: Thomas More (Utopia [1516], Bk 2) | |
A reaction: A refreshing thought for such an early date. Whatever dubious behaviour is nowadays attributed to Thomas More, you have to admire someone who writes this during the reign of Henry VIII. |
7253 | In Utopia, legal euthanasia is considered honourable [More,T] |
Full Idea: In Utopia, officially sanctioned euthanasia is regarded as an honourable death. | |
From: Thomas More (Utopia [1516], Bk 2) | |
A reaction: A bit surprising coming from a writer who is now a Catholic martyr and saint. |
7256 | In Utopia, the Supreme Being is identical with Nature [More,T] |
Full Idea: Everyone in Utopia agrees that the Supreme Being (which they call Mythras) is identical with Nature. | |
From: Thomas More (Utopia [1516], Bk 2) | |
A reaction: This sounds remarkably like full-blown Spinozean pantheism, though it should be interpreted with caution. It certainly seems to show that pantheism was a possibility in the minds of late medieval religious thinkers. |