26 ideas
| 17651 | Without words or other symbols, we have no world [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: We can have words without a world but no world without words or other symbols. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: Goodman seems to have a particularly extreme version of the commitment to philosophy as linguistic. Non-human animals have no world, it seems. |
| 17652 | Truth is irrelevant if no statements are involved [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Truth pertains solely to what is said ...For nonverbal versions and even for verbal versions without statements, truth is irrelevant. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: Goodman is a philosopher of language (like Dummett), but I am a philosopher of thought (like Evans). The test, for me, is whether truth is applicable to the thought of non-human animals. I take it to be obvious that it is applicable. |
| 21548 | The null class is the class with all the non-existents as its members [MacColl, by Lackey] |
| Full Idea: In 1905 the Scottish logician Hugh MacColl published a paper in which he argued that the null class in logic should be taken as the class with all the non-existents as its members. | |
| From: report of Hugh MacColl (Symbolic Reasoning [1905]) by Douglas Lackey - Intros to Russell's 'Essays in Analysis' p.95 | |
| A reaction: For the null object (zero) Frege just chose one sample concept with an empty extension. MacColl's set seems to have a lot of members, given that it is 'null'. How many, I wonder? Russell responded to this paper. |
| 17656 | Being primitive or prior always depends on a constructional system [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Nothing is primitive or derivationally prior to anything apart from a constructional system. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.4c) | |
| A reaction: Something may be primitive not just because we can't be bothered to analyse it any further, but because even God couldn't analyse it. Maybe. |
| 17661 | We don't recognise patterns - we invent them [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Recognising patterns is very much a matter of inventing or imposing them. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.7) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be false. |
| 17659 | Reality is largely a matter of habit [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Reality in a world, like realism in a picture, is largely a matter of habit. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.6) | |
| A reaction: I'm a robust realist, me, but I sort of see what he means. We become steeped in unspoken conventions about how we take our world to be, and filter out anything that conflicts with it. |
| 17657 | We build our world, and ignore anything that won't fit [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: We dismiss as illusory or negligible what cannot be fitted into the architecture of the world we are building. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.4d) | |
| A reaction: I'm trying to think of an example of this, but can't. Maybe poor people are invisible to the rich? |
| 17654 | A world can be full of variety or not, depending on how we sort it [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: A world may be unmanageably heterogeneous or unbearably monotonous according to how events are sorted into kinds. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.4a) | |
| A reaction: We might expect this from the man who invented 'grue', which allows you to classify things that change colour with things that don't. Could you describe a bird as 'might have been a fish', and classify it with fish? ('Projectible'?) |
| 17653 | Things can only be judged the 'same' by citing some respect of sameness [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Identification rests upon organization into entities and kinds. The response to the question 'Same or not the same?' must always be 'Same what?'. ...Identity or constancy in a world is identity with respect to what is within that world as organised. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.4a) | |
| A reaction: And the gist of his book is that 'organised' is done by us, not by the world. He seems to be committed to the full Geachean relative identity, rather than the mere Wigginsian relative individuation. An unfashionable view! |
| 17660 | Discovery is often just finding a fit, like a jigsaw puzzle [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Discovery often amounts, as when I place a piece in a jigsaw puzzle, not to arrival at a proposition for declaration or defense, but to finding a fit. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.7) | |
| A reaction: I find Goodman's views here pretty alien, but I like this bit. Coherence really rocks. |
| 17658 | Users of digital thermometers recognise no temperatures in the gaps [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: To use a digital thermometer with readings in tenths of a degree is to recognise no temperature as lying between 90 and 90.1 degrees. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.4d) | |
| A reaction: This appears to be nonsense, treating users of digital thermometers as if they were stupid. No one thinks temperatures go up and down in quantum leaps. We all know there is a gap between instrument and world. (Very American, I'm thinking!) |
| 17650 | We lack frames of reference to transform physics, biology and psychology into one another [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: We have no neat frames of reference, no ready rules for transforming physics, biology and psychology into one another. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.2) |
| 17655 | Grue and green won't be in the same world, as that would block induction entirely [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Grue cannot be a relevant kind for induction in the same world as green, for that would preclude some of the decisions, right or wrong, that constitute inductive inference. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.4b) | |
| A reaction: This may make 'grue' less mad than I thought it was. I always assume we are slicing the world as 'green, blue and grue'. I still say 'green' is a basic predicate of experience, but 'grue' is amenable to analysis. |
| 7352 | Jesus said learning was unnecessary, and only the spirit of the Law was needed [Jesus, by Johnson,P] |
| Full Idea: Jesus was a learned Jew who said that learning was not necessary, who took the spirit and not the letter as the essence of the Law. | |
| From: report of Jesus (reports [c.32]) by Paul Johnson - The History of the Jews Pt II | |
| A reaction: This seems to me the perfect opposite of Socrates's intellectualism, offering the essence of morality as 'purity of heart', rather than careful thought about virtue or principles. On the whole I am with Socrates, but the idea is interesting. |
| 6289 | Love your enemies [Jesus] |
| Full Idea: Love your enemies. | |
| From: Jesus (reports [c.32]), quoted by St Matthew - 01: Gospel of St Matthew 05.44 | |
| A reaction: The germ of this idea had been around for several hundred years, but this very forceful statement is perhaps Jesus' most distinctive contribution to moral thought. It has the same clarion call as the Stoic demand for pure virtue. What about deserving? |
| 6292 | Love thy neighbour as thyself [Jesus] |
| Full Idea: Love thy neighbour as thyself. | |
| From: Jesus (reports [c.32]), quoted by St Matthew - 01: Gospel of St Matthew 19.19 | |
| A reaction: It would be stronger and better to say 'Love your neighbour, even if you don't love yourself'. Self-loathing and vicious hatred often go together. For once Jesus does not attach an instant heavenly reward to obedience of the command. |
| 5356 | Treat others as you would have them treat you [Jesus] |
| Full Idea: All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, so ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. | |
| From: Jesus (reports [c.32]), quoted by St Matthew - 01: Gospel of St Matthew 07.12 | |
| A reaction: A problem which probably didn't occur to Jesus and the prophets is that of masochists. Personally I like buying philosophy books, but most people have no such desire. The Rule needs restricting to the basics of pleasure and pain. |
| 6286 | Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy [Jesus] |
| Full Idea: Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. | |
| From: Jesus (reports [c.32]), quoted by St Matthew - 01: Gospel of St Matthew 05.07 | |
| A reaction: This appears to be a straightforward application of social contract morality, with God playing the role of Hobbes' absolute monarch. It highlights the uncomfortable fact at the heart of Christian morality, that the motivation for altruism is selfish. |
| 6290 | Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter heaven [Jesus] |
| Full Idea: Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. | |
| From: Jesus (reports [c.32]), quoted by St Matthew - 01: Gospel of St Matthew 18.03 | |
| A reaction: The appeal of such purity of heart is undeniable, but essentially I dislike this remark. It is the opponent of education, reason, autonomy, responsibility, democracy and maturity. It confirms the view that religion is the opium of the people. |
| 6287 | If you lust after a woman, you have committed adultery [Jesus] |
| Full Idea: Whosoever look on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. | |
| From: Jesus (reports [c.32]), quoted by St Matthew - 01: Gospel of St Matthew 05.28 | |
| A reaction: Compare Democritus, Idea 503. Literally this idea seems absurd, but it is also at the heart of Greek virtue theory. Aristotle (Idea 34) defines virtue as an activity 'of the soul', not an action in the world. Excellence has become purity of soul. |
| 6285 | Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth [Jesus] |
| Full Idea: Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth. | |
| From: Jesus (reports [c.32]), quoted by St Matthew - 01: Gospel of St Matthew 05.05 | |
| A reaction: If they are truly meek, why would they want to inherit the earth? This is the classic statement of Nietzsche's 'inversion of values', where the qualities of a good slave are elevated above those of the greatest human beings. |
| 6288 | Don't resist evil, but turn the other cheek [Jesus] |
| Full Idea: Ye have heard it said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. | |
| From: Jesus (reports [c.32]), quoted by St Matthew - 01: Gospel of St Matthew 05.38-9 | |
| A reaction: Compare Socrates, Idea 346. The viciousness of many Hollywood movies is that they set up a character as thoroughly evil so that we can have the pleasure of watching him pulverised. On the whole, Jesus gives bad advice. 'Doormats' in game theory. |
| 6293 | It is almost impossible for the rich to go to heaven [Jesus] |
| Full Idea: It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. | |
| From: Jesus (reports [c.32]), quoted by St Matthew - 01: Gospel of St Matthew 19.24 | |
| A reaction: Aristotle and others (Margaret Thatcher) have observed that you cannot practise charity if you are poor. Jesus implies that the human race should remain in poverty. No wonder autocratic medieval rulers taught Christianity to peasants. Cf. Matt 25.30. |
| 17649 | If the world is one it has many aspects, and if there are many worlds they will collect into one [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: If there is but one world, it embraces a multiplicity of contrasting aspects; if there are many worlds, the collection of them all is one. One world may be taken as many, or many worlds taken as one; whether one or many depends on the way of taking. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: He cites 'The Pluralistic Universe' by William James for this idea. The idea is that the distinction 'evaporates under analysis'. Parmenides seems to have thought that no features could be distinguished in the true One. |
| 6291 | No one is good except God [Jesus] |
| Full Idea: Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God. | |
| From: Jesus (reports [c.32]), quoted by St Matthew - 01: Gospel of St Matthew 19.17 | |
| A reaction: This remark raises the problem that if God is good, there must be some separate moral standard by which he can be judged good. What is that standard? It is related to the problem of whether Plato's Form of the Beautiful is itself beautiful. |
| 7351 | Jesus turned the ideas of Hillel into a theology reduced to its moral elements [Jesus, by Johnson,P] |
| Full Idea: Jesus was a member of the school of Hillel the Elder, and may have sat under him. He repeated some of the sayings of Hillel, ...and turned his ideas into a moral theology, stripping the law of all but its moral and ethical elements. | |
| From: report of Jesus (reports [c.32]) by Paul Johnson - The History of the Jews Pt II | |
| A reaction: The crucial move, it seems to me, is to strip Judaism of its complexity, and reduce it to very simple moral maxims, which means that ordinary illiterate people no longer need priests to understand and follow it. Jesus was, above all, a great teacher. |