20 ideas
| 16000 | Fixed ideas should be tackled aggressively [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: Fixed ideas are like a cramp in your foot: the best remedy is to stomp on them. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], JP-III, 635) | |
| A reaction: Sound philosophical advice at any time. [SY] Does this apply in seminars, as well as in private meditation? [PG] |
| 16012 | Philosophy can't be unbiased if it ignores language, as that is no more independent than individuals are [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: If the claim of philosophers to be unbiased were all it pretends to be, it would have to take account of language and its significance...Language is partly given and partly develops freely. As individuals cannot be truly independent, so too with language. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], 1840.07.18) | |
| A reaction: A surprisingly prophetic entry from Kierkegaard anticipating the linguistic turn. [SY] |
| 12302 | Definitions formed an abstract hierarchy for Aristotle, as sets do for us [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: For us it is sets which constitute the most natural example of a hierarchical structure within the abstract realm; but for Aristotle it would have been definitions, via their natural division into genus and differentia. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Aristotle on Matter [1992], §1 n4) | |
| A reaction: I suppose everyone who thinks about reality in abstraction ends up with a hierarchy. Compare the hierarchy of angelic hosts, or Greek gods. Could we get back to the Aristotelian view, instead of sets, which are out of control at the top end? |
| 14266 | Aristotle sees hierarchies in definitions using genus and differentia (as we see them in sets) [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: For us, sets constitute the most natural example of a hierarchical structure within the abstract realm. But for Aristotle it would have been definitions, via their natural division into genus and differentia. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Aristotle on Matter [1992], 1 n4) | |
| A reaction: Genus and differentia are only part of the story in Aristotle, and this remarks strikes me as perceptive. It is precisely the mapping of the explanatory hierarchy which Aristotle seeks in a good definition. |
| 9331 | How do we determine which of the sentences containing a term comprise its definition? [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: How are we to determine which of the sentences containing a term comprise its definition? | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §2) | |
| A reaction: Nice question. If I say 'philosophy is the love of wisdom' and 'philosophy bores me', why should one be part of its definition and the other not? What if I stipulated that the second one is part of my definition, and the first one isn't? |
| 14268 | Maybe bottom-up grounding shows constitution, and top-down grounding shows essence [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It may be that the two forms of grounding have a different source; the one from the bottom up is required for the constitution of the thing to be intelligible; the one from the top down is required for the essence of the thing to be intelligible. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Aristotle on Matter [1992], 2) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Aristotle Met. 1019a8-10 in support] Close reading of Fine would be needed to elucidate this properly, but it is a suggestive line of thought about how we should approach grounding. |
| 14267 | There is no distinctive idea of constitution, because you can't say constitution begins and ends [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: If the parts of a body can constitute a man, then why should men not constitute a family? Why draw the line at the level of the man? ...Thus the idea of a distinctive notion of constitution, terminating in concrete substances, should be given up. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Aristotle on Matter [1992], 1) | |
| A reaction: This is in the context of Aristotle, but Fine's view seems to apply to Rudder Baker's distinctive approach. |
| 14264 | Is there a plausible Aristotelian notion of constitution, applicable to both physical and non-physical? [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: There is a question of whether there is a viable conception of constitution of the sort Aristotle supposes, one which is uniformly applicable to physical and non-physical objects alike, and which is capable of hierarchical application. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Aristotle on Matter [1992], 1) | |
| A reaction: This is part of an explication of Aristotle's 'matter' [hule], which might be better translated as 'ingredients', which would fit non-physical things quite well. |
| 9333 | A priori belief is not necessarily a priori justification, or a priori knowledge [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: It is one thing to believe something a priori and another for this belief to be epistemically justified. The latter is required for a priori knowledge. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §8) | |
| A reaction: Personally I would agree with this, because I don't think anything should count as knowledge if it doesn't have supporting reasons, but fans of a priori knowledge presumably think that certain basic facts are just known. They are a priori justified. |
| 9342 | Understanding needs a priori commitment [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: Understanding is itself based on a priori commitment. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §12) | |
| A reaction: This sounds plausible, but needs more justification than Horwich offers. This is the sort of New Rationalist idea I associate with Bonjour. The crucial feature of the New lot is, I take it, their fallibilism. All understanding is provisional. |
| 9332 | Meaning is generated by a priori commitment to truth, not the other way around [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: Our a priori commitment to certain sentences is not really explained by our knowledge of a word's meaning. It is the other way around. We accept a priori that the sentences are true, and thereby provide it with meaning. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §8) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a lovely trump card, but how on earth do you decide that a sentence is true if you don't know what it means? Personally I would take it that we are committed to the truth of a proposition, before we have a sentence for it. |
| 9341 | Meanings and concepts cannot give a priori knowledge, because they may be unacceptable [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: A priori knowledge of logic and mathematics cannot derive from meanings or concepts, because someone may possess such concepts, and yet disagree with us about them. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §12) | |
| A reaction: A good argument. The thing to focus on is not whether such ideas are a priori, but whether they are knowledge. I think we should employ the word 'intuition' for a priori candidates for knowledge, and demand further justification for actual knowledge. |
| 9334 | If we stipulate the meaning of 'number' to make Hume's Principle true, we first need Hume's Principle [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: If we stipulate the meaning of 'the number of x's' so that it makes Hume's Principle true, we must accept Hume's Principle. But a precondition for this stipulation is that Hume's Principle be accepted a priori. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §9) | |
| A reaction: Yet another modern Quinean argument that all attempts at defining things are circular. I am beginning to think that the only a priori knowledge we have is of when a group of ideas is coherent. Calling it 'intuition' might be more accurate. |
| 9339 | A priori knowledge (e.g. classical logic) may derive from the innate structure of our minds [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: One potential source of a priori knowledge is the innate structure of our minds. We might, for example, have an a priori commitment to classical logic. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §11) | |
| A reaction: Horwich points out that to be knowledge it must also say that we ought to believe it. I'm wondering whether if we divided the whole territory of the a priori up into intuitions and then coherent justifications, the whole problem would go away. |
| 16003 | If people marry just because they are lonely, that is self-love, not love [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: People despair about being lonely and therefore get married. But is this love? I should say it is self-love. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], JP-III, 40-41) | |
| A reaction: If you decide to marry someone because you don't want to be an old maid/bachelor in your elder years, try to actually love the person you're marrying. Not just for money or sex. [SY] |
| 21910 | Our destiny is the highest pitch of world-weariness [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: Our destiny in this life is to be brought to the highest pitch of world-weariness. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], 1855.09.25), quoted by Alastair Hannay - Kierkegaard 10 | |
| A reaction: The beginning of his last entry. Hardly a great general truth, but interesting. Should we aspire to exhaust life? |
| 16001 | Life may be understood backwards, but it has to be lived forwards [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is perfectly right in saying that life must be understood backwards. But then it forgets the other side - that it must be lived forwards. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], JP-III, 635) | |
| A reaction: Some of the best philosophers dwell too much on philosophy, history and the past, while forgetting to actually live and enjoy their lives. [SY] |
| 14265 | The components of abstract definitions could play the same role as matter for physical objects [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: If one considers Aristotle's standard example of a definition, then it is plausible that its defining terms ('plane figure' in the case of a circle) should be constitutive of it in the same general way as physical matter constitutes something physical. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Aristotle on Matter [1992], 1) | |
| A reaction: It strikes me that an appropriate translation for the Greek 'hule' might be the English 'ingredients', since Fine seems to be right about the broad application of hule in Aristotle. |
| 16008 | The best way to be a Christian is without 'Christianity' [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: One best becomes a Christian - without 'Christianity'. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], JP-1:214) | |
| A reaction: A very healthy attitude for followers of Jesus, given today's television evangelists, religious fundamentalist and zealots. [SY] |
| 20735 | We need to see that Christianity cannot be understood [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: The problem is not to understand Christianity, but to understand that it cannot be understood. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], p.146), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 1 'Roots' | |
| A reaction: This seems to cut us intellectually adrift. We could say the same of supporting Real Madrid. There has to be some magnetism which holds our attention, and there must be something to say about that. |