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All the ideas for 'On the Question of Absolute Undecidability', 'Concluding Unscientific Postscript' and 'How Things Might Have Been'

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39 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / d. Philosophy as puzzles
I conceived it my task to create difficulties everywhere [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: I conceived it my task to create difficulties everywhere.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Author')
     A reaction: Nice. It is like Socrates's image of himself as the 'gadfly' of Athens. The interesting question is always to see what the rest of society makes of having someone in their midst who sees it as their social role to 'create difficulties'.
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 8. Humour
Wherever there is painless contradiction there is also comedy [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: Wherever there is contradiction, the comical is also present. ...The tragic is the suffering contradiction, the comical is the painless contradiction.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], p.459), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 13
     A reaction: He is not saying that this is the only source of comedy. I once heard an adult say that there is one thing that is always funny, and that is a fart.
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 2. Defining Truth
Kierkegaard's truth draws on authenticity, fidelity and honesty [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle]
     Full Idea: Kierkegaard offers a different interpretation of truth, which draws on the notions of authenticity, fidelity and honesty.
     From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 4
     A reaction: This notion of truth, meaning 'the real thing' (as in 'she was a true scholar'), seems to begin with Hegel. I suggest we use the word 'genuine' for that, and save 'truth' for its traditional role. It is disastrous to blur the simple concept of truth.
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 3. Value of Truth
Pure truth is for infinite beings only; I prefer endless striving for truth [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: If God held all truth enclosed in his right hand, and in his left hand the ever-striving drive for truth, even if erring forever, and he were to say Choose! I would humbly fall at his left hand and say Father, give! Pure truth is for infinite beings only.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], p.106)
     A reaction: A sobering realistic thought of our own limitations; Kierkegaard allows that there is no limit to how far we can strive for truth. Just that truth is comprehended by infinite beings (if any), not by mere mortals. [SY]
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 8. Subjective Truth
The highest truth we can get is uncertainty held fast by an inward passion [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: An objective uncertainty held fast in an appropriation-process of the most passionate inwardness is the truth, the highest truth available for an existing individual.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846])
     A reaction: [Bk 711] Offered as a definition of truth, knowing how strange and paradoxical it sounds. If we view all life as subjectivity, then there can of course be nothing more to truth than passionate conviction. Personally I think thought can be objective.
4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 1. Set Theory
Mathematical set theory has many plausible stopping points, such as finitism, and predicativism [Koellner]
     Full Idea: There are many coherent stopping points in the hierarchy of increasingly strong mathematical systems, starting with strict finitism, and moving up through predicativism to the higher reaches of set theory.
     From: Peter Koellner (On the Question of Absolute Undecidability [2006], Intro)
'Reflection principles' say the whole truth about sets can't be captured [Koellner]
     Full Idea: Roughly speaking, 'reflection principles' assert that anything true in V [the set hierarchy] falls short of characterising V in that it is true within some earlier level.
     From: Peter Koellner (On the Question of Absolute Undecidability [2006], 2.1)
5. Theory of Logic / K. Features of Logics / 5. Incompleteness
We have no argument to show a statement is absolutely undecidable [Koellner]
     Full Idea: There is at present no solid argument to the effect that a given statement is absolutely undecidable.
     From: Peter Koellner (On the Question of Absolute Undecidability [2006], 5.3)
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 5. The Infinite / i. Cardinal infinity
There are at least eleven types of large cardinal, of increasing logical strength [Koellner]
     Full Idea: Some of the standard large cardinals (in order of increasing (logical) strength) are: inaccessible, Mahlo, weakly compact, indescribable, Erdös, measurable, strong, Wodin, supercompact, huge etc. (...and ineffable).
     From: Peter Koellner (On the Question of Absolute Undecidability [2006], 1.4)
     A reaction: [I don't understand how cardinals can have 'logical strength', but I pass it on anyway]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 4. Axioms for Number / d. Peano arithmetic
PA is consistent as far as we can accept, and we expand axioms to overcome limitations [Koellner]
     Full Idea: To the extent that we are justified in accepting Peano Arithmetic we are justified in accepting its consistency, and so we know how to expand the axiom system so as to overcome the limitation [of Gödel's Second Theorem].
     From: Peter Koellner (On the Question of Absolute Undecidability [2006], 1.1)
     A reaction: Each expansion brings a limitation, but then you can expand again.
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 4. Axioms for Number / g. Incompleteness of Arithmetic
Arithmetical undecidability is always settled at the next stage up [Koellner]
     Full Idea: The arithmetical instances of undecidability that arise at one stage of the hierarchy are settled at the next.
     From: Peter Koellner (On the Question of Absolute Undecidability [2006], 1.4)
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / a. Individuation
A principle of individuation may pinpoint identity and distinctness, now and over time [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: One view of a principle of individuation is what is called a 'criterion of identity', determining answers to questions about identity and distinctness at a time and over time - a principle of distinction and persistence.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 8.2)
     A reaction: Since the term 'Prime Minister' might do this job, presumably there could be a de dicto as well as a de re version of individuation. The distinctness consists of chairing cabinet meetings, rather than being of a particular sex.
Individuation may include counterfactual possibilities, as well as identity and persistence [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: A second view of the principle of individuation includes criteria of distinction and persistence, but also determines the counterfactual possibilities for a thing.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 8.5)
     A reaction: It would be a pretty comprehensive individuation which defined all the counterfactual truths about a thing, as well as its actual truths. This is where powers come in. We need to know a thing's powers, but not how they cash out counterfactually.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / d. Individuation by haecceity
A haecceity is the essential, simple, unanalysable property of being-this-thing [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: Socrates can be assigned a haecceity: an essential property of 'being Socrates' which (unlike the property of 'being identical with Socrates') may be regarded as what 'makes' its possessor Socrates in a non-trivial sense, but is simple and unanalysable.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.2)
     A reaction: I don't accept that there is any such property as 'being Socrates' (or even 'being identical with Socrates'), except as empty locutions or logical devices. A haecceity seems to be the 'ultimate subject of predication', with no predicates of its own.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 1. Essences of Objects
Essentialism must avoid both reduplication of essences, and multiple occupancy by essences [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: The argument for unshareable properties (the Reduplication Argument) suggests the danger of reduplication of Berkeley; the argument for incompatible properties (Multiple Occupancy) says Berkeley and Hume could be in the same possible object.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.8)
     A reaction: These are her arguments in favour of essential properties being necessarily incompatible between objects. Whatever the answer, it must allow essences for indistinguishables like electrons. 'Incompatible' points towards a haecceity.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences
An individual essence is the properties the object could not exist without [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: By essentialism about individuals I simply mean the view that individual things have essential properties, where an essential property of an object is a property that the object could not have existed without.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 1.1)
     A reaction: This presumably means I could exist without a large part of my reason and consciousness, but could not exist without one of my heart valves. This seems to miss the real point of essence. I couldn't exist without oxygen - not one of my properties.
No other object can possibly have the same individual essence as some object [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: Individual essences are essential properties that are unique to them alone. ...If a set of properties is an individual essence of A, then A has the properties essentially, and no other actual or possible object actually or possibly has them.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.1/2)
     A reaction: I'm unconvinced about this. Tigers have an essence, but individual tigers have individual essences over and above their tigerish qualities, yet the perfect identity of two tigers still seems to be possible.
There are problems both with individual essences and without them [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: If all objects had individual essences, there would be no numerical difference without an essential difference. But if there aren't individual essences, there could be two things sharing all essential properties, differing only in accidental properties.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.5)
     A reaction: Depends how you define individual essence. Why can't two electrons have the same individual essence. To postulate a 'kind essence' which bestows the properties on each electron is to get things the wrong way round.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 5. Essence as Kind
Unlike Hesperus=Phosophorus, water=H2O needs further premisses before it is necessary [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: There is a disanalogy between 'necessarily water=H2O' and 'necessarily Hesperus=Phosphorus'. The second just needs the necessity of identity, but the first needs 'x is a water sample' and 'x is an H2O' sample to coincide in all possible worlds.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.1.)
     A reaction: This comment is mainly aimed at Kripke, who bases his essentialism on identities, rather than at Putnam.
Why are any sortals essential, and why are only some of them essential? [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: Accounts of sortal essentialism do not give a satisfactory explanation of why any sortals should be essential sortals, or a satisfactory account of why some sortals should be essential while others are not.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 8.6)
     A reaction: A theory is not wrong, just because it cannot give a 'satisfactory explanation' of every aspect of the subject. We might, though, ask why the theory isn't doing well in this area.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 8. Essence as Explanatory
The Kripke and Putnam view of kinds makes them explanatorily basic, but has modal implications [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: Kripke and Putnam chose for their typical essence of kinds, sets of properties that could be thought of as explanatorily basic. ..But the modal implications of their views go well beyond this.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.1)
     A reaction: Cf. Idea 11905. The modal implications are that the explanatory essence is also necessary to the identity of the thing under discussion, such as H2O. So do basic explanations carry across into all possible worlds?
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 12. Origin as Essential
Origin is not a necessity, it is just 'tenacious'; we keep it fixed in counterfactual discussions [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: I suggest 'tenacity of origin' rather than 'necessity of origin'. ..The most that we need is that Caesar's having something similar to his actual origin in certain respects (e.g. his actual parents) is normally kept fixed in counterfactual speculation.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 6.9)
     A reaction: I find necessity or essentially of origin very unconvincing, so I rather like this. Origin is just a particularly stable way to establish our reference to something. An elusive spy may have little more than date and place of birth to fix them.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / a. Transworld identity
Transworld identity without individual essences leads to 'bare identities' [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: Transworld identity without individual essences leads to 'bare identities'.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.7)
     A reaction: [She gives an argument for this, based on Forbes] I certainly favour the notion of individual essences over the notion of bare identities. We must distinguish identity in reality from identity in concept. Identities are points in conceptual space.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / c. Counterparts
De re modality without bare identities or individual essence needs counterparts [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: Anyone who wishes to avoid both bare identities and individual essences, without abandoning de re modality entirely, must adopt counterpart theory.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 4.1)
     A reaction: This at least means that Lewis's proposal has an important place in the discussion, forcing us to think more clearly about the identities involved when we talk of possibilities. Mackie herself votes for bare indentities.
Things may only be counterparts under some particular relation [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: A may be a counterpart of B according to one counterpart relation (similarity of origin, say), but not according to another (similarity of later history).
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 5.3)
     A reaction: Hm. Would two very diverse things have to be counterparts because they were kept in the same cupboard in different worlds? Can the counterpart relationship diverge or converge over time? Yes, I presume.
Possibilities for Caesar must be based on some phase of the real Caesar [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: I take the 'overlap requirement' for Julius Caesar to be that, when considering how he might have been different, you have to take him as he actually was at some time in his existence, and consider possibilities consistent with that.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 6.5)
     A reaction: This is quite a large claim (larger than Mackie thinks?), as it seems equally applicable to properties, states of affairs and propositions, as well as to individuals. Possibility that has no contact at all with actuality is beyond our comprehension.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / d. Haecceitism
The theory of 'haecceitism' does not need commitment to individual haecceities [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: The theory that things have 'haecceities' must be sharply distinguished from the theory referred to as 'haecceitism', which says there may be differences in transworld identities that do not supervene on qualitative differences.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.2 n7)
     A reaction: She says later [p,43 n] that it is possible to be a haecceitist without believing in individual haecceities, if (say) the transworld identities had no basis at all. Note that if 'thisness' is 'haecceity', then 'whatness' is 'quiddity'.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / k. Explanations by essence
Locke's kind essences are explanatory, without being necessary to the kind [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: One might speak of 'Lockean real essences' of a natural kind, a set of properties that is basic in the explanation of the other properties of the kind, without commitment to the essence belonging to the kind in all possible worlds.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.1)
     A reaction: I think this may be the most promising account. The essence of a tiger explains what tigers are like, but tigers may evolve into domestic pets. Questions of individuation and of explaining seem to be quite separate.
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 2. Ethical Self
The real subject is ethical, not cognitive [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: The real subject is not the cognitive subject …the real subject is the ethically existing subject.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], p.281), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Subjective'
     A reaction: Perhaps we should say the essence of the self is its drive to live, not its drive to know. Just getting through the day is top priority, and ethics don’t figure much for the solitary person. But each activity, such as cooking, has its virtues.
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 1. Existentialism
While big metaphysics is complete without ethics, personal philosophy emphasises ethics [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: While the Hegelian philosophy goes on and is finished without having an Ethics, the more simple philosophy which is propounded by an existing individual for existing individuals, will more especially emphasis the ethical.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Lessing')
     A reaction: This is reminiscent of the Socratic revolution, which shifted philosophy from the study of nature to the study of personal virtue. However, if we look for ethical teachings in existentialism, there often seems to be a black hole in the middle.
Speculative philosophy loses the individual in a vast vision of humanity [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: Being an individual man is a thing that has been abolished, and every speculative philosopher confuses himself with humanity at large, whereby he becomes infinitely great - and at the same time nothing at all.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Lessing')
     A reaction: Compare Idea 4840. This is a beautiful statement of the motivation for existentialism. The sort of philosophers who love mathematics (Plato, Descartes, Leibniz, Russell) love losing themselves in abstractions. This is the rebellion.
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 6. Authentic Self
People want to lose themselves in movements and history, instead of being individuals [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: Everything must attach itself so as to be part of some movement; men are determined to lose themselves in the totality of things, in world-history, fascinated and deceived by a magic witchery; no one wants to be an individual human being.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846])
     A reaction: [Bk 711] I presume 'world-history' refers to the exhilerating ideas of Hegel. Right now [2017] I would say we have far too much of people only wanting to be individuals, with insufficient attention to our social nature.
Becoming what one is is a huge difficulty, because we strongly aspire to be something else [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: Striving to become what one already is is a very difficult task, the most difficult of all, because every human being has a strong natural bent and passion to become something more and different.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Subjective')
     A reaction: Presumably most people continually drift between vanity and low self-esteem, and between unattainable daydreams and powerless immediate reality. That creates the stage on which Kierkegaard's interesting battle would have to be fought.
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 6. Necessity of Kinds
Maybe the identity of kinds is necessary, but instances being of that kind is not [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: One could be an essentialist about natural kinds (of tigers, or water) while holding that every actual instance or sample of a natural kind is only accidentally an instance or a sample of that kind.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.2)
     A reaction: You wonder, then, in what the necessity of the kind consists, if it is not rooted in the instances, and presumably it could only result from a stipulative definition, and hence be conventional.
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 2. Divine Nature
God does not think or exist; God creates, and is eternal [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: God does not think, He creates; God does not exist, he is eternal.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Thinker')
     A reaction: The sort of nicely challenging remarks we pay philosophers to come up with. I don't understand the second claim, but the first one certainly avoids all paradoxes that arise if God experiences all the intrinsic problems of thinking.
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / d. Religious Experience
God cannot be demonstrated objectively, because God is a subject, only existing inwardly [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: Choosing the objective way enters upon the entire approximation-process by which it is proposed to bring God to light objectively. But this is in all eternity impossible, because God is a subject, and therefore exist only for subjectivity in inwardness.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846])
     A reaction: [pg in 711] This seems to have something like Wittgenstein's problem with a private language - that with no external peer-review it is unclear what the commitment is.
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 2. Pantheism
Pantheism destroys the distinction between good and evil [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: So called pantheistic systems have often been characterised and challenged by the assertion that they abrogate the distinction between good and evil.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Lessing')
     A reaction: He will have Spinoza in mind. Interesting. Obviously this criticism would come from someone who thought that the traditional deity was the only source of goodness. Good/evil isn't all-or-nothing. A monistic system could contain them.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / e. Fideism
Faith is the highest passion in the sphere of human subjectivity [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: Faith is the highest passion in the sphere of human subjectivity.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Subjective')
     A reaction: The word 'highest' should always ring alarm bells. The worst sort of religious fanatics seem to be in the grip of this 'high' passion. The early twenty-first century is an echo of eighteenth century England, with its dislike of religious 'enthusiasm'.
Without risk there is no faith [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: Without risk there is no faith.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Inwardness')
     A reaction: Remarks like this make you realise that Kierkegaard is just as much of a romantic as most of the other nineteenth century philosophers. Plunge into the dark unknown of the human psyche, in order to intensify and heighten human life.