28 ideas
7578 | 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'. |
22047 | 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. |
22092 | 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. |
15999 | 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] |
18369 | There are at least fourteen candidates for truth-bearers [Kirkham] |
Full Idea: Among the candidates [for truthbearers] are beliefs, propositions, judgments, assertions, statements, theories, remarks, ideas, acts of thought, utterances, sentence tokens, sentence types, sentences (unspecified), and speech acts. | |
From: Richard L. Kirkham (Theories of Truth: a Critical Introduction [1992], 2.3) | |
A reaction: I vote for propositions, but only in the sense of the thoughts underlying language, not the Russellian things which are supposed to exist independently from thinkers. |
20313 | 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. |
19318 | A 'sequence' of objects is an order set of them [Kirkham] |
Full Idea: A 'sequence' of objects is like a set of objects, except that, unlike a set, the order of the objects is important when dealing with sequences. ...An infinite sequence satisfies 'x2 is purple' if and only if the second member of the sequence is purple. | |
From: Richard L. Kirkham (Theories of Truth: a Critical Introduction [1992], 5.4) | |
A reaction: This explains why Tarski needed set theory in his metalanguage. |
19319 | If one sequence satisfies a sentence, they all do [Kirkham] |
Full Idea: If one sequence satisfies a sentence, they all do. ...Thus it matters not whether we define truth as satisfaction by some sequence or as satisfaction by all sequences. | |
From: Richard L. Kirkham (Theories of Truth: a Critical Introduction [1992], 5.4) | |
A reaction: So if the striker scores a goal, the team has scored a goal. |
19320 | If we define truth by listing the satisfactions, the supply of predicates must be finite [Kirkham] |
Full Idea: Because the definition of satisfaction must have a separate clause for each predicate, Tarski's method only works for languages with a finite number of predicates, ...but natural languages have an infinite number of predicates. | |
From: Richard L. Kirkham (Theories of Truth: a Critical Introduction [1992], 5.5) | |
A reaction: He suggest predicates containing natural numbers, as examples of infinite predicates. Davidson tried to extend the theory to natural languages, by (I think) applying it to adverbs, which could generate the infinite predicates. Maths has finite predicates. |
17884 | 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) |
17893 | '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) |
19315 | In quantified language the components of complex sentences may not be sentences [Kirkham] |
Full Idea: In a quantified language it is possible to build new sentences by combining two expressions neither of which is itself a sentence. | |
From: Richard L. Kirkham (Theories of Truth: a Critical Introduction [1992], 5.4) | |
A reaction: In propositional logic the components are other sentences, so the truth value can be given by their separate truth-values, through truth tables. Kirkham is explaining the task which Tarski faced. Truth-values are not just compositional. |
19317 | An open sentence is satisfied if the object possess that property [Kirkham] |
Full Idea: An object satisfies an open sentence if and only if it possesses the property expressed by the predicate of the open sentence. | |
From: Richard L. Kirkham (Theories of Truth: a Critical Introduction [1992], 5.4) | |
A reaction: This applies to atomic sentence, of the form Fx or Fa (that is, some variable is F, or some object is F). So strictly, only the world can decide whether some open sentence is satisfied. And it all depends on things called 'properties'. |
17894 | 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) |
17890 | 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] |
17887 | 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. |
17891 | 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) |
19322 | Why can there not be disjunctive, conditional and negative facts? [Kirkham] |
Full Idea: It has been said that there are no disjunctive facts, conditional facts, or negative facts. ...but it is not at all clear why there cannot be facts of this sort. | |
From: Richard L. Kirkham (Theories of Truth: a Critical Introduction [1992], 5.6) | |
A reaction: I love these sorts of facts, and offer them as a naturalistic basis for logic. You probably need the world to have modal features, but I have those in the form of powers and dispositions. |
20742 | 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. |
7579 | 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. |
7581 | 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. |
20314 | 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. |
7582 | 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. |
7586 | 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. |
20312 | 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. |
7580 | 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. |
7583 | 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'. |
7584 | 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. |