4 ideas
10486 | If we are rebuilding our ship at sea, we should jettison some cargo [Boolos on Neurath] |
Full Idea: If we are sailors rebuilding our ship plank by plank on the open sea, then I know of some cargo we might want to jettison. | |
From: comment on Otto Neurath (Protocol Sentences [1932]) by George Boolos - Must We Believe in Set Theory? p.128 | |
A reaction: This may just be an assertion of Ockham's Razor, but the interest is that the Neurath image demands internal standards of economy etc, whereas reality itself seems to be a right mess. |
8485 | We must always rebuild our ship on the open sea; we can't reconstruct it properly in dry-dock [Neurath] |
Full Idea: We are like sailors who must rebuild their ship out on the open sea, never able to dismantle it in a dry-dock and reconstruct it there out of the best materials. | |
From: Otto Neurath (Protocol Sentences [1932]), quoted by Alex Orenstein - W.V. Quine Ch.8 | |
A reaction: This is the classic statement of the anti-foundationalist picture of knowledge. It is often quoted by Quine. A tricky issue. I have a lot of sympathy with Bonjour's rationalist foundationalism. |
19698 | Deviant causal chain: a reason causes an action, but isn't the reason for which it was performed [Davidson, by Neta] |
Full Idea: A 'deviant causal chain' is when an agent has a reason for performing an action, and for the reason to cause the performance, without that being the reason for which the agent performed it. | |
From: report of Donald Davidson (Freedom to Act [1973]) by Ram Neta - The Basing Relation II | |
A reaction: Davidson's thesis is that 'reasons are causes'. This was a problem he faced. I think this discussion is now obscured by the complex and multi-layered account of action which is emerging from neuroscience. |
6017 | Nomos is king [Pindar] |
Full Idea: Nomos is king. | |
From: Pindar (poems [c.478 BCE], S 169), quoted by Thomas Nagel - The Philosophical Culture | |
A reaction: This seems to be the earliest recorded shot in the nomos-physis wars (the debate among sophists about moral relativism). It sounds as if it carries the full relativist burden - that all that matters is what has been locally decreed. |