4 ideas
6171 | Beliefs are states of the head that explain behaviour, and also items with referential truth-conditions [McGinn] |
Full Idea: We view beliefs both as states of the head explanatory of behaviour, and as items possessed of referential truth-conditions. | |
From: Colin McGinn (The Structure of Content [1982]), quoted by Mark Rowlands - Externalism Ch.6 | |
A reaction: McGinn wants to build a two-part account of meaning on this point, which Rowlands resists. Hume just wanted to define belief by a feeling, but it seems obvious that truth must also be involved. |
22474 | Unlike aesthetic evaluation, moral evaluation needs a concept of responsibility [Foot] |
Full Idea: Moral, as opposed to aesthetic, evaluation does require some distinction between actions for which we are responsible and those for which we are not responsible. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Nietzsche's Immoralism [1991], p.154) | |
A reaction: It is hard to disagree with this, but difficult to give a precise account of responsibility, probably because it is not an all-or-nothing matter. If we accept responsibility for our controlled actions, why not for our considered aesthetic judgements? |
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. |
22472 | The practice of justice may well need a recognition of human equality [Foot] |
Full Idea: I wonder whether the practice of justice may not absolutely require a certain recognition of equality between human beings, not a pretence of the equality of talents, but something deeper. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Nietzsche's Immoralism [1991], p.152) | |
A reaction: {My 'something deeper' is expressed by Foot in a quotation from Gertrude Stein]. This may well be the most fundamental division which runs across a society - between those who accept and those reject human equality. |