82 ideas
| 24146 | All the major problems were formulated before Socrates [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: All the major problems were formulated before Socrates. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 26[064]) | |
| A reaction: So much for it all being 'footnotes to Plato'! Nietzsche's lectures on the pre-Socratics are in print. Given how little survives, this idea is surprising. Nietzsche knew enough to infer a lot of what is lost. |
| 24142 | What matters is how humans can be developed [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: What can be made out of humans: this is what matters to superior human beings. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[435]) | |
| A reaction: That seems to sum up the main aim of Nietzsche's philosophy. What would we then do if the aim was somehow achieved? Does he seriously think that one magnificent ubermensch could achieve this aim? |
| 24143 | Thinkers might agree some provisional truths, as methodological assumptions [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: It is sufficient if we [thinkers] come to agree about a totality of methodological presuppositions - about 'provisional truths' that we want to use as a guideline for our work. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[449]) | |
| A reaction: Descartes attempted this. Maybe Frege is another attempt. Husserl, perhaps? Parmenides? Hume? Lewis? It is hard to imagine Nietzsche joining in a professional consensus! He has just rejected systems. |
| 2056 | Philosophers are always switching direction to something more interesting [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers are always ready to change direction, if a topic crops up which is more attractive than the one to hand. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 172d) | |
| A reaction: Which sounds trivial, but it may be what God does. |
| 24125 | Aristotle enjoyed the sham generalities of a system, as the peak of happiness! [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle probably had his best moments when he coldly and clearly (and joyfully) enjoyed the sensual sham of the highest generalities. To perceive the world as a system, and as the pinnacle of human happiness: how the schematic mind betrays itself then! | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[017]) | |
| A reaction: Painful, this. One of my heroes laughing at the other one. I love systems, and love John Richardson's suggestion that Nietzsche was very systematice, despite his protestations. |
| 2086 | Understanding mainly involves knowing the elements, not their combinations [Plato] |
| Full Idea: A perfect grasp of any subject depends far more on knowing elements than on knowing complexes. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 206b) |
| 2083 | Either a syllable is its letters (making parts as knowable as whole) or it isn't (meaning it has no parts) [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Either a syllable is not the same as its letters, in which case it cannot have the letters as parts of itself, or it is the same as its letters, in which case these basic elements are just as knowable as it is. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 205b) |
| 3123 | Science is in the business of carving nature at the joints [Segal] |
| Full Idea: Science is in the business of carving nature at the joints. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 5) |
| 24147 | Thoughts are uncertain, and are just occasions for interpretation [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: A thought is not taken to be immediately certain, but rather a sign, a question mark. That each thought is initially ambiguous and fluctuating, and is in itself only an occasion for multiple interpretations …is experienced by every deep observer. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 26[092]) | |
| A reaction: This idea makes me a little more sympathetic to the hermeneutic view of philosophy, as endless interpretations. I assumed it only referred to texts. A thought is not a done deal, but an occasion for further thought. He says the same of feelings. |
| 2082 | A rational account is essentially a weaving together of things with names [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Just as primary elements are woven together, so their names may be woven together to produce a spoken account, because an account is essentially a weaving together of names. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 202b) | |
| A reaction: If justification requires 'logos', and logos is a 'weaving together of names', then Plato might be taken as endorsing the coherence account of justification. Or do the two 'weavings' correspond? |
| 3125 | Psychology studies the way rationality links desires and beliefs to causality [Segal] |
| Full Idea: A person's desires and beliefs tend to cause what they tend to rationalise. This coordination of causality and rationalisation lies at the heart of psychology. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 5.3) |
| 2052 | Eristic discussion is aggressive, but dialectic aims to help one's companions in discussion [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Eristic discussions involve as many tricks and traps as possible, but dialectical discussions involve being serious and correcting the interlocutor's mistakes only when they are his own fault or the result of past conditioning. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 167e) |
| 15854 | A primary element has only a name, and no logos, but complexes have an account, by weaving the names [Plato] |
| Full Idea: A primary element cannot be expressed in an account; it can only be named, for a name is all that it has. But with the things composed of these ...just as the elements are woven together, so the names can woven to become an account. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 202b01-3) | |
| A reaction: This is the beginning of what I see as Aristotle's metaphysics, as derived from his epistemology, that is, ontology is what explains, and what we can give an account [logos] of. Aristotle treats this under 'definitions'. |
| 24137 | Mathematics is just accurate inferences from definitions, and doesn't involve objects [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Mathematics contains axioms (definitions) and conclusions from definitions. Its objects do not exist. The truth of its conclusions rests on the accuracy of logical thought. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[307]) | |
| A reaction: Not suprising to find Nietzsche defying platonism. This is evidence that he was a systematic philosopher, who knew mathematics could be a challenge to his naturalism. |
| 10216 | We master arithmetic by knowing all the numbers in our soul [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It must surely be true that a man who has completely mastered arithmetic knows all numbers? Because there are pieces of knowledge covering all numbers in his soul. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 198b) | |
| A reaction: This clearly views numbers as objects. Expectation of knowing them all is a bit startling! They also appear to be innate in us, and hence they appear to be Forms. See Aristotle's comment in Idea 645. |
| 24131 | There is no 'being'; it is just the opposition to nothingness [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: 'Being' is unprovable, because there is no 'being'. The concept of being is formed out of the opposition to 'nothingness'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[185]) | |
| A reaction: Presumably a comment on Hegel's most basic idea. I find both thoughts bewildering. 'Being' is just a generalised (and unhelpful) way of referring to the self-evident existence of stuff. |
| 2060 | There seem to be two sorts of change: alteration and motion [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There are two kinds of change, I think: alteration and motion. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 181d) |
| 24151 | I only want thinking that is anchored in body, senses and earth [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I am not interested …in ways of thinking that are not anchored in the body and the senses and in the earth. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 26[352]) | |
| A reaction: Exhibit A for Nietzsche as Naturalist. Indeed, this could be a manifesto for the whole school. I totally and completely and utterly agree with Nietzsche's assertion!. I see the 'anchor' as two-way: thought connects to earth, and thought arises from it. |
| 2084 | If a word has no parts and has a single identity, it turns out to be the same kind of thing as a letter [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If a complex or a syllable has no parts and is a single identity, hasn't it turned out to be the same kind of thing as an element or letter? | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 205d) |
| 15844 | A sum is that from which nothing is lacking, which is a whole [Plato] |
| Full Idea: But this sum now - isn't it just when there is nothing lacking that it is a sum? Yes, necessarily. And won't this very same thing - that from which nothing is lacking - be a whole? | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 205a) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be right, be rather too vague and potentially circular to be of much use. What is the criterion for deciding that nothing is lacking? |
| 15843 | The whole can't be the parts, because it would be all of the parts, which is the whole [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The whole does not consist of parts; for it did, it would be all the parts and so would be the sum. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 204e) | |
| A reaction: That is, 'the whole is the sum of its parts' is a tautology! The claim that 'the whole is more than the sum of its parts' gets into similar trouble. See Verity Harte on this. |
| 3105 | Is 'Hesperus = Phosphorus' metaphysically necessary, but not logically or epistemologically necessary? [Segal] |
| Full Idea: It is metaphysically necessary that Hesperus is Phosphorus, but not logically necessary, since logical deduction could not reveal its truth, and it is not epistemologically necessary, as the ancient Greeks didn't know the identity. (Natural necessity?) | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 1.6) |
| 3106 | If claims of metaphysical necessity are based on conceivability, we should be cautious [Segal] |
| Full Idea: Since conceivability is the chief method of assessing the claims of metaphysical necessity, I think such claims are incautious. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 1.6) |
| 2080 | Things are only knowable if a rational account (logos) is possible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Things which are susceptible to a rational account are knowable. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 201d) |
| 16126 | Expertise is knowledge of the whole by means of the parts [Plato] |
| Full Idea: A man has passed from mere judgment to expert knowledge of the being of a wagon when he has done so in virtue of having gone over the whole by means of the elements. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 207c) | |
| A reaction: Plato is emphasising that the expert must know the hundred parts of a wagon, and not just the half dozen main components, but here the point is to go over the whole via the parts, and not just list the parts. |
| 24150 | We can only understand through concepts, which subsume particulars in generalities [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We have only one form of understanding - concept, the more general case that subsumes the particular case. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 26[156]) | |
| A reaction: This is precisely Aristotle's problem with scientific explanation - that we aim to understand each particular, but accounts and definitions have to be expressed with universals. |
| 2050 | It is impossible to believe something which is held to be false [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible to believe something which is not the case. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 167a) |
| 2076 | How can a belief exist if its object doesn't exist? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If the object of a belief is what is not, the object of this belief is nothing; but if there is no object to a belief, then that is not belief at all. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 189a) |
| 24138 | Strongly believed a priori is not certain; it may just be a feature of our existence [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: What we believe the most, everything a priori, is not for that reason more certain, just because it is so strongly believed. Rather, it is perhaps a consequence of the condition for the existence of our species. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[307]) | |
| A reaction: This is in defiance of Leibniz and Kant. His proposed explanation is not very convincing. Russell agreed with Nietzsche. |
| 2045 | Perception is infallible, suggesting that it is knowledge [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Perception is always of something that is, and it is infallible, which suggests that it is knowledge. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 152c) |
| 2067 | Our senses could have been separate, but they converge on one mind [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It would be peculiar if each of us were like a Trojan horse, with a whole bunch of senses sitting inside us, rather than that all these perceptions converge onto a single identity (mind, or whatever one ought to call it). | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 184d) |
| 24130 | An affirmative belief is present in every basic sense impression [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Belief is already present in every sense impression going back to the very moment it begins: a kind of Yes-saying first intellectual activity! | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[168]) | |
| A reaction: He seems right that there is an intrinsic commitment to believing sense impressions, even in animals. Presumably more of a default setting than an intellectual choice. |
| 2068 | With what physical faculty do we perceive pairs of opposed abstract qualities? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: With what physical faculty do we perceive being and not-being, similarity and dissimilarity, identity and difference, oneness and many, odd and even and other maths, ….fineness and goodness? | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 185d) |
| 2078 | You might mistake eleven for twelve in your senses, but not in your mind [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Sight or touch might make someone take eleven for twelve, but he could never form this mistaken belief about the contents of his mind. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 195e) |
| 2069 | Thought must grasp being itself before truth becomes possible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If you can't apprehend being you can't apprehend truth, and so a thing could not be known. Therefore knowledge is not located in immediate experience but in thinking about it, since the latter makes it possible to grasp being and truth. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 186c) |
| 2089 | An inadequate rational account would still not justify knowledge [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If you don't know which letters belong together in the right syllables…it is possible for true belief to be accompanied by a rational account and still not be entitled to the name of knowledge. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 208b) | |
| A reaction: In each case of justification there is a 'clinching' stage, for which there is never going to be a strict rule. It might be foundational, but equally it might be massive coherence, or no alternative. |
| 2085 | Parts and wholes are either equally knowable or equally unknowable [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Either a syllable and its letters are equally knowable and expressible in a rational account, or they are both equally unknowable and inexpressible. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 205e) | |
| A reaction: Presumably you could explain the syllable by the letters, but not vice versa, but he must mean that the explanation is worthless without the letters being explained too. So all explanation is worthless? |
| 2091 | Without distinguishing marks, how do I know what my beliefs are about? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If I only have beliefs about Theaetetus when I don't know his distinguishing mark, how on earth were my beliefs about you rather than anyone else? | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 209b) | |
| A reaction: This is a rather intellectualist approach to mental activity. Presumably Theaetetus has lots of distinguishing marks, but they are not conscious. Must Socrates know everything? |
| 2087 | A rational account might be seeing an image of one's belief, like a reflection in a mirror [Plato] |
| Full Idea: A rational account might be forming an image of one's belief, as in a mirror or a pond. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 206d) | |
| A reaction: Not promising, since the image is not going to be clearer than the original, or contain any new information. Maybe it would be clarified by being 'framed', instead of drifting in muddle. |
| 2090 | A rational account involves giving an image, or analysis, or giving a differentiating mark [Plato] |
| Full Idea: A third sort of rational account (after giving an image, or analysing elements) is being able to mention some mark which differentiates the object in question ('the sun is the brightest heavenly body'). | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 208c) | |
| A reaction: This is Plato's clearest statement of what would be involved in adding the necessary logos to your true belief. An image of it, or an analysis, or an individuation. How about a cause? |
| 2081 | Maybe primary elements can be named, but not receive a rational account [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Maybe the primary elements of which things are composed are not susceptible to rational accounts. Each of them taken by itself can only be named, but nothing further can be said about it. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 201e) | |
| A reaction: This still seems to be more or less the central issue in philosophy - which things should be treated as 'primitive', and which other things are analysed and explained using the primitive tools? |
| 2088 | A rational account of a wagon would mean knowledge of its hundred parts [Plato] |
| Full Idea: In the case of a wagon, we may only have correct belief, but someone who is able to explain what it is by going through its hundred parts has got hold of a rational account. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 207b) | |
| A reaction: A wonderful example. In science, you know smoking correlates with cancer, but you only know it when you know the mechanism, the causal structure. This may be a general truth. |
| 2047 | What evidence can be brought to show whether we are dreaming or not? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: What evidence could be brought if we were asked at this very moment whether we are asleep and are dreaming all our thoughts? | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 158b) |
| 24124 | We now have innumerable perspectives to draw on [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We have been granted perspectives in all directions, broader than any humans have ever been granted, everywhere we look there is no end in sight. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[013]) | |
| A reaction: Clearly perspectivism is not the simple relativism of being trapped in our own private perspective. What strikes me as missing from Nietzsche's brief thoughts is the question of consensus, and even rational and objective consensus. |
| 2053 | If you claim that all beliefs are true, that includes beliefs opposed to your own [Plato] |
| Full Idea: To say that everyone believes what is the case, is to concede the truth of the oppositions' beliefs; in other words, the person has to concede that he himself is wrong. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 171a) |
| 2059 | How can a relativist form opinions about what will happen in the future? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Does a relativist have any authority to decide about things which will happen in the future? | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 178c) | |
| A reaction: Nice question! It seems commonsense that such speculations are possible, but without a concept of truth they are ridiculous. |
| 2054 | Clearly some people are superior to others when it comes to medicine [Plato] |
| Full Idea: In medicine, at least, most people are not self-sufficient at prescribing and effecting cures for themselves, and here some people are superior to others. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 171e) |
| 3113 | The success and virtue of an explanation do not guarantee its truth [Segal] |
| Full Idea: The success and virtue of an explanation do not guarantee its truth. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.2) |
| 24145 | Mind is a mechanism of abstraction and simplification, aimed at control [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The entire cognitive mechanism is a mechanism of abstraction and simplification - not aimed at knowing, but taking control of things. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 26[061]) | |
| A reaction: It is my view that we can explain our metaphysics in this way, though I am more realist than Nietzsche, because I think the world has created these capacities within us, so they fit the world. To control, you must know. |
| 24144 | A cognitive mechanism wanting to know itself is absurd! [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: A cognitive mechanism that wants to know itself!! We definitely should have moved beyond this absurd goal! (The stomach that consumes itself! -) | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 26[018]) | |
| A reaction: We see his point, but Nietzsche learns a huge amount about himself by introspection. To know the Self is a cat chasing its tail. I don't have to leave England to study England. |
| 24139 | A 'person' is just one possible abstraction from a bundle of qualities [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Individuals contain many more persons than they think. 'Person' is merely a point of emphasis, synopsis of characteristics and qualities | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[363]) | |
| A reaction: He makes similar remarks abour character. For Locke 'person'' is a forensic and legal concept, and so must be enduring and unique. |
| 24133 | I have perfected fatalism, as recurrence and denial of the will [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I have perfected fatalism, through eternal recurrence and preexistence, and through the elimination of the concept 'will'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[214]) | |
| A reaction: 'Amor fati' - love of fate - was his oft repeated slogan. We can all understand 'go with the flow', but I'm not sure about anything more universal than that. |
| 24152 | Fate is inspiring, if you understand you are part of it [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Fate is an inspiring thought for those who understand that they are part of it. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 26[442]) | |
| A reaction: Sounds a bit like the Niagara Falls being inspiring if you are being swept over it. I find the possibility of fatalism neutral, rather than inspiring. |
| 3112 | Folk psychology is ridiculously dualist in its assumptions [Segal] |
| Full Idea: Commonsense psychology is a powerful explanatory theory, and largely correct, but it seems to be profoundly dualist, and treats minds as immaterial spirits which can transmigrate and exist disembodied. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: Fans of folk psychology tend to focus on central normal experience, but folk psychology also seems to range from quirky to barking mad. A 'premonition' is a widely accepted mental event. |
| 3108 | If 'water' has narrow content, it refers to both H2O and XYZ [Segal] |
| Full Idea: My view is that the concepts of both the Earth person and the Twin Earth person refer to BOTH forms of diamonds or water (H2O and XYZ). | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 1.7) | |
| A reaction: Fair enough, though that seems to imply that my current concepts may actually refer to all sorts of items of which I am currently unaware. But that may be so. |
| 3110 | Humans are made of H2O, so 'twins' aren't actually feasible [Segal] |
| Full Idea: Humans are largely made of H2O, so there could be no twin on Twin Earth, and (as Kuhn noted) nothing with a significantly different structure from H2O could be macroscopically very like water (but topaz and citrine will do). | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: A small point, but one that appeals to essentialists like me (see under Natural Theory/Laws of Nature). We can't learn much metaphysics from impossible examples. |
| 3124 | Externalists can't assume old words refer to modern natural kinds [Segal] |
| Full Idea: The question of what a pre-scientific term extends over is extremely difficult for a Putnam-style externalist to answer. …There seems no good reason to assume that they extend over natural kinds ('whale', 'cat', 'water'). | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: The assumption seems to be that they used to extend over descriptions, and now they extend over essences, or expert references. This can't be right. They have never changed, but now contain fewer errors. |
| 3117 | Concepts can survive a big change in extension [Segal] |
| Full Idea: We need to think of concepts as organic entities that can persist through changes of extension. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: This would be 'organic' in the sense of modifying and growing. This is exactly right, and the interesting problem becomes the extreme cases, where an individual stretches a concept a long way. |
| 3104 | Must we relate to some diamonds to understand them? [Segal] |
| Full Idea: Is a relationship with diamonds necessary for having a concept of diamonds? | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: Probably not, given that I have a concept of kryptonite, and that I can invent my own concepts. Suppose I was brought up to believe that diamonds are a myth? |
| 3103 | Maybe content involves relations to a language community [Segal] |
| Full Idea: It has been argued (e.g. by Tyler Burge) that certain relations to other language users are determinants of content. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: Burge's idea (with Wittgenstein behind him) strikes me as plausible (more plausible than water and elms determining the content). Our concepts actually shift during conversations. |
| 3111 | Externalism can't explain concepts that have no reference [Segal] |
| Full Idea: Empty terms and concepts provide the largest problem for the externalist thesis of the world dependence of concepts. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: A speculative concept could then become a reality (e.g. an invention). The solution seems to be to say that there is an internal and an external component to most concepts. |
| 3109 | If content is external, so are beliefs and desires [Segal] |
| Full Idea: If we accept Putnam's externalist conclusion about the meaning of a word, it is a short step to a similar conclusion about the contents of the twins' beliefs, desires and so on. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: This is the key step which has launched a whole new externalist view of the nature of the mind. It is one thing to say that I don't quite know what my words mean, another that I don't know my own beliefs. |
| 3116 | Maybe experts fix content, not ordinary users [Segal] |
| Full Idea: Putnam and Burge claim that there could be two words that a misinformed subject uses to express different concepts, but that express just one concept of the experts. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: This pushes the concept outside the mind of the user, which leaves an ontological problem of what concepts are made of, how you individuate them, and where they are located. |
| 3121 | If content is narrow, my perfect twin shares my concepts [Segal] |
| Full Idea: To say that contents of my belief are narrow is to say that they are intrinsic to me, hence that any perfect twin of mine would have beliefs with the same contents. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 5) | |
| A reaction: I personally find this more congenial than externalism. If my twin and I studied chemistry, we would reach identical conclusions about water, as long as we remained perfect twins. |
| 3118 | If thoughts ARE causal, we can't explain how they cause things [Segal] |
| Full Idea: If we identify a psychological property with its causal role then we lose the obvious explanation of why the event has the causal role that it has. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: This pinpoints very nicely one of the biggest errors in modern philosophy. There are good naturalistic reasons to reduce everything to causal role, but there is a deeper layer. Essences! |
| 3119 | Even 'mass' cannot be defined in causal terms [Segal] |
| Full Idea: We can't define mass in terms of its causal powers because massive objects do different things in different physical systems. …What an object (or concept) with a given property does depends on what it interacts with. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: This leaves an epistemological problem, that we believe in mass, but can only get at it within a particular gravitational or inertial system. Don't give up on ontology at this point. |
| 24129 | We start with images, then words, and then concepts, to which emotions attach [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Images first, the words applied to images. Finally concepts, not possible until there are words a summary of many images. When see similar images for which there is one word - this weak emotion is the common element, the foundation of the concept. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[168]) | |
| A reaction: Unusual to have an account of the origin of concepts in 1884. His theory entails that animals can't have concepts, but presumably they can combine images, and hence recognise things. I think he is wrong, but interestng. Mental files. |
| 24127 | Judging actions by intentions - like judging painters by their thoughts! [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: To judge people by intentions! That would be like classifying artists, not according to their paintings, but according to their visions! | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[119]) | |
| A reaction: What is wrong is to judge an action by any simple single principle. Our nuanced attitude to excuses shows the true complexity of it. 'I didn't mean to do that'. |
| 24149 | Values need a perspective, of preserving some aspect of life [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: All value judgements involve a particular perspective: preservation of the individual, a community, a race, a state, a church, a belief, a culture. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 26[119]) | |
| A reaction: This chimes in with my Aristotelian view of value, as arising out of the thing valued, rather than descending on it from outside. I think more than mere 'preservaation' is at stake. Fostering, cherishing. |
| 24148 | If you love something, it is connected with everything, so all must be affirmed as good [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: To appreciate and love anything, I must understand it as absolutely necessarily connected with everything that is - therefore I must affirm the goodness of all existence for its own sake. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 26[117]) | |
| A reaction: For those of you out there imagining that Nietzsche was a nihilist…… It's a plausible idea. You could hardly love your dog, but hate the whole universe. A true misanthrope would struggle to love one exceptional person. |
| 24135 | Egoism should not assume that all egos are equal [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Egoism! But no one has ever asked: what kind of ego! Instead, every person automatically assumes that the ego of every ego is equal. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[287]) | |
| A reaction: This is his first step in his defence of some form of egoism. Presumably 'higher' people should be egoists, and the rest should join the herd. |
| 24132 | After Socrates virtue is misunderstood, as good for all, not for individuals [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: From Socrates onwards arete [virtue] is misunderstood - first it had to reestablish itself over and over, and yet it did not want to do this on an individual basis! But rather tyrannically 'good for all!'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[208]) | |
| A reaction: Why not both? The virtues of a good citizen can't be private, but we are all allowed to develop virtues that concern us alone. |
| 24126 | We contain multitudes of characters, which can brought into the open [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: There is a multitude of characters hidden within each one of us: and attempts should be made to allow some of them to appear. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[021]) | |
| A reaction: So character is not fate, contrary to Heraclitus (his hero). We are more inclined now to see varied characters as social roles (as in Irving Goffman). This idea challenges it, with our intrinsic nature containing variety. |
| 24136 | Who can endure the thought of eternal recurrence? [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I conduct the great test: who will endure the thought of eternal recurrence? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[290]) | |
| A reaction: He sometimes talks as if eternal recurrence were a cosmic fact, but we should definitely ignore that. This idea captures his idea best, I think - that we should try to live with the prospect of recurrence always in mind. A type of existentialism. |
| 24154 | If you want one experience repeated, you must want all of them [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Whoever wants to have a single experience again must want all of them again. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 29[054]) | |
| A reaction: Nehemas says this is the main factual commitment of eternal recurrence (and certainly not that global recurrence actually occurs). It might be expressed in terms of possible worlds. We yearn for recurrence, then dread it? |
| 24153 | Humans are determined by community, so its preservation is their most valued drive [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: If a community is what absolutely determines the nature of humans, then the drive that allows the community to be preserved will be most forcefully developed in them. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 27[030]) | |
| A reaction: Nietzsche was a loner, who despised 'the herd' and its dull 'good and evil', but humans are obviously social creatures, who need to raise families, so it seems perverse to despise the values this requires. Note the Marxist view of human nature. |
| 24134 | There is always slavery, whether we like it or not [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: In truth there is always slavery - whether you want it or not; e.g. Prussian officials. Scholars. Monks. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[225]) | |
| A reaction: Not very persuasive examples. Monks are free to join and to leave. Maybe a lot of marriages are close to slavery for one side (usually the woman). Strict slavery has almost ceased in western civilisation (I think!). Nietzsche saw 'the herd' as slaves. |
| 24128 | After history following God, or a people, or an idea, we now see it in terms of animals [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Earlier we sought God's intentions in history: then an unconscious purposefulness, in a people or an idea. Only recently are we considering the history of animals, and the first insight is that no plan has so far existed. Coincidences have been dominant. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[127]) | |
| A reaction: Not a Whig historian then! Presumably Hegel is his main target. In 2024 there is a definite feeling that western democracies are regressing. |
| 24140 | Cause and effect is a hypothesis, based on our supposed willing of actions [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Cause and effect is not a truth but rather a hypothesis - and indeed the one which we use to anthropomorphise the world for ourselves, bringing it in closer proximity to our feelings ('willing' is projected into it). | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[371]) | |
| A reaction: That is (I think), we read the gap between thought and action onto natural external events, dividing them up. We treat the flow of events as if they were agent causation. Modern theories seem close to Nietzsche's unified view. |
| 24141 | Having a sense of time presupposes absolute time [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Our derivation of the sense of time etc. still presupposes time as absolute. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[406]) | |
| A reaction: 'Etc.'? I suppose this is meant to pre-empt whatever Bergson might have been planning to say. The idea that time actually is subjective strikes as very wrong. Whether physicists can reduce time to something else is above my pay scale. |
| 2058 | God must be the epitome of goodness, and we can only approach a divine state by being as good as possible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible for God to be immoral and not to be the acme of morality; and the only way any of us can approximate to God is to become as moral as possible. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 176c) |
| 2057 | There must always be some force of evil ranged against good [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The elimination of evil is impossible, Theodorus; there must always be some force ranged against good. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 176a) |