26 ideas
16123 | Whenever you perceive a community of things, you should also hunt out differences in the group [Plato] |
Full Idea: The rule is that when one perceives first the community between the members of a group of many things, one should not desist until one sees in it all those differences that are located in classes. | |
From: Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 285b) | |
A reaction: He goes on to recommend the opposite as well - see community even when there appears to be nothing but differences. I take this to be analysis, just as much as modern linguistic approaches are. Analyse the world, not language. |
4465 | Note that "is" can assert existence, or predication, or identity, or classification [PG] |
Full Idea: There are four uses of the word "is" in English: as existence ('he is at home'), as predication ('he is tall'), as identity ('he is the man I saw'), and as classification ('he is British'). | |
From: PG (Db (ideas) [2031]) | |
A reaction: This seems a nice instance of the sort of point made by analytical philosophy, which can lead to horrible confusion in other breeds of philosophy when it is overlooked. |
15661 | Horkheimer's critical theory was interdisciplinary, and aware of its own context and function [Horkheimer, by Finlayson] |
Full Idea: Horkheimer was chiefly responsible for developing 'critical theory' during the 1930s. ...It was interdisciplinary, reflective, dialectical, and critical. It reflected on the social context that gave rise to it, and its own function within that society. | |
From: report of Max Horkheimer (works [1950]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.1:02 |
16125 | To reveal a nature, divide down, and strip away what it has in common with other things [Plato] |
Full Idea: Let's take the kind posited and cut it in two, .then follow the righthand part of what we've cut, and hold onto things that the sophist is associated with until we strip away everything he has in common with other things, then display his peculiar nature. | |
From: Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 264e) | |
A reaction: This seems to be close to Aristotle's account of definition, when he is trying to get at what-it-is-to-be some thing. But if you strip away everything the definiendum has in common with other things, will anything remain? |
16124 | No one wants to define 'weaving' just for the sake of weaving [Plato] |
Full Idea: I don't suppose that anyone with any sense would want to hunt down the definition of 'weaving' for the sake of weaving itself. | |
From: Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 285d) | |
A reaction: The point seems to be that the definition brings out the connections between weaving and other activities and objects, thus enlarging our understanding. |
4686 | Fallacies are errors in reasoning, 'formal' if a clear rule is breached, and 'informal' if more general [PG] |
Full Idea: Fallacies are errors in reasoning, labelled as 'formal' if a clear rule has been breached, and 'informal' if some less precise error has been made. | |
From: PG (Db (ideas) [2031]) | |
A reaction: Presumably there can be a grey area between the two. |
7415 | Question-begging assumes the proposition which is being challenged [PG] |
Full Idea: To beg the question is to take for granted in your argument that very proposition which is being challenged | |
From: PG (Db (ideas) [2031]) | |
A reaction: An undoubted fallacy, and a simple failure to engage in the rational enterprise. I suppose one might give a reason for something, under the mistaken apprehension that it didn't beg the question; analysis of logical form is then needed. |
7414 | What is true of a set is also true of its members [PG] |
Full Idea: The fallacy of division is the claim that what is true of a set must therefore be true of its members. | |
From: PG (Db (ideas) [2031]) | |
A reaction: Clearly a fallacy, but if you only accept sets which are rational, then there is always a reason why a particular is a member of a set, and you can infer facts about particulars from the nature of the set |
6696 | The Ad Hominem Fallacy criticises the speaker rather than the argument [PG] |
Full Idea: The Ad Hominem Fallacy is to criticise the person proposing an argument rather than the argument itself, as when you say "You would say that", or "Your behaviour contradicts what you just said". | |
From: PG (Db (ideas) [2031]) | |
A reaction: Nietzsche is very keen on ad hominem arguments, and cheerfully insults great philosophers, but then he doesn't believe there is such a thing as 'pure argument', and he is a relativist. |
4687 | Minimal theories of truth avoid ontological commitment to such things as 'facts' or 'reality' [PG] |
Full Idea: Minimalist theories of truth are those which involve minimum ontological commitment, avoiding references to 'reality' or 'facts' or 'what works', preferring to refer to formal relationships within language. | |
From: PG (Db (ideas) [2031]) | |
A reaction: Personally I am suspicious of minimal theories, which seem to be designed by and for anti-realists. They seem too focused on language, when animals can obviously formulate correct propositions. I'm quite happy with the 'facts', even if that is vague. |
6516 | Monty Hall Dilemma: do you abandon your preference after Monty eliminates one of the rivals? [PG] |
Full Idea: The Monty Hall Dilemma: Three boxes, one with a big prize; pick one to open. Monty Hall then opens one of the other two, which is empty. You may, if you wish, switch from your box to the other unopened box. Should you? | |
From: PG (Db (ideas) [2031]) | |
A reaction: The other two boxes, as a pair, are more likely contain the prize than your box. Monty Hall has eliminated one of them for you, so you should choose the other one. Your intuition that the two remaining boxes are equal is incorrect! |
24054 | Everything has a probability, something will happen, and probabilities add up [PG] |
Full Idea: The three Kolgorov axioms of probability: the probability of an event is a non-negative real number; it is certain that one of the 'elementary events' will occur; and the unity of probabilities is the sum of probability of parts ('additivity'). | |
From: PG (Db (ideas) [2031]) | |
A reaction: [My attempt to verbalise them; they are normally expressed in terms of set theory]. Got this from a talk handout, and Wikipedia. |
3875 | If reality is just what we perceive, we would have no need for a sixth sense [PG] |
Full Idea: Reality must be more than merely what we perceive, because a sixth sense would enhance our current knowledge, and a seventh, and so on. | |
From: PG (Db (ideas) [2031]) |
5961 | The soul gets its goodness from god, and its evil from previous existence. [Plato] |
Full Idea: From its composer the soul possesses all beautiful things, but from its former condition, everything that proves to be harsh and unjust in heaven. | |
From: Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 273b) | |
A reaction: A neat move to explain the origins of evil (or rather, to shift the problem of evil to a long long way from here). This view presumably traces back to the views of Empedocles on good and evil. Can the soul acquire evil in its current existence? |
3876 | If my team is losing 3-1, I have synthetic a priori knowledge that they need two goals for a draw [PG] |
Full Idea: If my football team is losing 3-1, I seem to have synthetic a priori knowledge that they need two goals to achieve a draw | |
From: PG (Db (ideas) [2031]) |
7734 | Maybe a mollusc's brain events for pain ARE of the same type (broadly) as a human's [PG] |
Full Idea: To defend type-type identity against the multiple realisability objection, we might say that a molluscs's brain events that register pain ARE of the same type as humans, given that being 'of the same type' is a fairly flexible concept. | |
From: PG (Db (ideas) [2031]) | |
A reaction: But this reduces 'of the same type' to such vagueness that it may become vacuous. You would be left with token-token identity, where the mental event is just identical to some brain event, with its 'type' being irrelevant. |
7735 | Maybe a frog's brain events for fear are functionally like ours, but not phenomenally [PG] |
Full Idea: To defend type-type identity against the multiple realisability objection, we might (also) say that while a frog's brain events for fear are functionally identical to a human's (it runs away), that doesn't mean they are phenomenally identical. | |
From: PG (Db (ideas) [2031]) | |
A reaction: I take this to be the key reply to the multiple realisability problem. If a frog flees from a loud noise, it is 'frightened' in a functional sense, but that still leaves the question 'What's it like to be a frightened frog?', which may differ from humans. |
283 | The question of whether or not to persuade comes before the science of persuasion [Plato] |
Full Idea: The science of whether one must persuade or not must rule over the science capable of persuading. | |
From: Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 304c) | |
A reaction: Plato probably thinks that reason has to be top of the pyramid, but there is always the Nietzschean/romantic question of why we should place such a value on what is rational. |
282 | Non-physical beauty can only be shown clearly by speech [Plato] |
Full Idea: The bodiless things, being the most beautiful and the greatest, are only shown with clarity by speech and nothing else. | |
From: Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 286a) | |
A reaction: Unfortunately this will be true of warped and ugly ideas as well. |
281 | The arts produce good and beautiful things by preserving the mean [Plato] |
Full Idea: It is by preserving the mean that arts produce everything that is good and beautiful. | |
From: Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 284b) |
3877 | Utilitarianism seems to justify the discreet murder of unhappy people [PG] |
Full Idea: If I discreetly murdered a gloomy and solitary tramp who was upsetting people in my village, if is hard to see how utilitarianism could demonstrate that I had done something wrong. | |
From: PG (Db (ideas) [2031]) |
22559 | Democracy is the worst of good constitutions, but the best of bad constitutions [Plato, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Plato judged that when the constitution is decent, democracy is the worst of them, but when they are bad it is the best. | |
From: report of Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 302e) by Aristotle - Politics 1289b07 | |
A reaction: Aristotle denies that a good oligarchy is superior. What of technocracy? The challenge is to set up institutions which ensure the health of the democracy. The big modern problem is populists who lie. |
6126 | Life is Movement, Respiration, Sensation, Nutrition, Excretion, Reproduction, Growth (MRS NERG) [PG] |
Full Idea: The biologists' acronym for the necessary conditions of life is MRS NERG: that is, Movement, Respiration, Sensation, Nutrition, Excretion, Reproduction, Growth. | |
From: PG (Db (ideas) [2031]) | |
A reaction: How strictly necessary are each of these is a point for discussion. A notorious problem case is fire, which (at a stretch) may pass all seven tests. |
279 | Only divine things can always stay the same, and bodies are not like that [Plato] |
Full Idea: It is fitting for only the most divine things of all to be always the same and in the same state and in the same respects, and the nature of body is not of this ordering. | |
From: Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 269b) |
3873 | An omniscient being couldn't know it was omniscient, as that requires information from beyond its scope of knowledge [PG] |
Full Idea: God seems to be in the paradoxical situation that He may be omniscient, but can never know that He is, because that involves knowing that there is nothing outside his scope of knowledge (e.g. another God) | |
From: PG (Db (ideas) [2031]) |
3874 | How could God know there wasn't an unknown force controlling his 'free' will? [PG] |
Full Idea: How could God be certain that he has free will (if He has), if He couldn't be sure that there wasn't an unknown force controlling his will? | |
From: PG (Db (ideas) [2031]) |