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All the ideas for 'Parmenides', 'Truth and the Past' and 'Our Knowledge of the External World'

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68 ideas

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 1. Nature of Wisdom
A sense of timelessness is essential to wisdom [Russell]
     Full Idea: Both in thought and in feeling, to realize the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 6)
     A reaction: A very rationalist and un-Heraclitean view of wisdom. This picture may give wisdom a bad name, if wise people are (at a minimum) at least expected to give good advice about real life.
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 7. Despair over Philosophy
Philosophical disputes are mostly hopeless, because philosophers don't understand each other [Russell]
     Full Idea: Explicit controversy is almost always fruitless in philosophy, owing to the fact that no two philosophers ever understand one another.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 1)
     A reaction: Contemporaries don't even seem to read one another very much, especially these days, when there are thousands of professional philosophers. (If you are a professional, have you read all the works written by your colleagues and friends?)
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 3. Metaphysical Systems
Philosophical systems are interesting, but we now need a more objective scientific philosophy [Russell]
     Full Idea: The great systems of the past serve a very useful purpose, and are abundantly worthy of study. But something different is required if philosophy is to become a science, and to aim at results independent of the tastes of the philosophers who advocate them.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], Pref)
     A reaction: An interesting product of this move in philosophy is (about sixty years later) the work of David Lewis, who set out to be precise and scientific, and ended up creating a very personal system. Why not a collaborative system?
Hegel's confusions over 'is' show how vast systems can be built on simple errors [Russell]
     Full Idea: Hegel's confusion of the 'is' of predication with the 'is' of identity ...is an example of how, for want of care at the start, vast and imposing systems of philosophy are built upon stupid and trivial confusions.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 2 n1)
     A reaction: [He explains the confusion in more detail in the note] Russell cites an English translation, and I am wondering how this occurs in the German. Plato has been accused of similar elementary blunders about properties. Russell treats Berkeley similarly.
Philosophers sometimes neglect truth and distort facts to attain a nice system [Russell]
     Full Idea: The desire for unadulterated truth is often obscured, in professional philosophers, by love of system: the one little fact which will not come inside the philosophical edifice has to be pushed and tortured until it seems to consent.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 8)
     A reaction: Bit of hypocrisy here. Russell was continually trying to find a system, grounded in physics and logic. Presumably his shifting views are indications of integrity, because he changes the system rather than the facts.
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 4. Metaphysics as Science
Physicists accept particles, points and instants, while pretending they don't do metaphysics [Russell]
     Full Idea: Physicists, ignorant and contemptuous of philosophy, have been content to assume their particles, points and instants in practice, while contending, with ironical politeness, that their concepts laid no claim to metaphysical validity.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 4)
     A reaction: Presumably physicists are allowed to wave their hands and utter the word 'instrumentalism', and then get on with the job. They just have to ensure they never speculate about what is being measured.
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 6. Logical Analysis
When problems are analysed properly, they are either logical, or not philosophical at all [Russell]
     Full Idea: Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and purification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 2)
     A reaction: [All Lecture 2 discusses 'logical'] I think Bertie was getting carried away here. In his life's corpus he barely acknowledges the existence of ethics, or political philosophy, or aesthetics. He never even engages with 'objects' the way Aristotle does.
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 1. On Reason
When questions are doubtful we should concentrate not on objects but on ideas of the intellect [Plato]
     Full Idea: Doubtful questions should not be discussed in terms of visible objects or in relation to them, but only with reference to ideas conceived by the intellect.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135e)
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 5. Opposites
Opposites are as unlike as possible [Plato]
     Full Idea: Opposites are as unlike as possible.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159a)
2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 1. Dialectic
Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic [Hegel on Plato]
     Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic.
     From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Georg W.F.Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit Pref 71
     A reaction: It is a long way from the analytic tradition of philosophy to be singling out a classic text for its 'artistic' achievement. Eventually we may even look back on, say, Kripke's 'Naming and Necessity' and see it in that light.
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 3. Value of Logic
Logic gives the method of research in philosophy [Russell]
     Full Idea: Logic gives the method of research in philosophy, just as mathematics gives the method in physics.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 8)
     A reaction: I'm struck by how rarely philosophers actually prove anything. Mostly they just use the language of logic as a tool for disambiguation. Only a tiny handful of philosophers can actually create sustained and novel proofs.
5. Theory of Logic / D. Assumptions for Logic / 1. Bivalence
Undecidable statements result from quantifying over infinites, subjunctive conditionals, and the past tense [Dummett]
     Full Idea: I once wrote that there are three linguistic devices that make it possible for us to frame undecidable statements: quantification over infinity totalities, as expressed by word such as 'never'; the subjunctive conditional form; and the past tense.
     From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 4)
     A reaction: Dummett now repudiates the third one. Statements containing vague concepts also appear to be undecidable. Personally I have no problems with deciding (to a fair extent) about 'never x', and 'if x were true', and 'it was x'.
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / a. Logical connectives
The logical connectives are not objects, but are formal, and need a context [Russell]
     Full Idea: Such words as 'or' and 'not' are not names of definite objects, but are words that require a context in order to have a meaning. All of them are formal.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 7)
     A reaction: [He cites Wittgenstein's 1922 Tractatus in a footnote - presumably in a later edition than 1914] This is the most famous idea which Russell acquired from Wittgenstein. It was yet another step in his scaling down of ontology.
5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 3. Antinomies
Plato found antinomies in ideas, Kant in space and time, and Bradley in relations [Plato, by Ryle]
     Full Idea: Plato (in 'Parmenides') shows that the theory that 'Eide' are substances, and Kant that space and time are substances, and Bradley that relations are substances, all lead to aninomies.
     From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Gilbert Ryle - Are there propositions? 'Objections'
Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made [Russell on Plato]
     Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made.
     From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Bertrand Russell - The Principles of Mathematics §337
5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 4. Paradoxes in Logic / a. Achilles paradox
The tortoise won't win, because infinite instants don't compose an infinitely long time [Russell]
     Full Idea: The idea that an infinite number of instants make up an infinitely long time is not true, and therefore the conclusion that Achilles will never overtake the tortoise does not follow.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 6)
     A reaction: Aristotle spotted this, but didn't express it as clearly as Russell.
5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 6. Paradoxes in Language / b. The Heap paradox ('Sorites')
Surely there is no exact single grain that brings a heap into existence [Dummett]
     Full Idea: There is surely no number n such that "n grains of sand do not make a heap, although n+1 grains of sand do" is true.
     From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 4)
     A reaction: It might be argued that there is such a number, but no human being is capable of determing it. Might God know the value of n? On the whole Dummett's view seems the most plausible.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 1. Mathematical Platonism / a. For mathematical platonism
One is, so numbers exist, so endless numbers exist, and each one must partake of being [Plato]
     Full Idea: If one is, there must also necessarily be number - Necessarily - But if there is number, there would be many, and an unlimited multitude of beings. ..So if all partakes of being, each part of number would also partake of it.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 144a)
     A reaction: This seems to commit to numbers having being, then to too many numbers, and hence to too much being - but without backing down and wondering whether numbers had being after all. Aristotle disagreed.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 10. Constructivism / b. Intuitionism
Intuitionists rely on the proof of mathematical statements, not their truth [Dummett]
     Full Idea: The intuitionist account of the meaning of mathematical statements does not employ the notion of a statement's being true, but only that of something's being a proof of the statement.
     From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 2)
     A reaction: I remain unconvinced that anyone could give an account of proof that didn't discreetly employ the notion of truth. What are we to make of "we suspect this is true, but no one knows how to prove it?" (e.g. Goldbach's Conjecture).
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / c. Becoming
The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become [Plato]
     Full Idea: The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 155d)
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / f. Primary being
Plato's Parmenides has a three-part theory, of Primal One, a One-Many, and a One-and-Many [Plato, by Plotinus]
     Full Idea: The Platonic Parmenides is more exact [than Parmenides himself]; the distinction is made between the Primal One, a strictly pure Unity, and a secondary One which is a One-Many, and a third which is a One-and-Many.
     From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08
     A reaction: Plotinus approves of this three-part theory. Parmenides has the problem that the highest Being contains no movement. By placing the One outside Being you can give it powers which an existent thing cannot have. Cf the concept of God.
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 1. Nature of Change
A 'Cambridge Change' is like saying 'the landscape changes as you travel east' [Dummett]
     Full Idea: The idea of 'Cambridge Change' is like saying 'the landscape changes as you travel east'.
     From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5)
     A reaction: The phrase was coined in Oxford. It is a useful label with which realists can insult solipsists, idealists and other riff-raff. Four Dimensionalists seem to see time in this way. Events sit there, and we travel past them. But there are indexical events.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 6. Fundamentals / d. Logical atoms
Atomic facts may be inferrable from others, but never from non-atomic facts [Russell]
     Full Idea: Perhaps one atomic fact may sometimes be capable of being inferred from another, though I do not believe this to be the case; but in any case it cannot be inferred from premises no one of which is an atomic fact.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], p.48)
     A reaction: I prefer Russell's caution to Wittgenstein's dogmatism. I presume utterly simple facts give you nothing to work with. Hegel thought that you could infer new concepts from given concepts.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 3. Reality
Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato]
     Full Idea: The absolute good and the beautiful and all which we conceive to be absolute ideas are unknown to us.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 134c)
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
I no longer think what a statement about the past says is just what can justify it [Dummett]
     Full Idea: In distinguishing between what can establish a statement about the past as true and what it is that that statement says, we are repudiating antirealism about the past.
     From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 3)
     A reaction: This is a late shift of ground from the champion of antirealism. If Dummett's whole position is based on a 'justificationist' theory of meaning, he must surely have a different theory of meaning now for statements about the past?
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / d. Negative facts
A positive and negative fact have the same constituents; their difference is primitive [Russell]
     Full Idea: It must not be supposed that a negative fact contains a constituent corresponding to the word 'not'. It contains no more constituents than a positive fact of the correlative positive form. The differenece between the two forms is ultimate and irreducible.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], VIII.279), quoted by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 41 'Neg'
     A reaction: ['Harvard Lectures'] The audience disliked this. How does one fact exclude the other fact? Potter asks whether absence is a fact, and whether an absence can be a truthmaker.
8. Modes of Existence / A. Relations / 1. Nature of Relations
With asymmetrical relations (before/after) the reduction to properties is impossible [Russell]
     Full Idea: When we come to asymmetrical relations, such as before and after, greater and less etc., the attempt to reduce them to properties becomes obviously impossible.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 2)
     A reaction: The traditional Aristotelian reduction to properties is attributed by Russell to logic based on subject-predicate. As an example he cites being greater than as depending on more than the mere magnitudes of the entities. Direction of the relation.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 11. Properties as Sets
When we attribute a common quality to a group, we can forget the quality and just talk of the group [Russell]
     Full Idea: When a group of objects have the similarity we are inclined to attribute to possession of a common quality, the membership of the group will serve all the purposes of the supposed common quality ...which need not be assumed to exist.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 2)
     A reaction: This is the earliest account I have found of properties being treated as sets of objects. It more or less coincides with the invention of set theory. I am reminded of Idea 9208. What is the bazzing property? It's what those three things have in common.
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 2. Need for Universals
You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name [Plato]
     Full Idea: You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 147d)
If you deny that each thing always stays the same, you destroy the possibility of discussion [Plato]
     Full Idea: If a person denies that the idea of each thing is always the same, he will utterly destroy the power of carrying on discussion.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135c)
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 6. Platonic Forms / a. Platonic Forms
It would be absurd to think there were abstract Forms for vile things like hair, mud and dirt [Plato]
     Full Idea: Are there abstract ideas for such things as hair, mud and dirt, which are particularly vile and worthless? That would be quite absurd.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 130d)
The concept of a master includes the concept of a slave [Plato]
     Full Idea: Mastership in the abstract is mastership of slavery in the abstract.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133e)
If admirable things have Forms, maybe everything else does as well [Plato]
     Full Idea: It is troubling that if admirable things have abstract ideas, then perhaps everything else must have ideas as well.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 130d)
If absolute ideas existed in us, they would cease to be absolute [Plato]
     Full Idea: None of the absolute ideas exists in us, because then it would no longer be absolute.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133c)
Greatness and smallness must exist, to be opposed to one another, and come into being in things [Plato]
     Full Idea: These two ideas, greatness and smallness, exist, do they not? For if they did not exist, they could not be opposites of one another, and could not come into being in things.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 149e)
Plato moves from Forms to a theory of genera and principles in his later work [Plato, by Frede,M]
     Full Idea: It seems to me that Plato in the later dialogues, beginning with the second half of 'Parmenides', wants to substitute a theory of genera and theory of principles that constitute these genera for the earlier theory of forms.
     From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Title, Unity, Authenticity of the 'Categories' V
     A reaction: My theory is that the later Plato came under the influence of the brilliant young Aristotle, and this idea is a symptom of it. The theory of 'principles' sounds like hylomorphism to me.
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 6. Platonic Forms / b. Partaking
The whole idea of each Form must be found in each thing which participates in it [Plato]
     Full Idea: The whole idea of each form (of beauty, justice etc) must be found in each thing which participates in it.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 131a)
Participation is not by means of similarity, so we are looking for some other method of participation [Plato]
     Full Idea: Participation is not by means of likeness, so we must seek some other method of participation.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133a)
Each idea is in all its participants at once, just as daytime is a unity but in many separate places at once [Plato]
     Full Idea: Just as day is in many places at once, but not separated from itself, so each idea might be in all its participants at once.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 131b)
If things are made alike by participating in something, that thing will be the absolute idea [Plato]
     Full Idea: That by participation in which like things are made like, will be the absolute idea, will it not?
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132e)
If things partake of ideas, this implies either that everything thinks, or that everything actually is thought [Plato]
     Full Idea: If all things partake of ideas, must either everything be made of thoughts and everything thinks, or everything is thought, and so can't think?
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132c)
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 6. Platonic Forms / c. Self-predication
Nothing can be like an absolute idea, because a third idea intervenes to make them alike (leading to a regress) [Plato]
     Full Idea: It is impossible for anything to be like an absolute idea, because a third idea will appear to make them alike, and if that is like anything, it will lead to another idea, and so on.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133a)
If absolute greatness and great things are seen as the same, another thing appears which makes them seem great [Plato]
     Full Idea: If you regard the absolute great and the many great things in the same way, will not another appear beyond, by which all these must appear to be great?
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132a)
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / b. Unifying aggregates
Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato]
     Full Idea: The part would not be the part of many things or all, but of some one character ['ideas'] and of some one thing, which we call a 'whole', since it has come to be one complete [perfected] thing composed [created] of all.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157d)
     A reaction: A serious shot by Plato at what identity is. Harte quotes it (125) and shows that 'character' is Gk 'idea', and 'composed' will translate as 'created'. 'Form' links this Platonic passage to Aristotle's hylomorphism.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 5. Composition of an Object
In Parmenides, if composition is identity, a whole is nothing more than its parts [Plato, by Harte,V]
     Full Idea: At the heart of the 'Parmenides' puzzles about composition is the thesis that composition is identity. Considered thus, a whole adds nothing to an ontology that already includes its parts
     From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 2.5
     A reaction: There has to be more to a unified identity that mere proximity of the parts. When do parts come together, and when do they actually 'compose' something?
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / a. Parts of objects
Plato says only a one has parts, and a many does not [Plato, by Harte,V]
     Full Idea: In 'Parmenides' it is argued that a part cannot be part of a many, but must be part of something one.
     From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 3.2
     A reaction: This looks like the right way to go with the term 'part'. We presuppose a unity before we even talk of its parts, so we can't get into contradictions and paradoxes about their relationships.
Anything which has parts must be one thing, and parts are of a one, not of a many [Plato]
     Full Idea: The whole of which the parts are parts must be one thing composed of many; for each of the parts must be part, not of a many, but of a whole.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c)
     A reaction: This is a key move of metaphysics, and we should hang on to it. The other way madness lies.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / c. Wholes from parts
It seems that the One must be composed of parts, which contradicts its being one [Plato]
     Full Idea: The One must be composed of parts, both being a whole and having parts. So on both grounds the One would thus be many and not one. But it must be not many, but one. So if the One will be one, it will neither be a whole, nor have parts.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137c09), quoted by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2
     A reaction: This is the starting point for Plato's metaphysical discussion of objects. It seems to begin a line of thought which is completed by Aristotle, surmising that only an essential structure can bestow identity on a bunch of parts.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 6. Identity between Objects
Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part [Plato]
     Full Idea: Everything is surely related to everything as follows: either it is the same or different; or, if it is not the same or different, it would be related as part to whole or as whole to part.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 146b)
     A reaction: This strikes me as a really helpful first step in trying to analyse the nature of identity. Two things are either two or (actually) one, or related mereologically.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 1. Perceptual Realism / c. Representative realism
Science condemns sense-data and accepts matter, but a logical construction must link them [Russell]
     Full Idea: Men of science condemn immediate data as 'merely subjective', while maintaining the truths of physics from those data. ...The only justification possible for this must be one which exhibits matter as a logical construction from sense-data.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 4)
     A reaction: Since we blatantly aren't doing logic when we stare out of the window, this aspires to finding something like the 'logical form' of perception.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 2. Phenomenalism
The existence of a universe without sentience or intelligence is an unintelligible fantasy [Dummett]
     Full Idea: The existence of a universe from which sentience was permanently absent is an unintelligible fantasy. What exists is what can be known to exist. What is true is what can be known to be true. Reality is what can be experienced and known.
     From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5)
     A reaction: This strikes me as nonsense. The fact that we cannot think about a universe without introducing a viewpoint does not mean that we cannot 'intellectually imagine' its existence devoid of viewpoints. Nothing could ever experience a star's interior.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / c. Unperceived sense-data
When sense-data change, there must be indistinguishable sense-data in the process [Russell]
     Full Idea: In all cases of sense-data capable of gradual change, we may find one sense-datum indistinguishable from another, and that indistinguishable from a third, while yet the first and third are quite easily distinguishable.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 5)
     A reaction: This point is key to the sense-data theory, because it gives them independent existence, standing between reality and subjective experience. It is also the reason why they look increasingly implausible, if they may not be experienced.
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
Empirical truths are particular, so general truths need an a priori input of generality [Russell]
     Full Idea: All empirical evidence is of particular truths. Hence, if there is any knowledge of general truths at all, there must be some knowledge of general truths which is independent of empirical evidence.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 2)
     A reaction: Humean empiricists respond by being a sceptical of general truths. At this stage of his career Russell looks like a thoroughgoing rationalist, and he believes in the reality of universals, relations and propositions. He became more empirical later.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / b. Pro-coherentism
Objects are treated as real when they connect with other experiences in a normal way [Russell]
     Full Idea: Objects of sense are called 'real' when they have the kind of connection with other objects of sense which experience has led us to regard as normal; when they fail this, they are called 'illusions'.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 3)
     A reaction: This rests rather too much on the concept of 'normal', but offers an attractive coherence account of perception. Direct perceptions are often invoked by anti-coherentists, but I think coherence is just as much needed in that realm.
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 6. Scepticism Critique
Global scepticism is irrefutable, but can't replace our other beliefs, and just makes us hesitate [Russell]
     Full Idea: Universal scepticism, though logically irrefutable, is practically barren; it can only, therefore, give a certain flavour of hesitancy to our beliefs, and cannot be used to substitute other beliefs for them.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 3)
     A reaction: Spot on. There is no positive evidence for scepticism, so must just register it as the faintest of possibilities, like the existence of secretive fairies.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / c. Knowing other minds
Other minds seem to exist, because their testimony supports realism about the world [Russell, by Grayling]
     Full Idea: Russell gives an argument that other minds exist, because if one is entitled to believe this, then one can rely on the testimony of others, which, jointly with one's own experience, will give powerful support to the view that there a real spatial world.
     From: report of Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 3) by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2
     A reaction: I rather like this argument. It is quite close to Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument, which also seems to refute scepticism about other minds. I think Russell's line, using testimony, knowledge and realism, may be better than Wittgenstein's.
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 5. Meaning as Verification
Verification is not an individual but a collective activity [Dummett]
     Full Idea: Verification is not an individual but a collective activity.
     From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 3)
     A reaction: This generates problems. Are deceased members of the community included? (Yes, says Dummett). If someone speaks to angels (Blake!), do they get included? Is a majority necessary? What of weird loners? Etc.
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 6. Truth-Conditions Semantics
Truth-condition theorists must argue use can only be described by appeal to conditions of truth [Dummett]
     Full Idea: To demonstrate the necessity of a truth-conditional theory of meaning, a proponent of such a theory must argue that use cannot be described without appeal to the conditions for the truth of statements.
     From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 1)
     A reaction: Unlike Dummett, I find that argument rather appealing. How do you decide the possible or appropriate use for a piece of language, if you don't already know what it means. Basing it all on social conventions means it could be meaningless ritual.
The truth-conditions theory must get agreement on a conception of truth [Dummett]
     Full Idea: It is not enough for the truth-condition theorist to argue that we need the concept of truth: he must show that we should have the same conception of truth that he has.
     From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 2)
     A reaction: Davidson invites us to accept Tarski's account of truth. It invites the question of what the theory would be like with a very robust correspondence account of truth, or a flabby rather subjective coherence view, or the worst sort of pragmatic view.
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / c. Teaching
Only a great person can understand the essence of things, and an even greater person can teach it [Plato]
     Full Idea: Only a man of very great natural gifts will be able to understand that everything has a class and absolute essence, and an even more wonderful man can teach this.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135a)
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / d. The unlimited
The unlimited has no shape and is endless [Plato]
     Full Idea: The unlimited partakes neither of the round nor of the straight, because it has no ends nor edges.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137e)
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / e. The One
Some things do not partake of the One [Plato]
     Full Idea: The others cannot partake of the one in any way; they can neither partake of it nor of the whole.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159d)
     A reaction: Compare Idea 231
The only movement possible for the One is in space or in alteration [Plato]
     Full Idea: If the One moves it either moves spatially or it is altered, since these are the only motions.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 138b)
Everything partakes of the One in some way [Plato]
     Full Idea: The others are not altogether deprived of the one, for they partake of it in some way.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c)
     A reaction: Compare Idea 233.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / f. Eternalism
Maybe past (which affects us) and future (which we can affect) are both real [Dummett]
     Full Idea: Maybe both the past and the future are real, determined by our current temporal perspective. Past is then events capable of having a causal influence upon events near us, and future is events we can affect, but from which we receive no information.
     From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5)
     A reaction: This is the Four-Dimensional view, which is opposed to Presentism. Might immediate unease is that it gives encouragement to fortune-tellers, whom I have always dismissed with 'You can't see the future, because it doesn't exist'.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / a. Experience of time
We never experience times, but only succession of events [Russell]
     Full Idea: There is no reason in experience to suppose that there are times as opposed to events: the events, ordered by the relations of simultaneity and succession, are all that experience provides.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 4)
     A reaction: We experience events, but also have quite an accurate sense of how much time has passed during the occurrence of events. If asked how much time has lapsed, why don't we say '32 events'? How do we distinguish long events from short ones?
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / k. Temporal truths
The present cannot exist alone as a mere boundary; past and future truths are rendered meaningless [Dummett]
     Full Idea: The idea that only the present is real cannot be sustained. St Augustine pointed out that the present has no duration; it is a mere boundary between past and future, and dependent on them. It also denies truth-value to statements about past or future.
     From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5)
     A reaction: To defend Presentism, I suspect that one must focus entirely on the activities of consciousness and short-term memory. All truths, of past or future, must refer totally to such mental events. But what could an event be if there is no enduring time?
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / a. Ontological Proof
We couldn't discuss the non-existence of the One without knowledge of it [Plato]
     Full Idea: There must be knowledge of the one, or else not even the meaning of the words 'if the one does not exist' would be known.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 160d)