95 ideas
18730 | The history of philosophy only matters if the subject is a choice between rival theories [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: If philosophy were a matter of choice between rival theories, then it would be sound to teach it historically. But if it is not, then it is a fault to teach it historically, because it is quite unnecessary; we can tackle the subject direct. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], C V A) | |
A reaction: Wittgenstein was a bit notorious for not knowing the history of the subject terribly well, and this explains why. Presumably our tackling the subject direct will not have the dreadful consequence of producing yet another theory. |
18704 | Philosophy tries to be rid of certain intellectual puzzles, irrelevant to daily life [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Philosophy is the attempt to be rid of a particular kind of puzzlement. This 'philosophical' puzzlement is one of the intellect and not of instinct. Philosophical puzzles are irrelevant to our every-day life. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], A I.1) | |
A reaction: All enquiry begins with puzzles, and they are cured by explanations, which result in understanding. In that sense he is right. I entirely disagree that the puzzles are irrelevant to daily life. |
9408 | Science studies phenomena, but only metaphysics tells us what exists [Mumford] |
Full Idea: Science deals with the phenomena, ..but it is metaphysics, and only metaphysics, that tells us what ultimately exists. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 01.2) |
18710 | Philosophers express puzzlement, but don't clearly state the puzzle [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Philosophers as 'Why?' and 'What?' without knowing clearly what their questions are. They are expressing a feeling of mental uneasiness. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B I.1) | |
A reaction: He suggests it is childish to express puzzlement, instead of asking for precise information. How odd. All enquiries start with vague puzzlement, which gradually comes into focus, or else is abandoned. |
18732 | We don't need a theory of truth, because we use the word perfectly well [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: It is nonsense to try to find a theory of truth, because we can see that in everyday life we use the word quite clearly and definitely in various different senses. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], C V B) | |
A reaction: This was a year before Tarski published his famous theory of truth for formal languages. Prior to that, most philosophers were giving up on truth. Would he say the same about 'gravity' or 'inflation'? |
18714 | We already know what we want to know, and analysis gives us no new facts [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: In philosophy we know already all that we want to know; philosophical analysis does not give us any new facts. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B V.1) |
9429 | Many forms of reasoning, such as extrapolation and analogy, are useful but deductively invalid [Mumford] |
Full Idea: There are many forms of reasoning - extrapolation, interpolation, and other arguments from analogy - that are useful but deductively invalid. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 04.4) | |
A reaction: [He cites Molnar for this] |
224 | 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) |
232 | Opposites are as unlike as possible [Plato] |
Full Idea: Opposites are as unlike as possible. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159a) |
8937 | 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. |
18706 | Words of the same kind can be substituted in a proposition without producing nonsense [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: 'Blue' and 'brown' are of the same kind, for the substitution of one for the other, though it may falsify the proposition, does not make nonsense of it. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], A I.4) | |
A reaction: He chooses an easy example, because they are determinates of the determinable 'coloured'. What if I say 'the sky is blue', and then substitute 'frightening' for 'blue'? |
18719 | Grammar says that saying 'sound is red' is not false, but nonsense [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: If grammar says that you cannot say that a sound is red, it means not that it is false to say so but that it is nonsense - i.e. not a language at all. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B IX.6) | |
A reaction: I am baffled as to why he thinks 'grammar' is what prohibits such a statement. Surely the world, the nature of sound and colour, is what makes the application of the predicate wrong. Sounds aren't coloured, so they can't be red. False, not nonsense. |
18735 | Talking nonsense is not following the rules [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Talking nonsense is not following the rules. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], C X) | |
A reaction: He doesn't seem to distinguish between syntax and semantics, and makes it sound as if all nonsense is syntactic, which it isn't. |
18731 | There is no theory of truth, because it isn't a concept [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: It is wrong to say that there is any one theory of truth, for truth is not a concept. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], C V B) | |
A reaction: This makes you wonder how he understood the word 'concept'. In most modern discussions truth seems to be a concept, and in Frege it can be an unsaturated predicate which is satisfied by sentences or thoughts. |
18707 | All thought has the logical form of reality [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Thought must have the logical form of reality if it is to be thought at all. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], A V.1) | |
A reaction: This links nicely the idea that true thoughts somehow share the structure of what they refer to, with the idea of logical form in logic. But maybe logical form is a fiction we offer in order to obtain a spurious map of reality. |
18724 | In logic nothing is hidden [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: In logic nothing is hidden. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B XII.3) | |
A reaction: If so, then the essence of logic must be there for all to see. The rules of natural deduction are a good shot at showing this. |
18709 | Laws of logic are like laws of chess - if you change them, it's just a different game [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: I might as well question the laws of logic as the laws of chess. If I change the rules it is a different game and there is an end of it. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], A XI.3) | |
A reaction: No, that isn't the end of it, because there are meta-criteria for preferring one game to another. Why don't we just give up classical logic? It would be such fun to have a wild wacky logic. We can start with 'tonk'. |
18736 | Contradiction is between two rules, not between rule and reality [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Contradiction is between one rule and another, not between rule and reality. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], C XIII) | |
A reaction: If I say 'he is sitting' and 'he is standing', it seems to be reality which produces the contradiction. What 'rule' could possibly do it? The rule which says sitting and standing are incompatible? But what makes that so? |
18723 | We may correctly use 'not' without making the rule explicit [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Correct use does not imply the ability to make the rules explicit. Understanding 'not' is like understanding a move in chess. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B XII.1) |
18718 | Saying 'and' has meaning is just saying it works in a sentence [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: When we say that the word 'and' has meaning what we mean is that it works in a sentence and is not just a flourish. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B VIII.2) |
18727 | A person's name doesn't mean their body; bodies don't sit down, and their existence can be denied [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: The meaning of the words 'Professor Moore' is not a certain human body, because we do not say that the meaning sits on the sofa, and the words occur in the proposition 'Professor Moore does not exist'. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B Easter) | |
A reaction: Brilliant. Love it. Kripke ending up denying the existence of 'meanings'. |
13986 | 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' |
14150 | 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 |
18738 | We don't get 'nearer' to something by adding decimals to 1.1412... (root-2) [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: We say we get nearer to root-2 by adding further figures after the decimal point: 1.1412.... This suggests there is something we can get nearer to, but the analogy is a false one. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], Notes) |
18708 | Infinity is not a number, so doesn't say how many; it is the property of a law [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: 'Infinite' is not an answer to the question 'How many?', since the infinite is not a number. ...Infinity is the property of a law, not of an extension. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], A VII.2) |
16150 | 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. |
9427 | For Humeans the world is a world primarily of events [Mumford] |
Full Idea: For Humeans the world is a world primarily of events. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.6) |
229 | 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) |
21821 | 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. |
221 | 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) |
18737 | There are no positive or negative facts; these are just the forms of propositions [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: There are no positive or negative facts. 'Positive' and 'negative' refer to the form of propositions, and not to the facts which verify or falsify them. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], C XIII) | |
A reaction: Personally I think if we are going to allow the world to be full of 'facts', then there are negative, conjunctive, disjunctive and hypothetical facts. |
9446 | Properties are just natural clusters of powers [Mumford] |
Full Idea: The view of properties I find most attractive is one in which they are natural clusters of, and exhausted by, powers (plus other connections to other properties). | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.6) |
227 | 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) |
223 | 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) |
18715 | Using 'green' is a commitment to future usage of 'green' [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: If I say this is green, I must say that other things are green too. I am committed to a future usage. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B VI.2) | |
A reaction: This seems to suggest that the eternal verity of a universal concept is just a convention of stability in a language. |
16151 | 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. |
211 | 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) |
228 | 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) |
219 | 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) |
220 | 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) |
210 | 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) |
218 | 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) |
212 | 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) |
215 | 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) |
213 | 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) |
216 | 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) |
214 | 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) |
217 | 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) |
9435 | A 'porridge' nominalist thinks we just divide reality in any way that suits us [Mumford] |
Full Idea: A 'porridge' nominalist denies natural kinds, and thinks there are no objective divisions in reality, so concepts or words can be used by a community to divide the world up in any way that suits their purposes. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 07.3) |
9447 | If properties are clusters of powers, this can explain why properties resemble in degrees [Mumford] |
Full Idea: If a cluster of ten powers exhausts property F, and property G differs in respect of just one power, this might explain why properties can resemble other properties and in different degrees. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.6) | |
A reaction: I love this. The most intractable problem about properties and universals is that of abstract reference - pink resembles red more than pink resembles green. If colours are clusters of powers, red and pink share nine out of ten of them. |
15851 | 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. |
15846 | 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? |
15849 | 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. |
15850 | 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. |
13259 | 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. |
12248 | How can we show that a universally possessed property is an essential property? [Mumford] |
Full Idea: Essentialists fail to show how we ascend from being a property universally possessed, by all kind members, to the status of being an essential property. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 07.5) | |
A reaction: This is precisely where my proposal comes in - the essential properties, as opposed to the accidentaly universals, are those which explain the nature and behaviour of each kind of thing (and each individual thing). |
15847 | 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. |
18726 | For each necessity in the world there is an arbitrary rule of language [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: To a necessity in the world there corresponds an arbitrary rule in language. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B XIV.2) | |
A reaction: This seems to be hardcore logical positivism, making all necessities arbitrary. Compare Quine on the number of planets. |
18712 | Understanding is translation, into action or into other symbols [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Understanding is really translation, whether into other symbols or into action. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B I.5) | |
A reaction: The second part of this sounds like pure pragmatism. To do is to understand? I doubt it. Do animals understand anything? |
18280 | We live in sense-data, but talk about physical objects [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: The world we live in is the world of sense-data, but the world we talk about is the world of physical objects. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], p.82), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 13 'Verif' | |
A reaction: I really like that one. Even animals, I surmise, think of objects quite differently from the way they immediately experience them. |
18729 | Part of what we mean by stating the facts is the way we tend to experience them [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: There is no need of a theory to reconcile what we know about sense data and what we believe about physical objects, because part of what we mean by saying that a penny is round is that we see it as elliptical in such and such conditions. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], C III) | |
A reaction: This is an interesting and cunning move to bridge the gap between our representations and reallity. We may surmise how a thing really is, but then be surprised by the sense-data we get from it. |
18734 | If you remember wrongly, then there must be some other criterion than your remembering [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: If you remember wrongly, then there must be some other criterion than your remembering. If you admit another test, then your memory itself is not the test. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], C VII) | |
A reaction: If I fear that I am remembering some private solitary event wrongly, there is no other criterion to turn to, so I'm stuck. Sometimes dubious memories are all we have. |
18721 | Explanation and understanding are the same [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: For us explanation and understanding are the same, understanding being the correlate of explanation. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B XI.2) | |
A reaction: I'm not convinced that they are 'the same', but they are almost interdependent ideas. Strevens has a nice paper on this. |
18720 | Explanation gives understanding by revealing the full multiplicity of the thing [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: An explanation gives understanding, ...but it cannot teach you understanding, it cannot create understanding. It makes further distinctions i.e. it increases multiplicity. When multiplicity is complete, then there is no further misunderstanding. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B X.3) | |
A reaction: The thought seems to resemble Aristotle's idea of definition as gradual division of the subject. To understand is the dismantle the parts and lay them out before us. Wittgenstein was very interested in explanation at this time. |
18716 | A machine strikes us as being a rule of movement [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: We are accustomed to look on a machine as the expression of a rule of movement. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B VII.2) | |
A reaction: What a beautiful definition of a machine! I like this because it connects the two halves of my view of the 'essence' of a thing, as derived from Aristotle, as both a causal mechanism and an underlying principle. Cf Turing machines. |
18713 | If an explanation is good, the symbol is used properly in the future [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: The criterion of an explanation is whether the symbol explained is used properly in the future. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B II.4) | |
A reaction: This appears to be a pragmatic criterion for the best explanation. It presumably rests on his doctrine that meaning is use, so good explanation is understanding meanings. |
18717 | Thought is an activity which we perform by the expression of it [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Thought is an activity which we perform by the expression of it, and lasts as long as the expression. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B VIII) | |
A reaction: I take this to be an outmoded view of thought, which modern cognitive science has undermined, by showing how little of our thinking is actually conscious. |
18725 | A proposition draws a line around the facts which agree with it [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: A proposition gives reality a degree of freedom; it draws a line round the facts which agree with it, and distinguishes them from those which do not. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B XIII.2) | |
A reaction: This seems to be the idea of meaning as the range of truth conditions. Propositions as sets of possible worlds extends this into possible facts which agree with the proposition. Most facts neither agree nor disagree with some proposition. |
18728 | The meaning of a proposition is the mode of its verification [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: The meaning of a proposition is the mode of its verification (and two propositions cannot have the same verification). | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], C I) | |
A reaction: Does this mean that if two sentences have the same mode of verification, then they must be expressing the same proposition? I guess so. |
18705 | Words function only in propositions, like levers in a machine [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Words function only in propositions, like the levers in a machine. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], A I.4) | |
A reaction: Hm. Consider the word 'tree'. Did you manage to do it? Was it just a noise? |
18711 | A proposition is any expression which can be significantly negated [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Any affirmation can be negated: if it has sense to say p it also has sense to say ¬p. ...A proposition therefore is any expression which can be significantly negated. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B I.2) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure about 'therefore'. I'm thinking you would have to already grasp the proposition in order to apply his negation test. |
222 | 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) |
225 | 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) |
233 | 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 |
231 | 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. |
2062 | 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) |
9430 | Singular causes, and identities, might be necessary without falling under a law [Mumford] |
Full Idea: One might have a singularist view of causation in which a cause necessitates its effect, but they need not be subsumed under a law, ..and there are identities which are metaphysically necessary without being laws of nature. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 04.5) |
9445 | We can give up the counterfactual account if we take causal language at face value [Mumford] |
Full Idea: If we take causal language at face value and give up reducing causal concepts to non-causal, non-modal concepts, we can give up the counterfactual dependence account. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.5) |
9443 | It is only properties which are the source of necessity in the world [Mumford] |
Full Idea: If laws do not give the world necessity, what does? I argue the positive case for it being properties, and properties alone, that do the job (so we might call them 'modal properties'). | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.1) |
9444 | There are four candidates for the logical form of law statements [Mumford] |
Full Idea: The contenders for the logical form of a law statement are 1) a universally quantified conditional, 2) a second-order relation between first-order universals, 3) a functional equivalence, and 4) a dispositional characteristic of a natural kind. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.3) |
9431 | Pure regularities are rare, usually only found in idealized conditions [Mumford] |
Full Idea: Pure regularities are not nearly as common as might have been thought, and are usually only to be found in simplified or idealized conditions. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 05.3) | |
A reaction: [He cites Nancy Cartwright 1999 for this view] |
9441 | Regularity laws don't explain, because they have no governing role [Mumford] |
Full Idea: A regularity-law does not explain its instances, because such laws play no role in determining or governing their instances. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 09.7) | |
A reaction: Good. It has always seemed to me entirely vacuous to explain an event simply by saying that it falls under some law. |
9415 | Would it count as a regularity if the only five As were also B? [Mumford] |
Full Idea: While it might be true that for all x, if Ax then Bx, would we really want to count it as a genuine regularity in nature if only five things were A (and all five were also B)? | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.3) |
9416 | Regularities are more likely with few instances, and guaranteed with no instances! [Mumford] |
Full Idea: It seems that the fewer the instances, the more likely it is that there be a regularity, ..and if there are no cases at all, and no S is P, that is a regularity. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.3) | |
A reaction: [He attributes the second point to Molnar] |
9422 | If the best system describes a nomological system, the laws are in nature, not in the description [Mumford] |
Full Idea: If the world really does have its own nomological structure, that a systematization merely describes, why are the laws not to be equated with the nomological structure itself, rather than with the system that describes it? | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.4) |
9421 | The best systems theory says regularities derive from laws, rather than constituting them [Mumford] |
Full Idea: The best systems theory (of Mill-Ramsey-Lewis) says that laws are not seen as regularities but, rather, as those things from which regularities - or rather, the whole world history including the regularities and everything else - can be derived. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.4) | |
A reaction: Put this way, the theory invites questions about ontology. Regularities are just patterns in physical reality, but axioms are propositions. So are they just features of human thought, or do these axioms actuallyr reside in reality. Too weak or too strong. |
9433 | If laws can be uninstantiated, this favours the view of them as connecting universals [Mumford] |
Full Idea: If there are laws that are instantiated in no particulars, then this would seem to favour the theory that laws connect universals rather than particulars. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 06.4) | |
A reaction: There is a dispute here between the Platonic view of uninstantiated universals (Tooley) and the Aristotelian instantiated view (Armstrong). Mumford and I prefer the dispositional account. |
9432 | Laws of nature are necessary relations between universal properties, rather than about particulars [Mumford] |
Full Idea: The core of the Dretske-Tooley-Armstrong view of the late 70s is that we have a law of nature when we have a relation of natural necessitation between universals. ..The innovation was that laws are about properties, and only indirectly about particulars. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 06.2) | |
A reaction: It sounds as if we should then be able to know the laws of nature a priori, since that was Russell's 1912 definition of a priori knowledge. |
9434 | Laws of nature are just the possession of essential properties by natural kinds [Mumford] |
Full Idea: If dispositional essentialism is granted, then there is a law of nature wherever there is an essential property of a natural kind; laws are just the havings of essential properties by natural kinds. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 07.2) | |
A reaction: [He is expounding Ellis's view] |
9437 | To distinguish accidental from essential properties, we must include possible members of kinds [Mumford] |
Full Idea: Where properties are possessed by all kind members, we must distinguish the accidental from essential ones by considering all actual and possible kind members. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 07.5) | |
A reaction: This is why we must treat possibilities as features of the actual world. |
18733 | Laws of nature are an aspect of the phenomena, and are just our mode of description [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: The laws of nature are not outside phenomena. They are part of language and of our way of describing things; you cannot discuss them apart from their physical manifestation. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], C V C) | |
A reaction: I suppose this amounts to a Humean regularity theory - that the descriptions pick out patterns in the manifestations. I like the initial claim that they are not external to phenomena. |
9412 | You only need laws if you (erroneously) think the world is otherwise inert [Mumford] |
Full Idea: Laws are a solution to a problem that was misconceived. Only if you think that the world would be otherwise inactive or inanimate, do you have the need to add laws to your ontology. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 01.5) | |
A reaction: This is a bold and extreme view - and I agree with it. I consider laws to be quite a useful concept when discussing nature, but they are not part of the ontology, and they don't do any work. They are metaphysically hopeless. |
9439 | The Central Dilemma is how to explain an internal or external view of laws which govern [Mumford] |
Full Idea: The Central Dilemma about laws of nature is that, if they have some governing role, then they must be internal or external to the things governed, and it is hard to give a plausible account of either view. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 09.2) | |
A reaction: This dilemma is the basis of Mumford's total rejection of 'laws of nature'. I think I agree. |
9411 | There are no laws of nature in Aristotle; they became standard with Descartes and Newton [Mumford] |
Full Idea: Laws do not appear in Aristotle's metaphysics, and it wasn't until Descartes and Newton that laws entered the intellectual mainstream. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 01.5) | |
A reaction: Cf. Idea 5470. |
234 | 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) |