Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Secret Connexion' and 'works'

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4 ideas

4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 8. Critique of Set Theory
Skolem did not believe in the existence of uncountable sets [Skolem]
     Full Idea: Skolem did not believe in the existence of uncountable sets.
     From: Thoralf Skolem (works [1920], 5.3)
     A reaction: Kit Fine refers somewhere to 'unrepentent Skolemites' who still hold this view.
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles
Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius]
     Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes.
     From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078
     A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / a. Constant conjunction
A phenomenalist about objects has to be a regularity theorist about causation [Strawson,G]
     Full Idea: If you are a phenomenalist about objects, then there is an important sense in which you ought to be a Regularity theorist about what causation is, in such objects.
     From: Galen Strawson (The Secret Connexion [1989], App C)
     A reaction: Strawson is denying that Hume is a phenomenalist. One might go a little further, and say that a phenomenalist should abandon the idea of causation (as Russell did).
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / d. Time as measure
Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus]
     Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness.
     From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42
     A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them.