12 ideas
22077 | Metaphysics is the lattice which makes incoming material intelligible [Hegel] |
Full Idea: Metaphysics means nothing other than the range of general determinations of thought, the diamond lattice, as it were, into which we bring all material and thereby first make it intelligible. | |
From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Philosophy of Nature (Encylopedia II) [1817], §3), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - Hegel p.95 | |
A reaction: This sounds to me like a perfect summary of Kant's transcendental view. Metaphysics is the a priori deconstruction of our conceptual scheme. But for Kant it is fixed, and for Hegel it is dynamic. |
14775 | Numbers are just names devised for counting [Peirce] |
Full Idea: Numbers are merely a system of names devised by men for the purpose of counting. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism [1899], II) | |
A reaction: This seems a perfectly plausible view prior to the advent of Cantor, set theory and modern mathematical logic. I suppose the modern reply to this is that Peirce may be right about origin, but that men thereby stumbled on an Aladdin's Cave of riches. |
14776 | That two two-eyed people must have four eyes is a statement about numbers, not a fact [Peirce] |
Full Idea: To say that 'if' there are two persons and each person has two eyes there 'will be' four eyes is not a statement of fact, but a statement about the system of numbers which is our own creation. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism [1899], II) | |
A reaction: One eye for each arm of the people is certainly a fact. Frege uses this equivalence to build numbers. I think Peirce is wrong. If it is not a fact that these people have four eyes, I don't know what 'four' means. It's being two pairs is also a fact. |
14770 | Reasoning is based on statistical induction, so it can't achieve certainty or precision [Peirce] |
Full Idea: All positive reasoning is judging the proportion of something in a whole collection by the proportion found in a sample. Hence we can never hope to attain absolute certainty, absolute exactitude, absolute universality. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism [1899], II) | |
A reaction: This is the basis of Peirce's fallibilism - that all 'positive' reasoning (whatever that it?) is based on statistical induction. I'm all in favour of fallibilism, but find Peirce's claim to be a bit too narrow. He was too mesmerised by physical science. |
14774 | Innate truths are very uncertain and full of error, so they certainly have exceptions [Peirce] |
Full Idea: It seems to me there is the most historic proof that innate truths are particularly uncertain and mixed up with error, and therefore a fortiori not without exception. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism [1899], II) |
14772 | If we decide an idea is inspired, we still can't be sure we have got the idea right [Peirce] |
Full Idea: Even if we decide that an idea really is inspired, we cannot be sure, or nearly sure, that the statement is true. We know one of the commandments of the Bible was printed without a 'not' in it. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism [1899], II) |
14773 | A truth is hard for us to understand if it rests on nothing but inspiration [Peirce] |
Full Idea: A truth which rests on the authority of inspiration only is of a somewhat incomprehensible nature; and we can never be sure that we rightly comprehend it. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism [1899], II) |
14771 | Only reason can establish whether some deliverance of revelation really is inspired [Peirce] |
Full Idea: We never can be absolutely certain that any given deliverance [of revelation] really is inspired; for that can only be established by reasoning. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism [1899], II) |
14769 | Only imagination can connect phenomena together in a rational way [Peirce] |
Full Idea: We can stare stupidly at phenomena; but in the absence of imagination they will not connect themselves together in any rational way. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism [1899], I) | |
A reaction: The importance of this is its connection between imagination and 'rational' understanding. This is an important corrective to a crude traditional picture of the role of imagination. I would connect imagination with counterfactuals and best explanation. |
21756 | All revolutions result from spirit changing its categories, to achieve a deeper understanding [Hegel] |
Full Idea: All revolutions ...originate solely from the fact that spirit, in order to understand and comprehend itself with a view to possessing itself, has changed its categories, comprehending itself more truly, more deeply, more intimately in unity with itself. | |
From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Philosophy of Nature (Encylopedia II) [1817], §246), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 01 | |
A reaction: Some Hegelian waffle here, but it focuses on what seems important, which is how societal thinking has shifted, so that what was previously tolerated now triggers a revolution. |
13304 | 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. |
20820 | 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. |