13 ideas
20350 | Metaphysics generalises the data, to get at the ontology [Richardson] |
Full Idea: The evidence lies at the periphery of the [metaphysical] system and runs in from there, through decreasingly specific accounts of the data, to the central ontology. | |
From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro) | |
A reaction: Philosophy is the study of high level generalisations, IMHO. Studying them means studying the reasons for asserting them. Richardson puts it very nicely. |
20349 | Metaphysics aims at the essence of things, and a system to show how this explains other truths [Richardson] |
Full Idea: The core of metaphysics is an account of the 'essence' or 'being' of things. ...And metaphysics needs system, to show how these primary truths reach out into all the other truths, to help us see that, and how, they are true. | |
From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro) | |
A reaction: I like the phrase 'the essential nature' of things, because it doesn't invoke rather dodgy entities called 'essences', but everyone understands the idea of focusing on what is essential, and on things having a distinct 'nature'. |
20351 | Metaphysics needs systems, because analysis just obsesses over details [Richardson] |
Full Idea: Metaphysics makes system a virtue, contrary to the tendency of analysis, which breaks a problem into ever finer parts and then absorbs itself in these. | |
From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro) | |
A reaction: I disagree, because it seems to rule out analytic metaphysics. I prefer Bertrand Russell's view. Admittedly analysis oftens gets stuck in the bog, especially if it hopes for salvation in logic, only to discover its certainties endlessly receding. |
20475 | Maybe modal sentences cannot be true or false [Casullo] |
Full Idea: Some people claim that modal sentences do not express truths or falsehoods. | |
From: Albert Casullo (A Priori Knowledge [2002], 3.2) | |
A reaction: I can only imagine this coming from a narrow hardline empiricist. It seems to me obvious that we make true or false statements about what is possible or impossible. |
20476 | If the necessary is a priori, so is the contingent, because the same evidence is involved [Casullo] |
Full Idea: If one can only know a priori that a proposition is necessary, then one can know only a priori that a proposition is contingent. The evidence relevant to determining the latter is the same as that relevant to determining the former. | |
From: Albert Casullo (A Priori Knowledge [2002], 3.2) | |
A reaction: This seems a telling point, but I suppose it is obvious. If you see that the cat is on the mat, nothing in the situation tells you whether this is contingent or necessary. We assume it is contingent, but that may be an a priori assumption. |
20471 | Epistemic a priori conditions concern either the source, defeasibility or strength [Casullo] |
Full Idea: There are three suggested epistemic conditions on a priori knowledge: the first regards the source of justification, the second regards the defeasibility of justification, and the third appeals to the strength of justification. | |
From: Albert Casullo (A Priori Knowledge [2002], 2) | |
A reaction: [compressed] He says these are all inspired by Kant. The non-epistemic suggested condition involve necessity or analyticity. The source would have to be entirely mental; the defeasibly could not be experiential; the strength would be certainty. |
20477 | The main claim of defenders of the a priori is that some justifications are non-experiential [Casullo] |
Full Idea: The leading claim of proponents of the a priori is that sources of justification are of two significantly different types: experiential and nonexperiential. Initially this difference is marked at the phenomenological level. | |
From: Albert Casullo (A Priori Knowledge [2002], 5) | |
A reaction: He cites Plantinga and Bealer for the phenomenological starting point (that some knowledge just seems rationally obvious, certain, and perhaps necessary). |
20472 | Analysis of the a priori by necessity or analyticity addresses the proposition, not the justification [Casullo] |
Full Idea: There is reason to view non-epistemic analyses of a priori knowledge (in terms of necessity or analyticity) with suspicion. The a priori concerns justification. Analysis by necessity or analyticity concerns the proposition rather than the justification. | |
From: Albert Casullo (A Priori Knowledge [2002], 2.1) | |
A reaction: [compressed] The fact that the a priori is entirely a mode of justification, rather than a type of truth, is the modern view, influenced by Kripke. Given that assumption, this is a good objection. |
20474 | 'Overriding' defeaters rule it out, and 'undermining' defeaters weaken in [Casullo] |
Full Idea: A justified belief that a proposition is not true is an 'overriding' defeater, ...and the belief that a justification is inadequate or defective is an 'undermining' defeater. | |
From: Albert Casullo (A Priori Knowledge [2002], n 40) | |
A reaction: Sounds more like a sliding scale than a binary option. Quite useful, though. |
20356 | Humans dominate because, unlike other animals, they have a synthesis of conflicting drives [Richardson] |
Full Idea: In contrast to the other animals, man has cultivated an abundance of contrary drives and impulses within himself: thanks to this synthesis, he is master of the earth. | |
From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], §966) | |
A reaction: If this is true, it presents the fundamental challenge of politicial philosophy - to visual a successful social system for a creature which does not have a clear and focused nature. For Nietzsche, this 'synthesis' continually evolves. |
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. |
20366 | A mind that could see cause and effect as a continuum would deny cause and effect [Richardson] |
Full Idea: An intellect that could see cause and effect as a continuum and a flux, and not, as we do, in terms of an arbitrary division and dismemberment, would repudiate the concept of cause and effect. | |
From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], §112) | |
A reaction: Maybe we do see it as a continuum? The racket swings and the ball is propelled, but the contact is a unity, not two separate events. |
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. |