13966
|
Analytic philosophy loved the necessary a priori analytic, linguistic modality, and rigour [Soames]
|
|
Full Idea:
The golden age of analytic philosophy (mid 20th c) was when necessary, a priori and analytic were one, all possibility was linguistic possibility, and the linguistic turn gave philosophy a respectable subject matter (language), and precision and rigour.
|
|
From:
Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.166)
|
|
A reaction:
Gently sarcastic, because Soames is part of the team who have put a bomb under this view, and quite right too. Personally I think the biggest enemy in all of this lot is not 'language' but 'rigour'. A will-o-the-wisp philosophers dream of.
|
13974
|
If philosophy is analysis of meaning, available to all competent speakers, what's left for philosophers? [Soames]
|
|
Full Idea:
If all of philosophy is the analysis of meaning, and meaning is fundamentally transparent to competent speakers, there is little room for philosophically significant explanations and theories, since they will be necessary or a priori, or both.
|
|
From:
Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.186)
|
|
A reaction:
He cites the later Wittgenstein as having fallen into this trap. I suppose any area of life can have its specialists, but I take Shakespeare to be a greater master of English than any philosopher I have ever read.
|
23304
|
The ancient Memorists said virtually all types of thinking could be done simply by memory [Sorabji]
|
|
Full Idea:
The ancient medical Memorists said that ordinary thinking, inferring, reflecting, believing, assuming, examining, generalising and knowing can all be done simply on the basis of memory.
|
|
From:
Richard Sorabji (Rationality [1996], 'Inference')
|
|
A reaction:
The think there is a plausible theory that all neurons do is remember, and are mainly distinguished by the duration of their memories. We might explain these modes of thinking in terms of various combinations of the fast and the slow.
|
23303
|
Stoics say true memory needs reflection and assent, but animals only have perceptual recognition [Sorabji]
|
|
Full Idea:
Stoics say memory proper involves reflection and assent. Animal memory, by contrast, is not memory proper, but mere perceptual recognition. The horse remembers the road when he is on it, but not when he is in the stable.
|
|
From:
Richard Sorabji (Rationality [1996], 'Other')
|
|
A reaction:
An interesting distinction. Do I remember something if I can never recall it, and yet recognise it when it reappears, such as a person I knew long ago? 'Memory' is ambiguous, between lodged in the mind, and recallable. Unfair to horses, this.
|
13972
|
Two-dimensionalism reinstates descriptivism, and reconnects necessity and apriority to analyticity [Soames]
|
|
Full Idea:
Two-dimensionalism is a fundamentally anti-Kripkean attempt to reinstate descriptivism about names and natural kind terms, to reconnect necessity and apriority to analyticity, and return philosophy to analytic paradigms of its golden age.
|
|
From:
Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.183)
|
|
A reaction:
I presume this is right, and it is so frustrating that you need Soames to spell it out, when Chalmers is much more low-key. Philosophers hate telling you what their real game is. Why is that?
|