16 ideas
21463 | Hamann, Herder and Jacobi were key opponents of the Enlightenment [Gardner] |
Full Idea: Hamann, Herder and Jacobi are central figues in the reaction against Enlightenment. | |
From: Sebastian Gardner (Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason [1999], 10 'immediate') | |
A reaction: From a British perspective I would see Hume as the leading such figure. Hamann emphasised the neglect of the role of language. Jacobi was a Christian. |
21459 | Kant halted rationalism, and forced empiricists to worry about foundations [Gardner] |
Full Idea: Kant's Critique swiftly brought rationalism to a halt, and after Kant empiricism has displayed a nervousness regarding its foundations, and been forced to assume more sophisticated forms. | |
From: Sebastian Gardner (Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason [1999], 10 Intro) | |
A reaction: See the ideas of Laurence Bonjour for a modern revival of rationalism. After Kant philosophers either went existential, or stared gloomily into the obscure depths. Formal logic was seen as a possible rope ladder down. |
21460 | Only Kant and Hegel have united nature, morals, politics, aesthetics and religion [Gardner] |
Full Idea: Apart from Hegel, no later philosophical system equals in stature Kant's attempt to weld together the diverse fields of natural science, morality, politics, aesthetics and religion into a systematic overarching epistemological and metaphysical unity. | |
From: Sebastian Gardner (Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason [1999], 10) | |
A reaction: Earlier candidate are Plato and Aristotle. Earlier Enlightenment figures say little about morality or aesthetics. Hobbes ranges widely. Aquinas covered most things. |
21443 | Transcendental proofs derive necessities from possibilities (e.g. possibility of experiencing objects) [Gardner] |
Full Idea: A transcendental proof converts a possibility into a necessity: by saying under what conditions experience of objects is possible, transcendental proofs show those conditions to be necessary for us to the extent that we have any experience of objects. | |
From: Sebastian Gardner (Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason [1999], 02 'Transc') | |
A reaction: They appear to be hypothetical necessities, rather than true metaphysical necessities. Gardner is discussing Kant, but seems to be generalising. Hypothetical necessities are easy: if it is flying, it is necessarily above the ground. |
16985 | Possible worlds allowed the application of set-theoretic models to modal logic [Kripke] |
Full Idea: The main and the original motivation for the 'possible worlds analysis' - and the way it clarified modal logic - was that it enabled modal logic to be treated by the same set theoretic techniques of model theory used successfully in extensional logic. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity preface [1980], p.19 n18) | |
A reaction: So they should be ascribed the same value that we attribute to classical model theory, whatever that is. |
16982 | A man has two names if the historical chains are different - even if they are the same! [Kripke] |
Full Idea: Two totally distinct 'historical chains' that be sheer accident assign the same name to the same man should probably count as creating distinct names despite the identity of the referents. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity preface [1980], p.08 n9) | |
A reaction: A nice puzzle for his own theory. 'What's you name?' 'Alice, and Alice!' |
21444 | Modern geoemtry is either 'pure' (and formal), or 'applied' (and a posteriori) [Gardner] |
Full Idea: There is now 'pure' geometry, consisting of formal systems based on axioms for which truth is not claimed, and which are consequently not synthetic; and 'applied', a branch of physics, the truth of which is empirical, and therefore not a priori. | |
From: Sebastian Gardner (Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason [1999], 03 'Maths') | |
A reaction: His point is that there is no longer any room for a priori geometry. Might the same division be asserted of arithmetic, or analysis, or set theory? |
21453 | Leibnizian monads qualify as Kantian noumena [Gardner] |
Full Idea: Leibnizian monads clearly satisfy Kant's definition of noumena. | |
From: Sebastian Gardner (Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason [1999], 06 'Noumena') | |
A reaction: This needs qualifying, because Leibniz clearly specifies the main attributes of monads, where Kant is adamant that we can saying virtually nothing about noumena. |
16981 | With the necessity of self-identity plus Leibniz's Law, identity has to be an 'internal' relation [Kripke] |
Full Idea: It is clear from (x)□(x=x) and Leibniz's Law that identity is an 'internal' relation: (x)(y)(x=y ⊃ □x=y). What pairs (w,y) could be counterexamples? Not pairs of distinct objects, …nor an object and itself. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity preface [1980], p.03) | |
A reaction: I take 'internal' to mean that the necessity of identity is intrinsic to the item(s), and not imposed by some other force. |
4942 | The indiscernibility of identicals is as self-evident as the law of contradiction [Kripke] |
Full Idea: It seems to me that the Leibnizian principle of the indiscernibility of identicals (not to be confused with the identity of indiscernibles) is as self-evident as the law of contradiction. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity preface [1980], p.03) | |
A reaction: This seems obviously correct, as it says no more than that a thing has whatever properties it has. If a difference is discerned, either you have made a mistake, or it isn't identical. |
16984 | I don't think possible worlds reductively reveal the natures of modal operators etc. [Kripke] |
Full Idea: I do not think of 'possible worlds' as providing a reductive analysis in any philosophically significant sense, that is, as uncovering the ultimate nature, from either an epistemological or a metaphysical view, of modal operators, propositions etc. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity preface [1980], p.19 n18) | |
A reaction: I think this remark opens the door for Kit Fine's approach, of showing what modality is by specifying its sources. Possible worlds model the behaviour of modal inferences. |
9385 | The very act of designating of an object with properties gives knowledge of a contingent truth [Kripke] |
Full Idea: If a speaker introduced a designator into a language by a ceremony, then in virtue of his very linguistic act, he would be in a position to say 'I know that Fa', but nevertheless 'Fa' would be a contingent truth (provided F is not an essential property). | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity preface [1980], p.14) | |
A reaction: If someone else does the designation, I seem to have contingent knowledge that the ceremony has taken place. You needn't experience the object, but you must experience the ceremony, even if you perform it. |
4943 | Instead of talking about possible worlds, we can always say "It is possible that.." [Kripke] |
Full Idea: We should remind ourselves the 'possible worlds' terminology can always be replaced by modal talk, such as "It is possible that…" | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity preface [1980], p.15) | |
A reaction: Coming from an originator of the possible worlds idea, this is a useful reminder that we don't have to get too excited about the ontological commitments involved. It may be just a 'way to talk', and hence a tool, rather than a truth about reality. |
16983 | Probability with dice uses possible worlds, abstractions which fictionally simplify things [Kripke] |
Full Idea: In studying probabilities with dice, we are introduced at a tender age to a set of 36 (miniature) possible worlds, if we (fictively) ignore everything except the two dice. …The possibilities are abstract states of the dice, not physical entities. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity preface [1980], p.16) | |
A reaction: Interesting for the introduction by the great man of the words 'fictional' and 'abstract' into the discussion. He says elsewhere that he takes worlds to be less than real, but more than mere technical devices. |
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. |