5 ideas
2572 | Logical truth seems much less likely to 'correspond to the facts' than factual truth does [Haack] |
Full Idea: It is surely less plausible to suppose that logical truth consists in correspondence to the facts than that 'factual' truth does. | |
From: Susan Haack (Philosophy of Logics [1978], 7.6) |
2570 | The same sentence could be true in one language and meaningless in another, so truth is language-relative [Haack] |
Full Idea: The definition of truth will have to be, Tarski argues, relative to a language, for one and the same sentence may be true in one language, and false or meaningless in another. | |
From: Susan Haack (Philosophy of Logics [1978], 7.5) |
21058 | Enlightenment requires the free use of reason in the public realm [Kant] |
Full Idea: The public use of man's reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men; the private use of reason may quite often be very narrowly restricted (…in a particular civil post or office). | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Answer to 'What is Enlightenment?' [1784], p.55) | |
A reaction: The private aspect seems to be the common restriction on speech by employees of the state. Does free speech have only instrumental value? Is the life of virtue possible without it? |
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. |