11 ideas
1630 | We can only see an alien language in terms of our own thought structures (e.g. physical/abstract) [Quine] |
Full Idea: We are prone to talk about physical and abstract objects. It is hard to know how else to talk, because we are bound to adapt any alien pattern to our own in the very process of understanding or translating the alien sentences. | |
From: Willard Quine (Speaking of Objects [1960], pt.I,p.1) |
5747 | "No entity without identity" - our ontology must contain items with settled identity conditions [Quine, by Melia] |
Full Idea: Quine's well-known slogan "no entity without identity" means that no object should be admitted into our ontology unless its identity conditions, the conditions that say which object it is, have been settled. | |
From: report of Willard Quine (Speaking of Objects [1960]) by Joseph Melia - Modality Ch.4 | |
A reaction: This invites science fiction scenarios, where we admit the existence of something before we have a clue what it is (whether it is physical, hallucination, divine..). Quine's slogan seems attractive but optimistic. How 'settled'? |
7925 | There is no proper identity concept for properties, and it is hard to distinguish one from two [Quine] |
Full Idea: The lack of a proper identity concept for attributes (properties) is a lack that philosophers feel impelled to supply; for, what sense is there in saying there are attributes when there is no sense in saying when there is one attribute and when two? | |
From: Willard Quine (Speaking of Objects [1960], IV) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as being a really crucial question. There is a mistaken tendency to take any possible linguistic predicate as implying a natural property. I sympathise with the sceptics here (see Ideas 4029, 3906, 3322). How to individuate properties? |
13387 | Our conceptual scheme becomes more powerful when we posit abstract objects [Quine] |
Full Idea: There is no denying the access of power that accrues to our conceptual scheme through the positing of abstract objects. | |
From: Willard Quine (Speaking of Objects [1960], §5) | |
A reaction: This seems right, both in its use of the word 'posit', and in its general pragmatic claim. So why? If they enable us to grapple with the world better, it must be because of their power of generalisation. They are nets thrown over chunks of reality. |
8277 | I prefer 'no object without identity' to Quine's 'no entity without identity' [Lowe on Quine] |
Full Idea: To adapt Quine's famous slogan ('no entity without identity'), I prefer to say 'no object without identity'. | |
From: comment on Willard Quine (Speaking of Objects [1960], p.52) by E.J. Lowe - The Possibility of Metaphysics 7.1 | |
A reaction: Quine was trying to make us all more scientific, but Lowe is closer to common sense. The sky is an entity, most of us would say, but with very shaky identity-conditions. A wave of the sea is a good example. |
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. |
1631 | You could know the complete behavioural conditions for a foreign language, and still not know their beliefs [Quine] |
Full Idea: We could know the necessary and sufficient stimulatory conditions of every possible act of utterance, in a foreign language, and still not know how to determine what objects the speakers of that language believe in. | |
From: Willard Quine (Speaking of Objects [1960], pt.III,p.11) | |
A reaction: I just don't believe this, because the same scepticism then creeps into discussions of native speakers of a single language, and all communcation is blighted - which is nonsense. |
1632 | Translation of our remote past or language could be as problematic as alien languages [Quine] |
Full Idea: Translation of our remote past or future discourse into the terms we now know could be about as tenuous and arbitrary a projection as translation of a heathen language was seen to be. | |
From: Willard Quine (Speaking of Objects [1960], pt.V,p.25) | |
A reaction: Is he seriously saying that we can't understand Shakespeare, because holism implies that we would have to be Elizabethans? So scholarship is in vain? Is yesterday the 'past'? |
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. |