6 ideas
| 18491 | The idea of 'making' can be mere conceptual explanation (like 'because') [Künne] |
| Full Idea: If we say 'being a child of our parent's sibling makes him your first cousin', that can be paraphrased using 'because', and this is the 'because' of conceptual explanation: the second part elucidates the sense of the first part. | |
| From: Wolfgang Künne (Conceptions of Truth [2003], 3.5.2) | |
| A reaction: Fans of truth-making are certainly made uncomfortable by talk of 'what makes this a good painting' or 'this made my day'. They need a bit more sharpness to the concept of 'making' a truth. |
| 15675 | We don't condemn people for being bad at reasoning [Finlayson] |
| Full Idea: We do not morally disapprove of people who are incompetent reasoners. | |
| From: James Gordon Finlayson (Habermas [2005], Ch.6:83) | |
| A reaction: Well, we don't morally disapprove simply of their lack of reasoning ability, but we may morally disapprove of their actions, which have arisen entirely from the disability. |
| 15674 | One can universalise good advice, but that doesn't make it an obligation [Finlayson] |
| Full Idea: 'Early to bed and early to rise' is a universalizable maxim, but, though it might be good advice, there is obviously no such obligation. | |
| From: James Gordon Finlayson (Habermas [2005], Ch.6:83) | |
| A reaction: I take it that Kant's rule won't distinguish moral guidance from prudential guidance. Unfair, I think. I may be a lark, but when I universalise this maxim I see that it can't be willed as a universal rule, because we should tolerate the owls. |
| 15662 | The 'culture industry' is an advertisement for the way things are [Finlayson] |
| Full Idea: Critical theory said that culture unwittingly played the role of an advertisement for the way things are. Horkheimer and Adorno referred to this phenomenon as the 'culture industry'. | |
| From: James Gordon Finlayson (Habermas [2005], Ch.1:04) | |
| A reaction: An interesting perspective. However, absolutely everything is an advertisement for what it offers. I think this is especially true of moral (and immoral) actions. |
| 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. |