69 ideas
| 1798 | He studied philosophy by suspending his judgement on everything [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: He studied philosophy on the principle of suspending his judgement on all points. | |
| From: report of Pyrrho (reports [c.325 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.3 | |
| A reaction: In what sense was Pyrrho a philosopher, then? He must have asserted SOME generalised judgments. |
| 16512 | Semantic facts are preferable to transcendental philosophical fiction [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Semantical fact is almost always more interesting than transcendental philosophical fiction. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.1 n4) | |
| A reaction: An interesting expression of a more sophisticated recent allegiance to linguistic philosophy. There is still a strong allegiance to semantics as a major branch of philosophy, despite caution (e.g. from Nathan Salmon) about its scope. |
| 1800 | Sceptics say reason is only an instrument, because reason can only be attacked with reason [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: The Sceptics say that they only employ reason as an instrument, because it is impossible to overturn the authority of reason, without employing reason. | |
| From: report of Pyrrho (reports [c.325 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.8 |
| 13252 | Some truths have true negations [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: Dialetheism is the view that some truths have true negations. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 7.4) | |
| A reaction: The important thing to remember is that they are truths. Thus 'Are you feeling happy?' might be answered 'Yes and no'. |
| 13247 | A truthmaker is an object which entails a sentence [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: The truthmaker thesis is that an object is a truthmaker for a sentence if and only if its existence entails the sentence. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 5.5.3) | |
| A reaction: The use of the word 'object' here is even odder than usual, and invites many questions. And the 'only if' seems peculiar, since all sorts of things can make a sentence true. 'There is someone in the house' for example. |
| 13249 | (∀x)(A v B) |- (∀x)A v (∃x)B) is valid in classical logic but invalid intuitionistically [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: The inference of 'distribution' (∀x)(A v B) |- (∀x)A v (∃x)B) is valid in classical logic but invalid intuitionistically. It is straightforward to construct a 'stage' at which the LHS is true but the RHS is not. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 6.1.2) | |
| A reaction: This seems to parallel the iterative notion in set theory, that you must construct your hierarchy. All part of the general 'constructivist' approach to things. Is some kind of mad platonism the only alternative? |
| 13243 | Excluded middle must be true for some situation, not for all situations [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: Relevant logic endorses excluded middle, ..but says instances of the law may fail. Bv¬B is true in every situation that settles the matter of B. It is necessary that there is some such situation. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: See next idea for the unusual view of necessity on which this rests. It seems easier to assert something about all situations than just about 'some' situation. |
| 13242 | It's 'relevantly' valid if all those situations make it true [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: The argument from P to A is 'relevantly' valid if and only if, for every situation in which each premise in P is true, so is A. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: I like the idea that proper inference should have an element of relevance to it. A falsehood may allow all sorts of things, without actually implying them. 'Situations' sound promising here. |
| 13246 | Relevant logic does not abandon classical logic [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: We have not abandoned classical logic in our acceptance of relevant logic. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 5.4) | |
| A reaction: It appears that classical logic is straightforwardly accepted, but there is a difference of opinion over when it is applicable. |
| 13245 | Relevant consequence says invalidity is the conclusion not being 'in' the premises [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: Relevant consequence says the conclusion of a relevantly invalid argument is not 'carried in' the premises - it does not follow from the premises. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 5.3.3) | |
| A reaction: I find this appealing. It need not invalidate classical logic. It is just a tougher criterion which is introduced when you want to do 'proper' reasoning, instead of just playing games with formal systems. |
| 13254 | A doesn't imply A - that would be circular [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: We could reject the inference from A to itself (on grounds of circularity). | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 8) | |
| A reaction: [Martin-Meyer System] 'It's raining today'. 'Are you implying that it is raining today?' 'No, I'm SAYING it's raining today'. Logicians don't seem to understand the word 'implication'. Logic should capture how we reason. Nice proposal. |
| 13255 | Relevant logic may reject transitivity [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: Some relevant logics reject transitivity, but we defend the classical view. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 8) | |
| A reaction: [they cite Neil Tennant for this view] To reject transitivity (A?B ? B?C ? A?C) certainly seems a long way from classical logic. But in everyday inference Tennant's idea seems good. The first premise may be irrelevant to the final conclusion. |
| 13250 | Free logic terms aren't existential; classical is non-empty, with referring names [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: A logic is 'free' to the degree it refrains from existential import of its singular and general terms. Classical logic must have non-empty domain, and each name must denote in the domain. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 7.1) | |
| A reaction: My intuition is that logic should have no ontology at all, so I like the sound of 'free' logic. We can't say 'Pegasus does not exist', and then reason about Pegasus just like any other horse. |
| 13235 | Logic studies consequence; logical truths are consequences of everything, or nothing [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: Nowadays we think of the consequence relation itself as the primary subject of logic, and view logical truths as degenerate instances of this relation. Logical truths follow from any set of assumptions, or from no assumptions at all. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: This seems exactly right; the alternative is the study of necessities, but that may not involve logic. |
| 13238 | Syllogisms are only logic when they use variables, and not concrete terms [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: According to the Peripatetics (Aristotelians), only syllogistic laws stated in variables belong to logic, and not their applications to concrete terms. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 2.5) | |
| A reaction: [from Lukasiewicz] Seems wrong. I take it there are logical relations between concrete things, and the variables are merely used to describe these relations. Variables lack the internal powers to drive logical necessities. Variables lack essence! |
| 13234 | The view of logic as knowing a body of truths looks out-of-date [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: Through much of the 20th century the conception of logic was inherited from Frege and Russell, as knowledge of a body of logical truths, as arithmetic or geometry was a knowledge of truths. This is odd, and a historical anomaly. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. I have always taken this idea to be false. I presume logic has minimal subject matter and truths, and preferably none at all. |
| 13232 | Logic studies arguments, not formal languages; this involves interpretations [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: Logic does not study formal languages for their own sake, which is formal grammar. Logic evaluates arguments, and primarily considers formal languages as interpreted. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: Hodges seems to think logic just studies formal languages. The current idea strikes me as a much more sensible view. |
| 13241 | The model theory of classical predicate logic is mathematics [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: The model theory of classical predicate logic is mathematics if anything is. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 4.2.1) | |
| A reaction: This is an interesting contrast to the claim of logicism, that mathematics reduces to logic. This idea explains why students of logic are surprised to find themselves involved in mathematics. |
| 13253 | There are several different consequence relations [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: We are pluralists about logical consequence because we take there to be a number of different consequence relations, each reflecting different precisifications of the pre-theoretic notion of deductive logical consequence. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 8) | |
| A reaction: I don't see how you avoid the slippery slope that leads to daft logical rules like Prior's 'tonk' (from which you can infer anything you like). I say that nature imposes logical conquence on us - but don't ask me to prove it. |
| 13240 | A sentence follows from others if they always model it [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: The sentence X follows logically from the sentences of the class K if and only if every model of the class K is also a model of the sentence X. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: This why the symbol |= is often referred to as 'models'. |
| 13236 | Logical truth is much more important if mathematics rests on it, as logicism claims [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: If mathematical truth reduces to logical truth then it is important what counts as logically true, …but if logicism is not a going concern, then the body of purely logical truths will be less interesting. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: Logicism would only be one motivation for pursuing logical truths. Maybe my new 'Necessitism' will derive the Peano Axioms from broad necessary truths, rather than from logic. |
| 13237 | Preface Paradox affirms and denies the conjunction of propositions in the book [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: The Paradox of the Preface is an apology, that you are committed to each proposition in the book, but admit that collectively they probably contain a mistake. There is a contradiction, of affirming and denying the conjunction of propositions. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 2.4) | |
| A reaction: This seems similar to the Lottery Paradox - its inverse perhaps. Affirm all and then deny one, or deny all and then affirm one? |
| 17529 | Maybe the concept needed under which things coincide must also yield a principle of counting [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: My thesis C says that to specify something or other under which a and b coincide is to specify a concept f which qualifies for this purpose only if it yields a principle of counting for fs. ...I submit that C is false, though a near miss. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 1.1) |
| 17530 | The sortal needed for identities may not always be sufficient to support counting [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: My principle C seems unnecessary ...since it is one thing to see how many fs there are...but another to have a perfectly general method. ...One could answer whether this f-compliant is the same as that one, but there are too many ways to articulate it. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 2.8) | |
| A reaction: His famous example is trying to count the Pope's crown, which is made of crowns. A clearer example might be a rectangular figure divided up into various overlapping rectangles. Individuation is easy, but counting is contextual. |
| 16523 | Realist Conceptualists accept that our interests affect our concepts [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: The realist conceptualist may cheerfully admit that the sortal concepts of which we are possessed are the creatures of our interests; …and also that there need be no one way in which we must articulate reality. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: Wiggins calls himself a 'realist conceptualist'. In his terminology, I seem to be an 'anti-conceptualist realist'. The issue concerns aspects of reality that extend beyond our concepts. The 99th d.p. of the mass of the electron. |
| 16524 | Conceptualism says we must use our individuating concepts to grasp reality [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: What Conceptualism entails is that, although horses and stars are not inventions or artefacts, in order to single out these things we must deploy a conceptual scheme which has been formed in such a way as to make singling them out possible. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 5.5) | |
| A reaction: I don't quite see why the 'singling out' role of the concepts is the only one that generates them, or makes them fit for purpose. In general, of course, our conceptual scheme is necessarily a response to our experience of the world. |
| 16526 | Animal classifications: the Emperor's, fabulous, innumerable, like flies, stray dogs, embalmed…. [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: A Chinese encyclopedia classifies animals as belonging to the Emperor, embalmed, tame, sucking pigs, sirens, fabulous, stray dogs, included in this classification, frenzied, innumerable, drawn with a fine brush, etcetera, or look for afar like flies. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 5.7 n18) | |
| A reaction: [This glorious quotation comes from a story by Borges, first spotted by Foucault] |
| 16492 | Individuation needs accounts of identity, of change, and of singling out [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: A theory of individuation must comprise at least three things: an elucidation of the primitive concept of identity or sameness; what it is to be a substance that persists through change; and what it is for a thinker to single out the same substance. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], Pre 1) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Metaphysics seems to need a theory of identity, but I am not yet convinced that it also needs a theory of 'individuation'. Never mind, press on and create one, and see how it looks. Aristotle wanted to explain predication too. |
| 16493 | Individuation can only be understood by the relation between things and thinkers [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Understanding the concepts involved in individuation can only be characterised by reference to observable commerce between things singled out and thinkers who think or find their way around the world precisely by singling them out. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], Pre 1) | |
| A reaction: I take individuation to be relatively uninteresting, because I understand identity independently of how we single things out, but Wiggins's reliance on sortals implies that the very identity of things in the world is knee deep in mental activity. |
| 16496 | Singling out extends back and forward in time [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: The singling out of a substance at a time reaches backwards and forwards to time before and after that time. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], Pre 2) | |
| A reaction: Presumably this is an inferred history and persistence conditions. Sounds fine in a stable world. We assume (a priori?) that any object will have a space-time line for its duration. |
| 16495 | The only singling out is singling out 'as' something [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: There could be no singling out tout court unless there could be singling out 'as'. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], Pre 2) | |
| A reaction: I find this claim baffling. Do animals categorise everything they engage with? Are we unable to engage with something if we have not yet categorised it? Surely picking it out is prior to saying that sort of thing it is? |
| 16501 | In Aristotle's sense, saying x falls under f is to say what x is [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: To say that x falls under f - or that x is an f - is to say what x is (in the sense Aristotle isolated). | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: This is a key claim in Wiggins's main principle. I'm not convinced. He wants one main sortal to do all the work. I don't think Aristotle at all intended the 'nature' of an individual thing to be given by a single sortal under which it falls. |
| 16506 | Every determinate thing falls under a sortal, which fixes its persistence [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: We can expect that, for every completely determinate continuant, there will be at least one sortal concept that it falls under and that determines a principle of persistence for it. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 2.4) | |
| A reaction: I think he has the 'determines' relation the wrong way round! Being a tiger doesn't determine anything about persistence. It is having that nature and those persistence conditions which make it a tiger. And why does he optimistically 'expect' this? |
| 16509 | Natural kinds are well suited to be the sortals which fix substances [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Among the best candidates to play the roles of sortal and substantial predicates are the natural kind words. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: There is always a danger of circularity with this kind of approach. How do we distinguish the genuine natural kinds from the dubious ones? |
| 16514 | Artefacts are individuated by some matter having a certain function [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Ordinary artefacts are individuated, rather indeterminately and arbitrarily, by reference to a parcel of matter so organised as to subserve a certain function. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.3) |
| 16510 | Nominal essences don't fix membership, ignore evolution, and aren't contextual [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Nominal essences are unsatisfactory because they fail either of necessity or of sufficiency for membership of the intended kind, they leave unexplained how sortals can evolve, and there is no room for culture or context in our reference to kinds. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: [a compression of a paragraph] I would have thought that Locke would just say it is tough luck if nominal essences can't do all these things, because that's just the way it is, folks. |
| 16503 | 'What is it?' gives the kind, nature, persistence conditions and identity over time of a thing [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: The question 'what is it?' refers to the persistence and lifespan of an entity, and so manifests the identity over time of an entity and its persistence, between persistence and existence, and between its existence and being the kind of thing it is. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: The idea that establishing the kind of a thing can do all this work strikes me as false. The lifespan of a 'human' can be between five minutes and a hundred years. Humans have a clear death, but thunderstorms don't. |
| 16499 | A restored church is the same 'church', but not the same 'building' or 'brickwork' [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: We can say of Hume's church that the present church is the same 'church' as the old parish church but not the same 'building' or the same 'stonework' as the old parish church. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: Unconvinced. This seems to make a 'church' into an abstraction, which might even exist in the absence of any building. And it seems to identify a building with its stonework. Wiggins yearns for a neat solution, but it ain't here. |
| 16515 | A thing begins only once; for a clock, it is when its making is first completed [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: A thing starts existing only once; and in the case of a clock its proper beginning was at about the time when its maker finished it. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: I love the example that challenges this. Take the clock's parts and use them to make other clocks, then collect them up and reassemble the first clock. If the first clock has persisted through this, you have too many clocks. Wiggins spots some of this. |
| 16517 | Priests prefer the working ship; antiquarians prefer the reconstruction [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Dispute might break out between priests who favoured the working ship and antiquarians who preferred the reconstruction. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: This captures the contextual nature of the dispute very succinctly. Wiggins, of course, thinks that sortals will settle the matter. Fat chance. |
| 16498 | Identity cannot be defined, because definitions are identities [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Since any definition is an identity, identity itself cannot be defined. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 1.2 n7) | |
| A reaction: This sounds too good to be true! I can't think of an objection, so, okay, identity cannot possibly be defined. We can give synonyms for it, I suppose. [Wrong, says Rumfitt! Definitions can also be equivalences!] |
| 16497 | Leibniz's Law (not transitivity, symmetry, reflexivity) marks what is peculiar to identity [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: The principle of Leibniz's Law marks off what is peculiar to identity and differentiates it in a way in which transitivity, symmetry and reflexivity (all shared by 'exact similarity, 'equality in pay', etc.) do not. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 1.2) |
| 16502 | Identity is primitive [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Identity is a primitive notion. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: To be a true primitive it would have to be univocal, but it seems to me that 'identity' comes in degrees. The primitive concept is the minimal end of the degrees, but there are also more substantial notions of identity. |
| 16521 | A is necessarily A, so if B is A, then B is also necessarily A [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: The famous proof of Barcan Marcus about necessity of identity comes down to simply this: Hesperus is necessarily Hesperus, so if Phosphorus is Hesperus, Phosphorus is necessarily Hesperus. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: Since the identity of Hesperus and Phosphorus was an a posteriori discovery, this was taken to be the inception of the idea that there are a posteriori necessities. The conclusion seems obvious. One thing is necessarily one thing. |
| 16505 | By the principle of Indiscernibility, a symmetrical object could only be half of itself! [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: The full Identity of Indiscernibles excludes the existence in this world of a symmetrical object, which is reduced to half of itself by the principle. If symmetrical about all planes that bisect it, it is precluded altogether from existence. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: A really nice objection. Do the parts even need to be symmetrical? My eyeballs can't be identical to one another, presumably. Electrons already gave the principle big trouble. |
| 16494 | We want to explain sameness as coincidence of substance, not as anything qualitative [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: The notion of sameness or identity that we are to elucidate is not that of any degree of qualitative similarity but of coincidence as a substance - a notion as primitive as predication. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], Pre 2) | |
| A reaction: This question invites an approach to identity through our descriptions of it, rather than to the thing itself. There is no problem in ontology of two substances being 'the same', because they are just one substance. |
| 13244 | Relevant necessity is always true for some situation (not all situations) [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: In relevant logic, the necessary truths are not those which are true in every situation; rather, they are those for which it is necessary that there is a situation making them true. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: This seems to rest on the truthmaker view of such things, which I find quite attractive (despite Merricks's assault). Always ask what is making some truth necessary. This leads you to essences. |
| 16522 | It is hard or impossible to think of Caesar as not human [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: It is hard or impossible to conceive of Caesar's not being a man (human). | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: So is it 'hard' or is it 'impossible'? Older generations of philosophers simply didn't read enough science fiction. Any short story could feature Caesar's failure to be a man. His assassination was a disaster for the Martian invasion of 44 BCE. |
| 6595 | If we need a criterion of truth, we need to know whether it is the correct criterion [Pyrrho, by Fogelin] |
| Full Idea: Against the Stoics, the Pyrrhonians argued that if someone presents a criterion of truth, then it will be important to determine whether it is the correct criterion. | |
| From: report of Pyrrho (reports [c.325 BCE]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.4 | |
| A reaction: Hence Davidson says that attempts to define truth are 'folly'. If something has to be taken as basic, then truth seems a good candidate (since, for example, logical operators could not otherwise be defined by means of 'truth' tables). |
| 6593 | The Pyrrhonians attacked the dogmas of professors, not ordinary people [Pyrrho, by Fogelin] |
| Full Idea: The attacks of the Pyrrhonian sceptics are directed against the dogmas of the 'professors', not against the beliefs of the common people pursuing the business of daily life. | |
| From: report of Pyrrho (reports [c.325 BCE]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.4 | |
| A reaction: This may be because they thought that ordinary people were too confused to be worth attacking, rather than because they lived in a state of beautifully appropriate beliefs. Naďve realism is certainly worth attacking. |
| 6592 | Academics said that Pyrrhonians were guilty of 'negative dogmatism' [Pyrrho, by Fogelin] |
| Full Idea: The ancient Academic sceptics charged the Pyrrhonian sceptics with 'negative dogmatism' when they claimed that a certain kind of knowledge is impossible. | |
| From: report of Pyrrho (reports [c.325 BCE]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.4 | |
| A reaction: It is this kind of point which should push us towards some sort of rationalism, because certain a priori 'dogmas' seem to be indispensable to get any sort of discussion off the ground. The only safe person is Cratylus (see Idea 578). |
| 1805 | Judgements vary according to local culture and law (Mode 5) [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Fifth mode: judgements vary according to local custom, law and culture (Persians marry their daughters). | |
| From: report of Pyrrho (reports [c.325 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.9 |
| 1803 | Objects vary according to which sense perceives them (Mode 3) [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Third mode: things like an apple vary according to which sense perceives them (yellow, sweet, and fragrant). | |
| From: report of Pyrrho (reports [c.325 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.9 |
| 1807 | Perception varies with viewing distance and angle (Mode 7) [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Seventh mode: perception varies according to viewing distance and angle (the sun, and a dove's neck). | |
| From: report of Pyrrho (reports [c.325 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.9 |
| 1810 | Perception and judgement depend on comparison (Mode 10) [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Tenth mode: perceptions and judgements depend on comparison (light/heavy, above/below). | |
| From: report of Pyrrho (reports [c.325 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.9 |
| 1802 | Individuals vary in responses and feelings (Mode 2) [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Second mode: individual men vary in responses and feelings (heat and cold, for example). | |
| From: report of Pyrrho (reports [c.325 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.9 |
| 1801 | Animals vary in their feelings and judgements (Mode 1) [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: First mode: animals vary in their feelings and judgements (of food, for example). | |
| From: report of Pyrrho (reports [c.325 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.9 |
| 1804 | Perception varies with madness or disease (Mode 4) [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Fourth mode: perceivers vary in their mental and physical state (such as the mad and the sick). | |
| From: report of Pyrrho (reports [c.325 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.9 |
| 1808 | Perception of things depends on their size or quantity (Mode 8) [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Eighth mode: perceptions of things depend on their magnitude or quantity (food and wine). | |
| From: report of Pyrrho (reports [c.325 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.9 |
| 1806 | Perception of objects depends on surrounding conditions (Mode 6) [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Sixth mode: the perception of an object depends on surrounding conditions (sunlight and lamplight). | |
| From: report of Pyrrho (reports [c.325 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.9 |
| 1809 | Perception is affected by expectations (Mode 9) [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Ninth mode: we perceive things according to what we expect (earthquakes and sunshine). | |
| From: report of Pyrrho (reports [c.325 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.9 |
| 16525 | Our sortal concepts fix what we find in experience [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: What sortal concepts we can bring to bear upon experience determines what we can find there. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 5.6) | |
| A reaction: Wiggins would wince at being classed among linguistic relativists of the Sapir-Whorf type, but that's where I'm putting this idea. Wiggins is a realist, who knows there are things out there our concepts miss. He compares it to a fishing net. He's wrong. |
| 13239 | Judgement is always predicating a property of a subject [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: All judgement, for Kant, is essentially the predication of some property to some subject. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 2.5) | |
| A reaction: Presumably the denial of a predicate could be a judgement, or the affirmation of ambiguous predicates? |
| 16518 | We conceptualise objects, but they impinge on us [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: The mind conceptualises objects, yet objects impinge upon the mind. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: A very nice statement of the relationship, and the fact that we don't just make our concepts up. |
| 16511 | A 'conception' of a horse is a full theory of what it is (and not just the 'concept') [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: A 'conception' of horse is a theory of what a horse is, or what it is to be a horse. The conception is in no way the same as the concept. The conception is of the concept. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: Wiggins sounds confident about a sharp distinction here, which I doubt, but some such distinction seems to required. I quite like Williams's 'fat' and 'thin' concepts. |
| 13248 | We can rest truth-conditions on situations, rather than on possible worlds [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: Situation semantics is a variation of the truth-conditional approach, taking the salient unit of analysis not to be the possible world, or some complete consistent index, but rather the more modest 'situation'. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 5.5.4) | |
| A reaction: When I read Davidson (and implicitly Frege) this is what I always assumed was meant. The idea that worlds are meant has crept in to give truth conditions for modal statements. Hence situation semantics must cover modality. |
| 13233 | Propositions commit to content, and not to any way of spelling it out [Beall/Restall] |
| Full Idea: Our talk of propositions expresses commitment to the general notion of content, without a commitment to any particular way of spelling this out. | |
| From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: As a fan of propositions I like this. It leaves open the question of whether the content belongs to the mind or the language. Animals entertain propositions, say I. |
| 3062 | There are no causes, because they are relative, and alike things can't cause one another [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: The idea of cause is relative to that of which it is the cause, and so has no real existence. …Also cause must either be body causing body, or incorporeal causing incorporeal, and neither of these is possible. | |
| From: report of Pyrrho (reports [c.325 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.11.11 |
| 3063 | Motion can't move where it is, and can't move where it isn't, so it can't exist [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Motion is not moved in the place in which it is is, and it is impossible that it should be moved in the place in which it is not, so there is no such thing as motion. | |
| From: report of Pyrrho (reports [c.325 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.11.11 |