77 ideas
| 3600 | Slow and accurate thought makes the greatest progress [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Those who go forward only very slowly can progress much further if they always keep to the right path, than those who run and wander off it. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §1.2) | |
| A reaction: Like Descartes' 'Method'. This seems to place a low value on 'nous' or intuition. |
| 3601 | Most things in human life seem vain and useless [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Looking at the various activities and enterprises of mankind with the eye of a philosopher, there is hardly one which does not seem to me vain and useless. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §1.3) | |
| A reaction: Well, yes. The obvious retort is that everything is vain and useless; or if not, then certainly metaphysics is. Useful for what? Is ornamental gardening useless, or sport? Art? What is the use of cosmology? He's right, of course. |
| 3602 | Almost every daft idea has been expressed by some philosopher [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: There is nothing one can imagine so strange or so unbelievable that has not been said by one or other of the philosophers. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §2.16) | |
| A reaction: Actually I think that extensive areas of logical possibilities for existence remain totally unexplored. On the other hand, most of the metaphysical beliefs of most of the human race, including the majority of philosophers, strike me as being false. |
| 3603 | Methodical thinking is cautious, analytical, systematic, and panoramic [Descartes, by PG] |
| Full Idea: Descartes' four principles for his method of thinking are: be cautious, analyse the problem, be systematic from simple to complex, and keep an overview of the problem | |
| From: report of René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §2.18) by PG - Db (ideas) |
| 3612 | Clear and distinct conceptions are true because a perfect God exists [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: That the things we grasp very clearly and very distinctly are all true, is assured only because God is or exists, and because he is a perfect Being. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §4.38) |
| 3610 | Truth is clear and distinct conception - of which it is hard to be sure [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I take it as a general rule that the things we conceive very clearly and very distinctly are all true, but that there is merely some difficulty in properly discerning which are those which we distinctly conceive. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §4.33) |
| 8625 | What physical facts could underlie 0 or 1, or very large numbers? [Frege on Mill] |
| Full Idea: What in the world can be the observed fact, or the physical fact, which is asserted in the definition of the number 777864? ...What a pity that Mill did not also illustrate the physical facts underlying the numbers 0 and 1! | |
| From: comment on John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843]) by Gottlob Frege - Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) §7 | |
| A reaction: I still think patterns could be an empirical foundation for arithmetic, though you still have to grasp the abstract concept of the pattern. An innate capacity to spot resemblance gets you a long way. |
| 17895 | Combining two distinct assertions does not necessarily lead to a single 'complex proposition' [Mill] |
| Full Idea: In 'Caesar is dead, and Brutus is alive' ...there are here two distinct assertions; and we might as well call a street a complex house, as these two propositions a complex proposition. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 1.04.3) | |
| A reaction: Arthur Prior, in his article on 'tonk', cites this to claim that the mere account of the and-introduction rule does not guarantee the existence of any conjunctive proposition that can result from it. Mill says you are adding a third proposition. |
| 10427 | All names are names of something, real or imaginary [Mill] |
| Full Idea: All names are names of something, real or imaginary. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], p.32), quoted by Mark Sainsbury - The Essence of Reference 18.2 | |
| A reaction: Mill's example of of being like a chalk mark on a door, but Sainsbury points out that names can be detached from bearers in a way that chalk marks can't. |
| 4944 | Mill says names have denotation but not connotation [Mill, by Kripke] |
| Full Idea: It is a well known doctrine of Mill that names have denotation but not connotation. | |
| From: report of John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843]) by Saul A. Kripke - Naming and Necessity lectures Lecture 1 | |
| A reaction: A nice starting point for any discussion of the topic. The obvious response is that a name like 'Attila the Hun' seems to have a very vague denotation for most of us, but a rather powerful connotation. |
| 7762 | Proper names are just labels for persons or objects, and the meaning is the object [Mill, by Lycan] |
| Full Idea: Mill seemed to defend the view that proper names are merely labels for individual persons or objects, and contribute no more than those individuals themselves to the meanings of sentences in which they occur. | |
| From: report of John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843]) by William Lycan - Philosophy of Language | |
| A reaction: Identity statements can become trivial on this view ('Twain is Clemens'). Modern views have become more sympathetic to Mill, since externalism places meanings outside the head of the speaker. |
| 9801 | Numbers must be assumed to have identical units, as horses are equalised in 'horse-power' [Mill] |
| Full Idea: There is one hypothetical element in the basis of arithmetic, without which none of it would be true: all the numbers are numbers of the same or of equal units. When we talk of forty horse-power, we assume all horses are of equal strength. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 2.6.3) | |
| A reaction: Of course, horses are not all of equal strength, so there is a problem here for your hard-line empiricist. Mill needs processes of idealisation and abstraction before his empirical arithmetic can get off the ground. |
| 8742 | The only axioms needed are for equality, addition, and successive numbers [Mill, by Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Mill says arithmetic has two axioms, that 'things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other', and 'equals added to equals make equal sums', plus a definition for each numeral as 'formed by the addition of a unit to the previous number'. | |
| From: report of John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], p.610?) by Stewart Shapiro - Thinking About Mathematics 4.3 | |
| A reaction: The difficulty here seems to be the definition of 1, and (even worse for an empiricist), of 0. Then he may have a little trouble when he reaches infinity. |
| 9800 | Arithmetic is based on definitions, and Sums of equals are equal, and Differences of equals are equal [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The inductions of arithmetic are based on so-called definitions (such as '2 and 1 are three'), and on two axioms: The sums of equals are equal, The differences of equals are equal. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 2.6.3) | |
| A reaction: These are axioms for arithmetical operations, rather than for numbers themselves (which, for Mill, do not require axioms as they are empirically derived). |
| 5201 | Mill says logic and maths is induction based on a very large number of instances [Mill, by Ayer] |
| Full Idea: Mill maintained that the truths of logic and mathematics are not necessary or certain, by saying these propositions are inductive generalisations based on an extremely large number of instances. | |
| From: report of John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843]) by A.J. Ayer - Language,Truth and Logic Ch.4 | |
| A reaction: Ayer asserts that they are necessary (but only because they are tautological). I like the idea that maths is the 'science of patterns', but that might lead from an empirical start to a rationalist belief in a priori synthetic truths. |
| 9360 | If two black and two white objects in practice produced five, what colour is the fifth one? [Lewis,CI on Mill] |
| Full Idea: If Mill has a demon who, every time two things are brought together with two other things, always introduces a fifth, then if two black marbles and two white ones are put in an urn, the demon could choose his color, but there would be more of one colour. | |
| From: comment on John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843]) by C.I. Lewis - A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori p.367 | |
| A reaction: Nice to see philosophers fighting back against demons. This is a lovely argument against the absurdity of thinking that experience could ever controvert a priori knowledge (though Lewis is no great fan of the latter). |
| 9888 | Mill mistakes particular applications as integral to arithmetic, instead of general patterns [Dummett on Mill] |
| Full Idea: Mill's mistake is taking particular applications as integral to the sense of arithmetical propositions. But what is integral to arithmetic is the general principle that explains its applicability, and determines the pattern of particular applications. | |
| From: comment on John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 2.6) by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics Ch.20 | |
| A reaction: [Dummett is summarising Frege's view] Sounds like a tidy objection, but you still have to connect the general principles and patterns to the physical world. 'Structure' could be the magic word to achieve this. |
| 9794 | There are no such things as numbers in the abstract [Mill] |
| Full Idea: There are no such things as numbers in the abstract. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 2.6.2) | |
| A reaction: Depends. Would we want to say that 'horses don't exist' (although each individual horse does exist)? It sounds odd to say of an idea that it doesn't exist, when you are currently thinking about it. I am, however, sympathetic to Mill. |
| 9796 | Things possess the properties of numbers, as quantity, and as countable parts [Mill] |
| Full Idea: All things possess quantity; consist of parts which can be numbered; and in that character possess all the properties which are called properties of numbers. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 2.6.2) | |
| A reaction: Here Mill is skating on the very thinnest of ice, and I find myself reluctantly siding with Frege. It is a very optimistic empiricist who hopes to find the numbers actually occurring as properties of experienced objects. A pack of cards, for example. |
| 9795 | Numbers have generalised application to entities (such as bodies or sounds) [Mill] |
| Full Idea: 'Ten' must mean ten bodies, or ten sounds, or ten beatings of the pulse. But though numbers must be numbers of something, they may be numbers of anything. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 2.6.2) | |
| A reaction: Mill always prefers things in close proximity, in space or time. 'I've had ten headaches in the last year'. 'There are ten reasons for doubting p'. His second point puts him very close to Aristotle in his view. |
| 9798 | Different parcels made from three pebbles produce different actual sensations [Mill] |
| Full Idea: Three pebbles make different sense impressions in one parcel or in two. That the same pebbles by an alteration of place and arrangement may be made to produce either sensation is not the identical proposition. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 2.6.2) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Not quite clear, but Mill seems to be adamant that we really must experience the separation, and not just think what 'may' happen, so Frege is right that Mill is lucky that everything is not 'nailed down'. |
| 9797 | '2 pebbles and 1 pebble' and '3 pebbles' name the same aggregation, but different facts [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The expressions '2 pebbles and 1 pebble' and '3 pebbles' stand for the same aggregation of objects, but do not stand for the same physical fact. They name the same objects in different states, 'denoting' the same things, with different 'connotations'. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 2.6.2) | |
| A reaction: Nothing in this would convert me from the analytic view to the empirical view of simple arithmetic, if I were that way inclined. Personally I think of three pebbles as 4 minus 1, because I am haunted by the thought of a missing stone. |
| 9799 | 3=2+1 presupposes collections of objects ('Threes'), which may be divided thus [Mill] |
| Full Idea: 'Three is two and one' presupposes that collections of objects exist, which while they impress the senses thus, ¶¶¶, may be separated into two parts, thus, ¶¶ ¶. This being granted, we term all such parcels Threes. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 2.6.2) | |
| A reaction: Mill is clearly in trouble here because he sticks to simple arithmetic. He must deal with parcels too big for humans to count, and parcels so big that they could not naturally exist, and that is before you even reach infinite parcels. |
| 9802 | Numbers denote physical properties of physical phenomena [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The fact asserted in the definition of a number is a physical fact. Each of the numbers two, three, four denotes physical phenomena, and connotes a physical property of those phenomena. Two denotes all pairs of things, and twelve all dozens. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 3.24.5) | |
| A reaction: The least plausible part of Mill's thesis. Is the fact that a pair of things is fewer than five things also a property? You see two boots, or you see a pair of boots, depending partly on you. Is pure two a visible property? Courage and an onion? |
| 9803 | We can't easily distinguish 102 horses from 103, but we could arrange them to make it obvious [Mill] |
| Full Idea: 102 horses are not as easily distinguished from 103 as two are from three, yet the horses may be so placed that a difference will be perceptible. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 3.24.5) | |
| A reaction: More trouble for Mill. We are now moving from the claim that we actually perceive numbers to the claim that we could if we arranged things right. But we would still only see which group of horses was bigger by one, not how many horses there were. |
| 9804 | Arithmetical results give a mode of formation of a given number [Mill] |
| Full Idea: Every statement of the result of an arithmetical operation is a statement of one of the modes of formation of a given number. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 3.24.5) | |
| A reaction: Although Mill sticks cautiously to very simple arithmetic, inviting empirical accounts of much higher mathematics, I think the phrase 'modes of formation' of numbers is very helpful. It could take us either into structuralism, or into constructivism. |
| 9805 | 12 is the cube of 1728 means pebbles can be aggregated a certain way [Mill] |
| Full Idea: When we say 12 is the cube of 1728, we affirm that if we had sufficient pebbles, we put them into parcels or aggregates called twelves, and put those twelves into similar collections, and make twelve of these largests parcels, we have the aggregate 1728. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 3.24.5) | |
| A reaction: There is always hidden modal thinking in Mill's proposals, despite his longing to stick to actual experience. Imagination actually plays a much bigger role in his theory than sense experience does. |
| 8741 | Numbers must be of something; they don't exist as abstractions [Mill] |
| Full Idea: All numbers must be numbers of something: there are no such things as numbers in the abstract. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], p.245?), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Thinking About Mathematics 4.3 | |
| A reaction: This shows why the concept of 'abstraction' is such a deep problem. Numbers can't be properties of objects, because two boots can become one boot without changing the surviving boot. But why should abstractions have to 'exist'? |
| 12411 | Mill is too imprecise, and is restricted to simple arithmetic [Kitcher on Mill] |
| Full Idea: The problem with Mill is that many of his formulations are imprecise, and he only considers the most rudimentary parts of arithmetic. | |
| From: comment on John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843]) by Philip Kitcher - The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge Intro | |
| A reaction: This is from a fan of Mill, trying to restore his approach in the face of the authoritative and crushing criticisms offered by Frege. I too am a fan of Mill's approach. Patterns can be discerned in arrangements of pebbles. Infinities are a problem. |
| 5656 | Empirical theories of arithmetic ignore zero, limit our maths, and need probability to get started [Frege on Mill] |
| Full Idea: Mill does not give us a clue as to how to understand the number zero, he limits our mathematical knowledge to the limits of our experience, ..and induction can only give you probability, but that presupposes arithmetical laws. | |
| From: comment on John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843]) by Gottlob Frege - Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) | |
| A reaction: This summarises Frege's criticisms of Mill's empirical account of maths. I like 'maths is the science of patterns', in which case zero is just a late-introduced trick (it is hardly a Platonic Form!), and induction is the wrong account to give. |
| 9624 | Numbers are a very general property of objects [Mill, by Brown,JR] |
| Full Idea: Mill held that numbers are a kind of very general property that objects possess. | |
| From: report of John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], Ch.4) by James Robert Brown - Philosophy of Mathematics | |
| A reaction: Intuitively this sounds hopeless, because if you place one apple next to another you introduce 'two', but which apple has changed its property? Both? It seems to be a Cambridge change. It isn't a change that would bother the apples. Kitcher pursues this. |
| 18430 | We accept properties because of type/tokens, reference, and quantification [Edwards] |
| Full Idea: Three main reasons for thinking properties exist: the one-over-many argument (that a type can have many tokens), the reference argument (to understand predicates and singular terms), and the quantification argument (that we quantify over them). | |
| From: Douglas Edwards (Properties [2014], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: [Bits in brackets are compressions of his explanations]. I don't find any of these remotely persuasive. Why would we infer how the world is, simply from how we talk about or reason about the world? His first reason is the only interesting one. |
| 18432 | Quineans say that predication is primitive and inexplicable [Edwards] |
| Full Idea: The Quinean claims that the application of a predicate cannot, in principle, be explained - it is a 'primitive' fact. | |
| From: Douglas Edwards (Properties [2014], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: I am not clear what 'principle' could endorse this claim. There just seems to be a possible failure of all the usual attempts at explaining predication. |
| 18437 | Resemblance nominalism requires a second entity to explain 'the rose is crimson' [Edwards] |
| Full Idea: For resemblance nominalism the sentence 'the rose is crimson' commits us to at least one other entity that the rose resembles in order for it to be crimson. | |
| From: Douglas Edwards (Properties [2014], 5.5.2) | |
| A reaction: If the theory really needs this, then it has just sunk without trace. It can't suddenly cease to be crimson when the last resembling entity disappears. |
| 9806 | Whatever is made up of parts is made up of parts of those parts [Mill] |
| Full Idea: Whatever is made up of parts is made up of parts of those parts. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 3.24.5) | |
| A reaction: Mill considers this principle to be fundamental to the possibilities of arithmetic. Presumably he thought of it as an inductive inference from our dealings with physical objects. |
| 18434 | That a whole is prior to its parts ('priority monism') is a view gaining in support [Edwards] |
| Full Idea: The view of 'priority monism' - that the whole is prior to its parts - is controversial, but has been growing in support | |
| From: Douglas Edwards (Properties [2014], 5.4.4) | |
| A reaction: The simple and plausible thought is, I take it, that parts only count as parts when a whole comes into existence, so a whole is needed to generate parts. Thus the whole must be prior to the parts. Fine by me. |
| 11156 | The essence is that without which a thing can neither be, nor be conceived to be [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The essence of a thing was said to be that without which the thing could neither be, nor be conceived to be. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 1.6.2) | |
| A reaction: Fine cites this as the 'modal' account of essence, as opposed to the 'definitional' account. |
| 12190 | Necessity is what will be, despite any alternative suppositions whatever [Mill] |
| Full Idea: That which is necessary, that which must be, means that which will be, whatever suppositions we may make in regard to all other things. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 3.06.6) | |
| A reaction: [Mill discusses causal necessity] This is quoted by McFetridge. This slightly firms up the definition as 'what has to be true', though it makes it dependent on our 'suppositions'. Presumably nothing beyond our powers of supposition could matter either. |
| 22623 | Necessity can only mean what must be, without conditions of any kind [Mill] |
| Full Idea: If there be any meaning which confessedly belongs to the term necessity, it is unconditionalness. That which is necessary, that which must be, means that which will be whatever supposition we make with regard to other things. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], p.339 [1974 ed]), quoted by R.D. Ingthorsson - A Powerful Particulars View of Causation 5.3 | |
| A reaction: 'It is necessary to leave now, if you want to catch the train' is a genuine type of necessity. Mill's type is probably Absolute necessity, to which nothing could make any difference. Or Metaphysical necessity, determined by all things. |
| 3605 | We can believe a thing without knowing we believe it [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The action of thought by which one believes a thing, being different from that by which one knows that one believes it, they often exist the one without the other. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §3.23) |
| 1583 | In morals Descartes accepts the conventional, but rejects it in epistemology [Roochnik on Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Descartes' procedure for treating values (accepting normal conventions when faced with uncertainty) is the exact antithesis of that used to attain knowledge. | |
| From: comment on René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §3.23) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.73 |
| 3607 | In thinking everything else false, my own existence remains totally certain [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: While I decided to think that everything was false, it followed necessarily that I who thought thus must be something; the truth 'I think therefore I am' was so certain that the most extravagant scepticism could never shake it. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §4.32) |
| 3617 | I aim to find the principles and causes of everything, using the seeds within my mind [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I have tried to find in general the principles or first causes of everything which is or which may be in the world, ..without taking them from any other source than from certain seeds of truth which are naturally in our minds. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §6.64) |
| 16859 | Most perception is one-tenth observation and nine-tenths inference [Mill] |
| Full Idea: In almost every act of our perceiving faculties, observation and inference are intimately blended. What we are said to observe is usually a compound result, of which one-tenth may be observation, and the remaining nine-tenths inference. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 4.1.2), quoted by Peter Lipton - Inference to the Best Explanation (2nd) 11 'The scientific' | |
| A reaction: We seem to think that his kind of observation is a great realisation of twentieth century thought, but thoughtful empiricists spotted it much earlier. |
| 3611 | Understanding, rather than imagination or senses, gives knowledge [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Neither our imagination nor our senses could ever assure us of anything, if our understanding did not intervene. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §4.37) |
| 9082 | Clear concepts result from good observation, extensive experience, and accurate memory [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The principle requisites of clear conceptions, are habits of attentive observation, an extensive experience, and a memory which receives and retains an exact image of what is observed. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 4.2.5) | |
| A reaction: Empiricists are always crying out for people to 'attend to the evidence', and this is the deeper reason why. Not only will one know the world better in a direct way, but one will actually think more clearly. Darwin is the perfect model for this. |
| 3606 | I was searching for reliable rock under the shifting sand [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: My whole plan had for its aim simply to give me assurance, and the rejection of shifting ground and sand in order to find rock or clay. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §3.29) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be characteristic of an age when religion is being quietly rocked by the revival of ancient scepticism. If he'd settled for fallibilism, our civilization would have gone differently. |
| 3604 | When rebuilding a house, one needs alternative lodgings [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Before beginning to rebuild the house in which one lives…. one must also provide oneself with some other accommodation in which to be lodge conveniently while the work is going on. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §3.22) |
| 3618 | Only experiments can settle disagreements between rival explanations [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I observe almost no individual effect without immediately knowing that it can be deduced in many different ways, ..and I know of no way to resolve this but by experiments such that the results are different according to different explanations. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §6.65) |
| 16860 | Inductive generalisation is more reliable than one of its instances; they can't all be wrong [Mill] |
| Full Idea: A general proposition collected from particulars is often more certainly true than any one of the particular propositions from which, by an act of induction, it was inferred. It might be erroneous in any instance, but cannot be erroneous in all of them. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 4.1.2), quoted by Peter Lipton - Inference to the Best Explanation (2nd) 11 'The scientific' | |
| A reaction: One anomaly can be ignored, but several can't, especially if the anomalies agree. |
| 16845 | The whole theory of induction rests on causes [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The notion of cause is the root of the whole theory of induction. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 3.05.2), quoted by Peter Lipton - Inference to the Best Explanation (2nd) 08 'From cause' | |
| A reaction: This sounds much better to me than the Humean view that it rests on the psychology of regularity and habit. However, maybe Hume describes induction, and Mill is adding abduction (inference to the best explanation). |
| 16843 | Mill's methods (Difference,Agreement,Residues,Concomitance,Hypothesis) don't nail induction [Mill, by Lipton] |
| Full Idea: The Method of Difference, and even the full four 'experimental methods' (Difference, Agreement, Residues and Concomitant Variations) are agreed on all sides to be incomplete accounts of inductive inference. Mill himself added the Method of Hypothesis. | |
| From: report of John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 3.14.4-5) by Peter Lipton - Inference to the Best Explanation (2nd) 08 'Improved' | |
| A reaction: If induction is just 'learning from experience' (my preferred definition) then there is unlikely to be a precise account of its methods. Mill seems to have done a lovely job. |
| 17086 | Surprisingly, empiricists before Mill ignore explanation, which seems to transcend experience [Mill, by Ruben] |
| Full Idea: It is surprising that no empiricist philosopher before Mill turned in an explicit way to the scrutiny of the concept of explanation, which had …every appearance of being experience-transcendent. | |
| From: report of John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843]) by David-Hillel Ruben - Explaining Explanation Ch 4 | |
| A reaction: Yes indeed! This is why explanation is absolutely basic, to philosophy and to human understanding. The whole of philosophy is a quest for explanations, so to be strictly empirical about it strikes me as crazy. |
| 17091 | Explanation is fitting of facts into ever more general patterns of regularity [Mill, by Ruben] |
| Full Idea: For Mill, explanation was always the fitting of facts into ever more general patterns of regularity. | |
| From: report of John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843]) by David-Hillel Ruben - Explaining Explanation Ch 6 | |
| A reaction: This seems to nicely capture the standard empirical approach to explanation. If you say that this fitting in doesn't explain much, the answer (I think) is that this is the best we can do. |
| 16805 | Causal inference is by spotting either Agreements or Differences [Mill, by Lipton] |
| Full Idea: The best known account of causal inference is Mill's Method of Agreement (only one antecedent is shared by the effects), and the Method of Difference (there is only one difference prior to the effect occurring or not occurring). | |
| From: report of John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 3.07) by Peter Lipton - Inference to the Best Explanation (2nd) 01 'Descr' | |
| A reaction: [my summary of Lipton's summary of Mill] |
| 16835 | The Methods of Difference and of Agreement are forms of inference to the best explanation [Mill, by Lipton] |
| Full Idea: Like Mill's Method of Difference, applications of the Method of Agreement are naturally construed as inferences to the best explanation. | |
| From: report of John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 3.07/8) by Peter Lipton - Inference to the Best Explanation (2nd) 06 'The Method' | |
| A reaction: This sort of thoroughly sensible approach to understanding modes of investigation has been absurdly sidelined by the desire to 'deduce' observations from 'laws'. Scientific investigation is no different from enquiry in daily life. Where are my glasses? |
| 3615 | Little reason is needed to speak, so animals have no reason at all [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Animals not only have less reason than men, but they have none at all; for we see that very little of it is required in order to be able to speak. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §5.58) |
| 9079 | We can focus our minds on what is common to a whole class, neglecting other aspects [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The voluntary power which the mind has, of attending to one part of what is present at any moment, and neglecting another part, enables us to be unaffected by anything in the idea which is not really common to the whole class. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 4.2.1) | |
| A reaction: There is a question for empiricists of whether abstraction is a 'voluntary' power or a mechanical one. Associationism presents it as more mechanical. I would say, with Mill, that it is a least partly voluntary, and even rational. |
| 9081 | We don't recognise comparisons by something in our minds; the concepts result from the comparisons [Mill] |
| Full Idea: It is not a law of our intellect that in comparing things and noting their agreements we recognise as realized in the outward world something we already had in our minds. The conception found its way to us as the result of such a comparison. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 4.2.2) | |
| A reaction: He recognises, of course, that this gradually becomes a two-way process. In the physicalist view of things, it is not really of great importance which concepts are hard-wired, and which constructed culturally or through perception. |
| 3609 | I am a thinking substance, which doesn't need a place or material support [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I concluded that I was a substance, of which the whole essence or nature consists in thinking, and which, in order to exist, needs no place and depends on no material thing. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §4.33) | |
| A reaction: To me that sounds like "I concluded that I wasn't a human being", which highlights the bizarre wishful thinking that seems to have gripped the human race for the first few thousand years of its serious thinking. |
| 3608 | I can deny my body and the world, but not my own existence [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I could pretend that I had no body, and that there was no world or place that I was in, but I could not, for all that, pretend that I did not exist. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §4.32) | |
| A reaction: He makes the (in my opinion) appalling blunder of thinking that because he can pretend that he has no body, that therefore he might not have one. I can pretend that gold is an unusual form of cheese. However, "I don't exist" certainly sounds wrong. |
| 3613 | Reason is universal in its responses, but a physical machine is constrained by its organs [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Whereas reason is a universal instrument which can serve on any kind of occasion, the organs of a machine need a disposition for each action; so it is impossible to have enough different organs in a machine to respond to all the occurrences of life. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §5.57) | |
| A reaction: How can Descartes know that reason is 'universal' rather than just 'very extensive'? Is there any information which cannot be encoded in a computer? It doesn't feel as if there any intrinsic restrictions to reason, but note Idea 4688. |
| 3616 | The soul must unite with the body to have appetites and sensations [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: It is not sufficient that the reasonable soul should be lodged in the body like a pilot in a ship, unless perhaps to move its limbs, but it needs to be united more closely with the body in order to have sensations and appetites, and so be a true man. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §5.59) | |
| A reaction: The idea that the pineal gland is the link suggests that Descartes has the 'pilot' view, but this idea shows that he believes in very close and complex interaction between mind and body. But how can a mind 'have' appetites if it has no physical needs? |
| 3614 | A machine could speak in response to physical stimulus, but not hold a conversation [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: One may conceive of a machine made so as to emit words, and even emit them in response to a change in its bodily organs, such as being touched, but not to reply to the sense of everything said in its presence, as the most unintelligent men can. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §5.56) | |
| A reaction: A critique of the Turing Test, written in 1637! You have to admire. Because of the advent of the microprocessor, we can 'conceive' more sophisticated, multi-level machines than Descartes could come up with. |
| 9080 | General conceptions are a necessary preliminary to Induction [Mill] |
| Full Idea: Forming general conceptions is a necessary preliminary to Induction. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 4.2.1) | |
| A reaction: A key link in the framework of empirical philosophies, which gets us from experience to science. Induction is the very process of generalisation. We can't bring a concept like 'evolution' to preliminary observations, so it must be formulated inductively. |
| 9078 | The study of the nature of Abstract Ideas does not belong to logic, but to a different science [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The metaphysical inquiry into the nature and composition of what have been called Abstract Ideas, or in other words, of the notions which answer in the mind to classes and to general names, belongs not to Logic, but to a different science. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 4.2.1) | |
| A reaction: He doesn't name the science, but the point here seems to be precisely what Frege so vigorously disagreed with. I would say that the state of being 'abstract' has logical aspects, and can be partly described by logic, but that Mill is basically right. |
| 1581 | Greeks elevate virtues enormously, but never explain them [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The ancient pagans place virtues on a high plateau and make them appear the most valuable thing in the world, but they do not sufficiently instruct us about how to know them. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §1.8) |
| 8345 | A cause is the total of all the conditions which inevitably produce the result [Mill] |
| Full Idea: A cause is the sum total of the conditions positive and negative taken together ...which being realized, the consequent invariably follows. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843]), quoted by Donald Davidson - Causal Relations §1 | |
| A reaction: This has obvious problems. The absence of Napoleon was a cause of the English Civil War. The Big Bang was a cause of, well, every event. As Davidson notes, some narrowing down is needed. |
| 10391 | Causes and conditions are not distinct, because we select capriciously from among them [Mill] |
| Full Idea: Nothing can better show the absence of any scientific ground for the distinction between the cause of a phenomena and its conditions, than the capricious manner in which we select from among the conditions that which we choose to denominate the cause. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843]), quoted by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 2.2 | |
| A reaction: [ref Mill p.196, 1846 edn] Schaffer gives this as the main argument for the 'no-basis' view of the selection of what causes an event. The usual thought is that it is entirely our immediate interests which make us select THE cause. Not convinced. |
| 14547 | The strict cause is the total positive and negative conditions which ensure the consequent [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The cause, philosophically speaking, is the sum total of the conditions, positive and negative taken together; the whole of the contigencies of every description, which being realized, the consequent invariably follows. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 3.05.3) | |
| A reaction: This somewhat notorious remark is not going to be much help in a law court or a laboratory. It is that view which says that the Big Bang must be included in every causal list ever compiled. Well, yes... |
| 8377 | Causation is just invariability of succession between every natural fact and a preceding fact [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The Law of Causation, the recognition of which is the main pillar of inductive science, is but the familiar truth, that invariability of succession is found by observation between every fact in nature and some other fact which has preceded it. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 3.5.2), quoted by Bertrand Russell - On the Notion of Cause p.178 | |
| A reaction: Note that Mill rests causation on 'facts'. In the empiricist Mill endorsing the views of Hume. Russell attacks the bogus claim that science rests on causation. Personally I think Mill's view is incorrect. |
| 14545 | A cause is an antecedent which invariably and unconditionally leads to a phenomenon [Mill] |
| Full Idea: We may define the cause of a phenomenon to be the antecedent, or the concurrence of the antecedents, on which it is invariably and unconditionally consequent. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 3.05.6) | |
| A reaction: This ignores the possibility of the world ending just before the effect occurs, the 'ceteris paribus' clause. If it only counts as a cause if the effect has actually occurred, we begin to suspect tautology. |
| 4773 | Mill's regularity theory of causation is based on an effect preceded by a conjunction of causes [Mill, by Psillos] |
| Full Idea: Millian causation is a version of the Regularity Theory, but with the addition that when claiming that an effect invariably follows from the cause, the cause is not a single factor, but a whole conjunction of necessary and sufficient conditions. | |
| From: report of John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], p.217) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §2.2 | |
| A reaction: Psillos endorses this as an improvement on Hume. But while we may replicate one event preceding another to get regularity, groups of events are hardly ever identical, so no precise pattern will ever be seen. |
| 4775 | In Mill's 'Method of Agreement' cause is the common factor in a range of different cases [Mill, by Psillos] |
| Full Idea: In Mill's 'Method of Agreement' the cause is the common factor in a number of otherwise different cases in which the effect occurs. | |
| From: report of John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], p.255) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §2.3 | |
| A reaction: This looks more likely to be good evidence for the cause of an event, rather than a definition of what a cause actually is. Suppose a footballer only scores if and only if I go to watch him? |
| 4776 | In Mill's 'Method of Difference' the cause is what stops the effect when it is removed [Mill, by Psillos] |
| Full Idea: In Mill's 'Method of Difference' the cause is the factor which is different in two cases which are similar, except that in one the effect occurs, and in the other it doesn't. | |
| From: report of John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], p.256) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §2.3 | |
| A reaction: Like the Method of Agreement, this is a good test, but is unlikely to be a conclusive hallmark of causation. A footballer may never score unless I go to watch him. I become his lucky mascot… |
| 9417 | What are the fewest propositions from which all natural uniformities could be inferred? [Mill] |
| Full Idea: What are the fewest general propositions from which all the uniformities which exist in the universe might be deductively inferred? | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 3.4.1) | |
| A reaction: This is the germ of the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis view. |
| 16686 | God has established laws throughout nature, and implanted ideas of them within us [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I have noticed certain laws that God has so established in nature, and of which he has implanted such notions in our souls, that …we cannot doubt that they are exactly observed in everything that exists or occurs in the world. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], pt 5), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 15.5 | |
| A reaction: This is the view of laws which still seems to be with us (and needs extirpating) - that some outside agency imposes them on nature. I suspect that even Richard Feynman thought of laws like that, because he despised philosophy, and was thus naïve. |