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All the ideas for 'Reply to Fourth Objections', 'Russell's Ontological Development' and 'Logical Investigations'

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8 ideas

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 2. Phenomenology
Phenomenology is the science of essences - necessary universal structures for art, representation etc. [Husserl, by Polt]
     Full Idea: For Husserl, phenomenology must seek the essential aspects of phenomena - necessary, universal structures, such as the essence of art or the essence of representation. He sought a science of these essences.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900]) by Richard Polt - Heidegger: an introduction 2 'Dilthey'
Bracketing subtracts entailments about external reality from beliefs [Husserl, by Putnam]
     Full Idea: In effect, the device of bracketing subtracts entailments from the ordinary belief locution (the entailments that refer to what is external to the thinker's mind).
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900]) by Hilary Putnam - Reason, Truth and History Ch.2
     A reaction: This seems to leave phenomenology as pure introspection, or as a phenomenalist description of sense-data. It is also a refusal to explain anything. That sounds quite appealing, like Keats's 'negative capability'.
Phenomenology aims to describe experience directly, rather than by its origins or causes [Husserl, by Mautner]
     Full Idea: Phenomenology, in Husserl, is an attempt to describe our experience directly, as it is, separately from its origins and development, independently of the causal explanations that historians, sociologists or psychologists might give.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900]) by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.421
     A reaction: In this simple definition the concept sounds very like the modern popular use of the word 'deconstruction', though that is applied more commonly to cultural artifacts than to actual sense experience.
2. Reason / D. Definition / 12. Paraphrase
Russell offered a paraphrase of definite description, to avoid the commitment to objects [Quine]
     Full Idea: Russell's theory involved defining a term not by presenting a direct equivalent of it, but by 'paraphrasis', providing equivalents of the sentences. In this way, reference to fictitious objects can be simulated without our being committed to the objects.
     From: Willard Quine (Russell's Ontological Development [1966], p.75)
     A reaction: I hadn't quite grasped that the modern strategy of paraphrase tracks back to Russell - though it now looks obvious, thanks to Quine. Paraphrase is a beautiful way of sidestepping ontological problems. See Frege on the moons of Jupiter.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 2. Self-Evidence
Husserl says we have intellectual intuitions (of categories), as well as of the senses [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol]
     Full Idea: The novelty of Husserl is to describe that we have intellectual intuitions, intuitions of categories as we have intuitions of sense objects.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900], II.VI.24) by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 2.4.4
     A reaction: This is 'intuitions' in Kant's sense, of something like direct apprehensions. This idea is an axiom of phenomenology, because all mental life must be bracketed, and not just the sense experience part.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 6. Conceptual Dualism
The concept of mind excludes body, and vice versa [Descartes]
     Full Idea: The concept of body includes nothing at all which belongs to the mind, and the concept of mind includes nothing at all which belongs to the body.
     From: René Descartes (Reply to Fourth Objections [1641], 225)
     A reaction: A headache? Hunger? The mistake, I think, is to regard the mind as entirely conscious, thus creating a sharp boundary between two aspects of our lives. As shown by blindsight, I take many of my central mental operations to be pre- or non-conscious.
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / a. Sentence meaning
Taking sentences as the unit of meaning makes useful paraphrasing possible [Quine]
     Full Idea: The new freedom that Russell confers by paraphrasis (of definite descriptions) is our reward for recognising that the unit of communication is the sentence and not the word.
     From: Willard Quine (Russell's Ontological Development [1966], p.75)
     A reaction: Since many people hardly ever speak a properly formed sentence, I take propositions to be better candidates for this. However, I don't see how we can reject the compositional view (the meanings are assembled).
Knowing a word is knowing the meanings of sentences which contain it [Quine]
     Full Idea: We can say that knowing words is knowing how to work out the meanings of sentences containing them. Dictionary definitions are mere clauses in a recursive definition of the meanings of sentences.
     From: Willard Quine (Russell's Ontological Development [1966], p.76)
     A reaction: Do you have to recursively define all the sentences that might contain the word, before you can fully know the meaning of the word? He seems to credit Russell with the holistic view of sentences (though I think that starts with Frege).