26 ideas
23027 | Ideals and metaphysics are practical, not imaginative or speculative [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
Full Idea: To T.H. Green an ideal was no creation of an idle imagination, metaphysics no mere play of the speculative reason. Ideals were the most solid, and metaphysics the most practical thing about a man. | |
From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State I | |
A reaction: This is despite the fact that Green was an idealist in the Hegelian tradition. I like this. I see it not just as ideals having practical guiding influence, but also that ideals themselves arising out of experience. |
23030 | Truth is a relation to a whole of organised knowledge in the collection of rational minds [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
Full Idea: When we speak of anything as true or false, we do so on the ground of its relation to a whole of organised knowledge existing actually in no human mind, but prefigured in every mind which is possessed of reason. | |
From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State I n1 | |
A reaction: This seems to be the super-idealist view of the coherence account of truth. I have no idea what 'prefigured' means here. |
23044 | All knowledge rests on a fundamental unity between the knower and what is known [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
Full Idea: All knowledge is seen on ultimate analysis to rest upon the idea of a fundamental unity between subject and object, between the knower and that which there is to be known. | |
From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
A reaction: I don't really understand this thought, but I think it embodies the essence of Hegelian idealism. If I know a tree in the wood, any 'unity' between us strikes as merely imaginary. If the tree isn't separate, what does 'knowing' it mean? |
23034 | The ultimate test for truth is the systematic interdependence in nature [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
Full Idea: Systematic interdependence in the world of nature is the ultimate test of truth. | |
From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
A reaction: Green (or Muirhead) drifts between coherence as the nature of truth and coherence as the nature of justification. He it is the 'test' for truth, which was Russell's view. |
9141 | Abstraction theories build mathematics out of second-order equivalence principles [Cook/Ebert] |
Full Idea: A theory of abstraction is any account that reconstructs mathematical theories using second-order abstraction principles of the form: §xFx = §xGx iff E(F,G). We ignore first-order abstraction principles such as Frege's direction abstraction. | |
From: R Cook / P Ebert (Notice of Fine's 'Limits of Abstraction' [2004], 1) | |
A reaction: Presumably part of the neo-logicist programme, which also uses such principles. The function § (extension operator) 'provides objects corresponding to the argument concepts'. The aim is to build mathematics, rather than the concept of a 'rabbit'. |
2705 | How can intuitionists distinguish universal convictions from local cultural ones? [Hare] |
Full Idea: There are convictions which are common to most societies; but there are others which are not, and no way is given by intuitionists of telling which are the authoritative data. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.454) | |
A reaction: It seems unfair on intuitionists to say they haven't given a way to evaluate such things, given that they have offered intuition. The issue is what exactly they mean by 'intuition'. |
2712 | You can't use intuitions to decide which intuitions you should cultivate [Hare] |
Full Idea: If it comes to deciding what intuitions and dispositions to cultivate, we cannot rely on the intuitions themselves, as intuitionists do. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.461) | |
A reaction: Makes intuitionists sound a bit dim. Surely Hume identifies dispositions (such as benevolence) which should be cultivated, because they self-evidently improve social life? |
23032 | What is distinctive of human life is the desire for self-improvement [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
Full Idea: All that is distinctively human in the life of man springs not from the desire to possess this or that object, and so far to realise a better, but to be something more and better than he is. | |
From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
A reaction: An example of Victorian optimism, I think. I'm guessing that people who are not motivated by this impulse are not behaving in a way that is 'distinctively human'. That said, this is an interesting aspect of human nature. |
2706 | Emotivists mistakenly think all disagreements are about facts, and so there are no moral reasons [Hare] |
Full Idea: Emotivists concluded too hastily that because naturalism and intuitionism are false, you cannot reason about moral questions, because they assumed that the only questions you can reason about are factual ones. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.455) | |
A reaction: Personally I have a naturalistic view of ethics (based on successful functioning, as indicated by Aristotle), so not my prob. Why can't we reason about expressive emotions? We reason about art. |
2708 | An 'ought' statement implies universal application [Hare] |
Full Idea: In any 'ought' statement there is implicit a principle which says that the statement applies to all precisely similar situations. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.456) | |
A reaction: No two situations can ever be 'precisely' similar. Indeed, 'precisely similar' may be an oxymoron (at least for situations). Kantians presumably like this idea. |
2704 | If morality is just a natural or intuitive description, that leads to relativism [Hare] |
Full Idea: Non-descriptivists (e.g. prescriptivists) reject descriptivism in its naturalist or intuitionist form, because they are both destined to collapse into relativism. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.453) | |
A reaction: I'm not clear from this why prescriptism would not also turn out to be relativist, if it includes evaluations along with facts. |
2703 | Descriptivism say ethical meaning is just truth-conditions; prescriptivism adds an evaluation [Hare] |
Full Idea: Ethical descriptivism is the view that ethical sentence-meaning is wholly determined by truth-conditions. …Prescriptivists think there is a further element of meaning, which expresses prescriptions or evaluations or attitudes which we assent to. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.452) | |
A reaction: Not sure I understand either of these. If all meaning consists of truth-conditions, that will apply to ethics. If meaning includes evaluations, that will apply to non-ethics. |
2707 | If there can be contradictory prescriptions, then reasoning must be involved [Hare] |
Full Idea: Prescriptivists claim that there are rules of reasoning which govern non-descriptive as well as descriptive speech acts. The standard example is possible logical inconsistency between contradictory prescriptions. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.455) | |
A reaction: The example doesn't seem very good. Inconsistency can appear in any area of thought, but that isn't enough to infer full 'rules of reasoning'. I could desire two incompatible crazy things. |
2711 | Prescriptivism implies a commitment, but descriptivism doesn't [Hare] |
Full Idea: Prescriptivists hold that moral judgements commit the speaker to motivations and actions, but non-moral facts by themselves do not do this. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.459) | |
A reaction: Surely hunger motivates to action? I suppose the key word is 'commit'. But lazy people are allowed to make moral judgements. |
2709 | Prescriptivism sees 'ought' statements as imperatives which are universalisable [Hare] |
Full Idea: Universal prescriptivists hold that 'ought'-judgements are prescriptive like plain imperatives, but differ from them in being universalisable. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.457) | |
A reaction: Sounds a bit tautological. Which comes first, the normativity or the universalisability? |
23033 | Hedonism offers no satisfaction, because what we desire is self-betterment [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
Full Idea: Hedonism failed because it offered as an end of human aspiration an object in which the human spirit, pledged by its own nature to self-betterment, …could never find satisfaction. | |
From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
A reaction: It is always both sad and amusing to see that 150 years ago someone wrote of a doctrine that is still with us that it has 'failed'. Nowadays they try to say the same of physicalism. His objection rests on optimism about humanity. |
2710 | Moral judgements must invoke some sort of principle [Hare] |
Full Idea: To make moral judgements is implicitly to invoke some principle, however specific. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.458) |
23045 | Politics is compromises, which seem supported by a social contract, but express the will of no one [Green,TH] |
Full Idea: Where laws and institutions are apparently the work of deliberate volition, they are in reality the result of a compromise, which while by a kind of social contract it has the acquiescence of all, expresses the will of none. | |
From: T.H. Green (works [1875]), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
A reaction: Politicians who claim to be enacting the 'will of the people' (e.g. when they won a referendum 52-48) are simply lying. Committees usually end up enacting one person's will, but often without realising what has happened. |
23050 | The ideal is a society in which all citizens are ladies and gentlemen [Green,TH] |
Full Idea: With all seriousness and reverence we may hope and pray for a condition of English society in which all honest citizens will recognise themselves and be recognised by each other as gentlemen. | |
From: T.H. Green (works [1875]), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State IV | |
A reaction: Call me old fashioned but, as long as we expand this to include ladies, I like this thought. Chaucer's knight (in his Prologue) should be our national role model. The true gentleman is an Aristotelian ideal. |
23052 | Enfranchisement is an end in itself; it makes a person moral, and gives a basis for respect [Green,TH] |
Full Idea: Enfranchisement of the people is an end in itself. …Only citizenship makes the moral man; only citizenship gives that respect which is the true basis of the respect for others. | |
From: T.H. Green (works [1875], iii:436), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State IV | |
A reaction: Should people respect their betters? If so, that is a sort of deferential respect which is different from the mutual respect between equals. That said, I wholly approve of this idea. |
23036 | The good is identified by the capacities of its participants [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
Full Idea: The modern idea of the good has developed in respect of the range of persons who have the capacity and therefore the right to participate in this good. | |
From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
A reaction: Green is a notable Victorian liberal, starting from an idealist metaphysics. This is an intriguing view of liberal values. The concept of the good should be what suits persons with full capacity. Having the capacity bestows the right of access to it. Hm. |
23039 | A true state is only unified and stabilised by acknowledging individuality [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
Full Idea: In so far as society commits itself to the principle of individuality of its citizens does it realise the unity and stability that constitute it a true 'State'. | |
From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
A reaction: This asserts the liberal vision of a state, rather than asserting a fact. A state consistently mostly of slaves still seems to be a state, and may achieve a lot. |
23038 | People only develop their personality through co-operation with the social whole [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
Full Idea: In so far as the individual commits himself to the principle of co-operation in a social whole does he realise his end as individual personality. | |
From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
A reaction: This makes for a very communitarian type of liberalism. The question is whether we create insitutions which suck our free citizens into a communal way of life, or whether that is a matter of their own initiative. |
23040 | If something develops, its true nature is embodied in its end [Green,TH] |
Full Idea: To anyone who understands a process of development, the result being developed is the reality; and it is its ability to become this that the subject undergoing development has its true nature. | |
From: T.H. Green (works [1875], iii: 224), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
A reaction: Although this contains the dubious Hegelian idea that development tends towards some 'end', presented as fixed and final, it still seems important that anything accepted as a 'development' is the expression of some natural potential. |
23031 | God is the ideal end of the mature mind's final development [Green,TH] |
Full Idea: God is a subject which is eternally all that the self-conscious subject as developed in time has the possibility of becoming. | |
From: T.H. Green (works [1875]), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State I | |
A reaction: [Ethics p.197] Reminiscent of Peirce's account of truth, as the ideal end of enquiry. If God is a human ideal, we either limit God, or exaggerate our powers of idealisation. |
23041 | God is the realisation of the possibilities of each man's self [Green,TH] |
Full Idea: God is identical with the self of every man in the sense of being the realisation of its determinate possibilities.…In being conscious of himself man is conscious of God and thus knows that God is, but only in so far as he knows what he himself really is. | |
From: T.H. Green (works [1875], iii:226-7), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
A reaction: Does this, by the transitivity of identity, imply the identity of all individual men? Do we all contain identical possibilities, which converge on a unified concept of God? I always take the monotheistic God to far exceed mere human possibilities. |