28 ideas
| 22024 | Fichte's subjectivity struggles to then give any account of objectivity [Pinkard on Fichte] |
| Full Idea: For Fichte 'subjectivity' came first, and he was then stuck with the (impossible) task of showing how 'objectivity' arose out of it. | |
| From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 06 | |
| A reaction: The best available answer to this problem (for idealists) is, I think, Nietzsche's perspectives, in which multiple subjectivities are summed to produce a blurred picture which has a degree of consensus. Fichte later embraced other minds. |
| 10143 | 'Creative definitions' do not presuppose the existence of the objects defined [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: What I call 'creative definitions' are made from a standpoint in which the existence of the objects that are to be assigned to the terms is not presupposed. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Limits of Abstraction [2002], II.1) |
| 9143 | Implicit definitions must be satisfiable, creative definitions introduce things, contextual definitions build on things [Fine,K, by Cook/Ebert] |
| Full Idea: Fine distinguishes 'implicit definitions', where we must know it is satisfiable before it is deployed, 'creative definitions', where objects are introduced in virtue of the definition, ..and 'contextual definitions', based on established vocabulary. | |
| From: report of Kit Fine (The Limits of Abstraction [2002], 060) by R Cook / P Ebert - Notice of Fine's 'Limits of Abstraction' 3 | |
| A reaction: Fine is a fan of creative definition. This sounds something like the distinction between cutting nature at the perceived joints, and speculating about where new joints might be inserted. Quite a helpful thought. |
| 22017 | Normativity needs the possibility of negation, in affirmation and denial [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: To adopt any kind of normative stance is to commit oneself necessarily to the possibility of negation. It involves doing something correctly or incorrectly, so there must exist the possibility of denying or affirming. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the key idea for understanding Hegel's logic. Personally I think animals have a non-verbal experience of negation - when a partner dies, for example. |
| 10145 | Abstracts cannot be identified with sets [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible for a proponent of both sets and abstracts to identify the abstracts, in any reasonable manner, with the sets. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Limits of Abstraction [2002], IV.1) | |
| A reaction: [This observation emerges from a proof Fine has just completed] Cf Idea 10137. The implication is that there is no compromise view available, and one must choose between abstraction or sets as one's account of numbers and groups of concepts. |
| 10136 | Points in Euclidean space are abstract objects, but not introduced by abstraction [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Points in abstract Euclidean space are abstract objects, and yet are not objects of abstraction, since they are not introduced through a principle of abstraction of the sort envisaged by Frege. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Limits of Abstraction [2002], I.1) | |
| A reaction: The point seems to be that they are not abstracted 'from' anything, but are simpy posited as basic constituents. I suggest that points are idealisations (of smallness) rather than abstractions. They are idealised 'from' substances. |
| 10144 | Postulationism says avoid abstract objects by giving procedures that produce truth [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: A procedural form of postulationism says that instead of stipulating that certain statements are true, one specifies certain procedures for extending the domain to one in which the statement will in fact be true, without invoking an abstract ontology. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Limits of Abstraction [2002], II.5) | |
| A reaction: The whole of philosophy might go better if it was founded on procedures and processes, rather than on objects. The Hopi Indians were right. |
| 22018 | Necessary truths derive from basic assertion and negation [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Fichte thought that everything that involves necessary truths - even mathematics and logic - should be shown to follow from the more basic principles involved in assertion and negation. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 | |
| A reaction: An interesting proposal, though I am struggling to see how it works. Fichte sees assertion and negation as foundational (Idea 22017), but I take them to be responses to the real world. |
| 22064 | Fichte's logic is much too narrow, and doesn't deduce ethics, art, society or life [Schlegel,F on Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Only Fichte's principles are deduced in his book, that is, the logical ones, and not even these completely. And what about the practical, the moral and ethical ones. Society, learning, wit, art, and so on are also entitled to be deduced here. | |
| From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Friedrich Schlegel - works Vol 18 p.34 | |
| A reaction: This is the beginnings of the romantic rebellion against a rather narrowly rationalist approach to philosophy. Schlegel also objects to the fact that Fichte only had one axiom (presumably the idea of the not-Self). |
| 22032 | Fichte's key claim was that the subjective-objective distinction must itself be subjective [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Fichte's key claim was that the difference between the subjective and the objective points of view had to be itself a subjective distinction, something that the 'I' posits. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 09 | |
| A reaction: This seems to lock us firmly into the idealist mental prison and throw away the key. |
| 22020 | We only see ourselves as self-conscious and rational in relation to other rationalities [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: A rational creature cannot posit itself as such a creature with self-consciousness without positing itself as an individual, as one among many rational creatures. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794], p.8), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 n25 | |
| A reaction: [1796 book about his Wissenschaftlehre] This is the transcendental (Kantian) approach to other minds. Wittgenstein's private language argument is similar. Hegel was impressed by this idea (I think). |
| 3488 | Freud treats the unconscious as intentional and hence mental [Freud, by Searle] |
| Full Idea: Freud thinks that our unconscious mental states exist as occurrent intrinsic intentional states even when unconscious. Their ontology is that of the mental, even when they are unconscious. | |
| From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by John Searle - The Rediscovery of the Mind Ch. 7.V | |
| A reaction: Searle states this view in order to attack it. Whether such states are labelled as 'mental' seems uninteresting. Whether unconscious states can be intentional is crucial, and modern scientific understanding of the brain strongly suggest they can. |
| 22060 | The Self is the spontaneity, self-relatedness and unity needed for knowledge [Fichte, by Siep] |
| Full Idea: According to Fichte, spontaneity, self-relatedness, and unity are the basic traits of knowledge (which includes conscience). ...This principle of all knowledge is what he calls the 'I' or the Self. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Ludwig Siep - Fichte p.58 | |
| A reaction: This is the idealist view. He gets 'spontaneity' from Kant, which is the mind's contribution to experience. Self-relatedness is the distinctive Fichte idea. Unity presumably means total coherence, which is typical of idealists. |
| 22066 | Novalis sought a much wider concept of the ego than Fichte's proposal [Novalis on Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Novalis aimed to create a theory of the ego with a much wider scope than Fichte's doctrine of knowledge had been able to establish. ....Without philosophy, imperfect poet - without poetry, imperfect thinker. | |
| From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Novalis - Logological Fragments I vol.3 p.531 | |
| A reaction: [in his 'Fichte Studies] Since this is at the heart of early romanticism, I take the concept to embrace nature, as well as creative imagination. There is a general rebellion against the narrowness of Fichte. |
| 22016 | The self is not a 'thing', but what emerges from an assertion of normativity [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Fichte said the self is not a natural 'thing' but is itself a normative status, and 'it' can obtain this status, so it seems, only by an act of attributing it to itself. ...He continually identified the 'I' with 'reason' itself. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 | |
| A reaction: Pinkard says Fichte gradually qualified this claim. Fichte struggled to state his view in a way that avoided obvious paradoxes. 'My mind produces decisions, so there must be someone in charge of them'? Is this transcendental? |
| 22019 | Consciousness of an object always entails awareness of the self [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: I can be conscious of any object only on the condition that I am also conscious of myself, that is, of the conscious subject. This proposition is incontrovertible. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794], p.112), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 | |
| A reaction: [from the 1797/8 version of Wissenschaftslehre] Russell might be cross to find that his idea on this was anticipated by Fichte. I still approve of the idea. |
| 5689 | Freud and others have shown that we don't know our own beliefs, feelings, motive and attitudes [Freud, by Shoemaker] |
| Full Idea: Freud persuaded many that beliefs, wishes and feelings are sometimes unconscious, and even sceptics about Freud acknowledge that there is self-deception about motive and attitudes. | |
| From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by Sydney Shoemaker - Introspection p.396 | |
| A reaction: This seems to me obviously correct. The traditional notion is that the consciousness is the mind, but now it seems obvious that consciousness is only one part of the mind, and maybe even a peripheral (epiphenomenal) part of it. |
| 23950 | Freud said passions are pressures of some flowing hydraulic quantity [Freud, by Solomon] |
| Full Idea: Freud argued that the passions in general …were the pressures of a yet unknown 'quantity' (which he simply designated 'Q'). He first thought this flowed through neurones, …and always couched the idea in the language of hydraulics. | |
| From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by Robert C. Solomon - The Passions 3.4 | |
| A reaction: This is the main target of Solomon's criticism, because its imagery has become so widespread. It leads to talk of suppressing emotions, or sublimating them. However, it is not too different from Nietzsche's 'drives' or 'will to power'. |
| 22061 | Judgement is distinguishing concepts, and seeing their relations [Fichte, by Siep] |
| Full Idea: For Fichte, to judge means to distinguish concepts from one another and to place them in relationship to one another. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Ludwig Siep - Fichte p.59 | |
| A reaction: This idea of Fichte's seems to be the key one for Hegel, and hence (I presume) it is the lynchpin of German Idealism. It seems to describe mathematical knowledge quite well. I don't think it fits judging whether there is a snake in the grass. |
| 9144 | Fine's 'procedural postulationism' uses creative definitions, but avoids abstract ontology [Fine,K, by Cook/Ebert] |
| Full Idea: Fine says creative definitions can found mathematics. His 'procedural postulationism' says one stipulates not truths, but certain procedures for extending a domain. The procedures can be stated without invoking an abstract ontology. | |
| From: report of Kit Fine (The Limits of Abstraction [2002], 100) by R Cook / P Ebert - Notice of Fine's 'Limits of Abstraction' 4 | |
| A reaction: (For creative definitions, see Idea 9143) This sounds close in spirit to fictionalism, but with the emphasis on the procedure (which can presumably be formalized) rather than a pure act of imaginative creation. |
| 10141 | Many different kinds of mathematical objects can be regarded as forms of abstraction [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Many different kinds of mathematical objects (natural numbers, the reals, points, lines, figures, groups) can be regarded as forms of abstraction, with special theories having their basis in a general theory of abstraction. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Limits of Abstraction [2002], I.4) | |
| A reaction: This result, if persuasive, would be just the sort of unified account which the whole problem of abstact ideas requires. |
| 10135 | We can abstract from concepts (e.g. to number) and from objects (e.g. to direction) [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: A principle of abstraction is 'conceptual' when the items upon which it abstracts are concepts (e.g. a one-one correspondence associated with a number), and 'objectual' if they are objects (parallel lines associated with a direction). | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Limits of Abstraction [2002], I) |
| 9142 | Fine considers abstraction as reconceptualization, to produce new senses by analysing given senses [Fine,K, by Cook/Ebert] |
| Full Idea: Fine considers abstraction principles as instances of reconceptualization (rather than implicit definition, or using the Context Principle). This centres not on reference, but on new senses emerging from analysis of a given sense. | |
| From: report of Kit Fine (The Limits of Abstraction [2002], 035) by R Cook / P Ebert - Notice of Fine's 'Limits of Abstraction' 2 | |
| A reaction: Fine develops an argument against this view, because (roughly) the procedure does not end in a unique result. Intuitively, the idea that abstraction is 'reconceptualization' sounds quite promising to me. |
| 10137 | Abstractionism can be regarded as an alternative to set theory [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The uncompromising abstractionist rejects set theory, seeing the theory of abstractions as an alternative, rather than as a supplement, to the standard theory of sets. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Limits of Abstraction [2002], I.1) | |
| A reaction: There is also a 'compromising' version. Presumably you still have equivalence classes to categorise the objects, which are defined by their origin rather than by what they are members of... Cf. Idea 10145. |
| 10138 | An object is the abstract of a concept with respect to a relation on concepts [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: We can see an object as being the abstract of a concept with respect to a relation on concepts. For example, we may say that 0 is the abstract of the empty concept with respect to the relation of one-one correspondence. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Limits of Abstraction [2002], I.2) | |
| A reaction: This is Fine's attempt to give a modified account of the Fregean approach to abstraction. He says that the reference to a relation will solve the problem of identity between abstractions. |
| 22344 | Freud is pessimistic about human nature; it is ambivalent motive and fantasy, rather than reason [Freud, by Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: Freud takes a thoroughly pessimistic view of human nature. ...Introspection reveals only the deep tissue of ambivalent motive, and fantasy is a stronger force than reason. Objectivity and unselfishness are not natural to human beings. | |
| From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900], II) by Iris Murdoch - The Sovereignty of Good II | |
| A reaction: Interesting. His view seems to have coloured the whole of modern culture, reinforced by the hideous irrationality of the Nazis. Adorno and Horkheimer attacking the Enlightenment was the last step in that process. |
| 22023 | Fichte's idea of spontaneity implied that nothing counts unless we give it status [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Fichte placed emphasis on human spontaneity, on nothing 'counting' for us unless we somehow bestowed some kind of status on it. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 06 | |
| A reaction: This idea evidentally arises from Kant's account of thought. Pinkard says this idea inspired the early Romantics. I would have thought the drive to exist (Spinoza's conatus) would make things count whether we liked it or not. |
| 22065 | Fichte reduces nature to a lifeless immobility [Schlegel,F on Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Fichte reduces the non-Ego or nature to a state of constant calm, standstill, immobility, lack of all change, movement and life, that is death. | |
| From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Friedrich Schlegel - works vol 12 p.190 | |
| A reaction: The point is that Fichte's nature is a merely logical or conceptual deduction from the spontaneous reason of the self, so it can't have the lively diversity we find in nature. |