5 ideas
| 15335 | Peirce's theory offers anti-realist verificationism, but surely how things are is independent of us? [Horsten on Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Peirce's anti-realist theory of a truth is a verificationist theory. Truth is judged to be an epistemic notion. But the way things are is independent of the evidence we may be able to obtain for or against a judgement. | |
| From: comment on Charles Sanders Peirce (Pragmatism in Retrospect [1906]) by Leon Horsten - The Tarskian Turn 02.1 | |
| A reaction: This criticism doesn't quite capture the point that Peirce's theory is that truth is an ideal, not the set of opinions that miserable little humans eventually settle for when they get bored. Truth is an aspect of rationality, perhaps. |
| 14796 | Independent truth (if there is any) is the ultimate result of sufficient enquiry [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: I hold that truth's independence of individual opinions is due (so far as there is any 'truth') to its being the predestined result to which sufficient enquiry would ultimately lead. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Pragmatism in Retrospect [1906], p.288) |
| 21547 | On Meinong's principles 'the existent round square' has to exist [Russell] |
| Full Idea: To my contention that, on his principles, 'the existent round square' exists, Meinong replies that it is existent but does not exist. I must confess that I see no difference between existing and being existent, and I have no more to say on this head. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Review: Meinong 'Uber die Stellung...' [1907], p.93) | |
| A reaction: Russell is obviously invoking the famously dubious ontological argument for God's existence. Normally impossible objects are rejected because of contradictions, but there might also be category mistakes. 'The slow square'. |
| 14795 | Pragmatism is a way of establishing meanings, not a theory of metaphysics or a set of truths [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Pragmatism is no doctrine of metaphysics, no attempt to determine the truth of things. It is merely a method of ascertaining the meanings of hard words and of abstract concepts. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Pragmatism in Retrospect [1906], p.271) | |
| A reaction: Suddenly I recognise a prominent strand of modern philosophy of language (especially in America) for what it is. |
| 20761 | If existence is absurd it can never have a meaning [Beauvoir] |
| Full Idea: To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning; to say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed. | |
| From: Simone de Beauvoir (Ethics of Ambiguity [1948], p.129), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 6 'Bad' | |
| A reaction: Absurdity precludes meaning, but being meaningless doesn't entail absurdity. Asteroids are meaningless. Presumably if existence is meaningless now (as in a depression), but it might possibly become meaningful, then it can't qualify as 'absurd'. |