9 ideas
| 6294 | In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God [John] |
| Full Idea: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God. | |
| From: St John (04: Gospel of St John [c.95], 01.01) | |
| A reaction: 'Word' translates the Greek word 'logos', which has come a long way since Heraclitus. The interesting contrast is with the later Platonist view that the essence of God is the Good. So is the source of everything to be found in reason, or in value? |
| 8821 | Jesus said he bore witness to the truth. Pilate asked, What is truth? [John] |
| Full Idea: Jesus: I came into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? | |
| From: St John (04: Gospel of St John [c.95], 18:37-8) | |
| A reaction: There is very little explicit discussion of truth in philosophy before this exchange (apart from Ideas 251 and 586), and there isn't any real debate prior to Russell and the pragmatists. What was Pilate's tone? Did he spit at the end of his question? |
| 8717 | Hilbert wanted to prove the consistency of all of mathematics (which realists take for granted) [Hilbert, by Friend] |
| Full Idea: Hilbert wanted to derive ideal mathematics from the secure, paradox-free, finite mathematics (known as 'Hilbert's Programme'). ...Note that for the realist consistency is not something we need to prove; it is a precondition of thought. | |
| From: report of David Hilbert (works [1900], 6.7) by Michčle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics | |
| A reaction: I am an intuitive realist, though I am not so sure about that on cautious reflection. Compare the claims that there are reasons or causes for everything. Reality cannot contain contradicitions (can it?). Contradictions would be our fault. |
| 10113 | The grounding of mathematics is 'in the beginning was the sign' [Hilbert] |
| Full Idea: The solid philosophical attitude that I think is required for the grounding of pure mathematics is this: In the beginning was the sign. | |
| From: David Hilbert (works [1900]), quoted by A.George / D.J.Velleman - Philosophies of Mathematics Ch.6 | |
| A reaction: Why did people invent those particular signs? Presumably they were meant to designate something, in the world or in our experience. |
| 10115 | Hilbert substituted a syntactic for a semantic account of consistency [Hilbert, by George/Velleman] |
| Full Idea: Hilbert replaced a semantic construal of inconsistency (that the theory entails a statement that is necessarily false) by a syntactic one (that the theory formally derives the statement (0 =1 ∧ 0 not-= 1). | |
| From: report of David Hilbert (works [1900]) by A.George / D.J.Velleman - Philosophies of Mathematics Ch.6 | |
| A reaction: Finding one particular clash will pinpoint the notion of inconsistency, but it doesn't seem to define what it means, since the concept has very wide application. |
| 10116 | Hilbert aimed to prove the consistency of mathematics finitely, to show infinities won't produce contradictions [Hilbert, by George/Velleman] |
| Full Idea: Hilbert's project was to establish the consistency of classical mathematics using just finitary means, to convince all parties that no contradictions will follow from employing the infinitary notions and reasoning. | |
| From: report of David Hilbert (works [1900]) by A.George / D.J.Velleman - Philosophies of Mathematics Ch.6 | |
| A reaction: This is the project which was badly torpedoed by Gödel's Second Incompleteness Theorem. |
| 22593 | Our sensation of light may not be the same as what produces the sensation [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: There can be a difference between our sensation of light and what is in the objects that produce that sensation in us. | |
| From: René Descartes (The World [1631]), quoted by Ian Dunt - How to be a Liberal 1 | |
| A reaction: Note only that they 'may' differ, and that he does not assert that they are entirely different. Secondary qualities give information, and are not just mental events. |
| 16569 | The Hot, Cold, Wet and Dry of the philosophers need themselves to be explained [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: If you find it strange that in explaining these elements I do not use the qualities called Hot, Cold, Wet and Dry - as the philosophers do - I shall say to you that these qualities themselves seem to me to need explanation. | |
| From: René Descartes (The World [1631], 9:25-6), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 1.3 | |
| A reaction: Nice. I take pushing the boundaries of explanation back (or down) to be the basic driving force of all human thought, in metaphysics as well as in physics. |
| 20964 | Descartes said there was conservation of 'quantity of motion' [Descartes, by Papineau] |
| Full Idea: Descartes incorporated the conservation of what he called 'quantity of motion', by which he meant mass times speed. | |
| From: report of René Descartes (The World [1631]) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness App 2 | |
| A reaction: Mass times velocity is now called 'momentum'. Is this the first ever conservation law? There are now lots of them. |