7 ideas
19086 | Does the pragmatic theory of meaning support objective truth, or make it impossible? [Macbeth] |
Full Idea: Peirce and Sellars takes Peirce's conception of meaning, on which pragmatism is founded, to support an adequate account of objective truth; James, Dewey and Rorty say it forecloses all possibility of such an account. | |
From: Danielle Macbeth (Pragmatism and Objective Truth [2007], p.169) | |
A reaction: Ah. Very helpful. I thought there was a pragmatic theory of truth, then began to think that it was just a denial of truth. I've long suspected that Peirce is wonderful, and James is not very good (on this topic). |
19093 | Greek mathematics is wholly sensory, where ours is wholly inferential [Macbeth] |
Full Idea: Ancient mathematical concepts were essentially sensory; they were not mathematical in our sense - that is, wholly constituted by their inferential potential. | |
From: Danielle Macbeth (Pragmatism and Objective Truth [2007], p.187) | |
A reaction: The latter view is Frege's, though I suppose it had been emerging for a couple of centuries before him. I like the Greek approach, and would love to see that reunited with the supposedly quite different modern view. (Keith Hossack is attempting it). |
19091 | Seeing reality mathematically makes it an object of thought, not of experience [Macbeth] |
Full Idea: As mathematically understood, the world is not an object of experience but instead an object of thought. | |
From: Danielle Macbeth (Pragmatism and Objective Truth [2007], p.183) | |
A reaction: Since I am keen on citing biology to show that science does not have to be mathematical, this nicely shows that there is something wrong with a science which places a large gap between itself and the world. |
19088 | For pragmatists a concept means its consequences [Macbeth] |
Full Idea: In the pragmatist view, the meaning of a concept is exhausted by its consequences. | |
From: Danielle Macbeth (Pragmatism and Objective Truth [2007], p.173) | |
A reaction: I'm unclear why the concept of a volcanic eruption only concerns its dire consequences, and is supposed to contain nothing of its causes. Pragmatists seem to be all future, and no past. Very American. |
6017 | Nomos is king [Pindar] |
Full Idea: Nomos is king. | |
From: Pindar (poems [c.478 BCE], S 169), quoted by Thomas Nagel - The Philosophical Culture | |
A reaction: This seems to be the earliest recorded shot in the nomos-physis wars (the debate among sophists about moral relativism). It sounds as if it carries the full relativist burden - that all that matters is what has been locally decreed. |
16713 | Philosophers are the forefathers of heretics [Tertullian] |
Full Idea: Philosophers are the forefathers of heretics. | |
From: Tertullian (works [c.200]), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 20.2 |
6610 | I believe because it is absurd [Tertullian] |
Full Idea: I believe because it is absurd ('Credo quia absurdum est'). | |
From: Tertullian (works [c.200]), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason n4.2 | |
A reaction: This seems to be a rather desperate remark, in response to what must have been rather good hostile arguments. No one would abandon the support of reason if it was easy to acquire. You can't deny its engaging romantic defiance, though. |