Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'works', 'Platonism and the Spiritual Life' and 'Events and Semantic Architecture'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

4 ideas

19. Language / B. Reference / 5. Speaker's Reference
21650 No language is semantically referential; it all occurs at the level of thought or utterance [Pietroski, by Hofweber]
     Full Idea: For Paul Pietroski no expression in natural language is semantically referential. ....Reference to objects occurs not at the level of semantics, but at the level of thought or utterance.
     From: report of Paul M. Pietroski (Events and Semantic Architecture [2004]) by Thomas Hofweber - Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics 07.2
     A reaction: Love this. It has always struck me that reference is what speakers do. Try taking any supposedly referential description and sticking 'so-called' in front of it. That seems to leave you with the reference even though you have denied the description.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
23060 The good is not relative, but is rooted in facts about human needs [Santayana]
     Full Idea: The good is by no means relative to opinion, but is rooted in the unconscious and fatal nature of living beings, a nature which predetermines for them the difference between foods and poisons, happiness and misery.
     From: George Santayana (Platonism and the Spiritual Life [1927], p.3), quoted by John Gray - Seven Types of Atheism 6
     A reaction: That is, he concedes that the good is relative to human beings, but that the relevant facts about human beings are not relative. I think he has the correct picture. The key point is that the good is 'rooted' in something, and doesn't just float free.
29. Religion / B. Monotheistic Religion / 4. Christianity / d. Heresy
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
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / e. Fideism
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.