20110
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Hegel, Fichte and Schelling wanted to know Kant's thing-in-itself, as ego, or nature, or spirit [Safranski]
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Full Idea:
The 'thing in iself' acted on Kant's successors like a hole in the closed world of knowledge...Hegel, Fichte and Schelling wanted to penetrate into what they presumed to be the heart of things, by the invention of means of 'ego', or 'nature', or 'spirit.,
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From:
Rüdiger Safranski (Nietzsche: a philosophical biography [2000], 07)
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A reaction:
[a bit compressed] Although no scientist claims to know the ultimate essence of matter, the authority of science largely comes from persuasively moving us several steps closer to the thing in itself (more persuasively than these three).
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23647
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Objects have an essential constitution, producing its qualities, which we are too ignorant to define [Reid]
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Full Idea:
Individuals and objects have a real essence, or constitution of nature, from which all their qualities flow: but this essence our faculties do not comprehend. They are therefore incapable of definition.
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From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 4: Conception [1785], 1)
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A reaction:
Aha - he's one of us! I prefer the phrase 'essential nature' of an object, which is understood, I think, by everyone. I especially like the last bit, directed at those who mistakenly think that Aristotle identified the essence with the definition.
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23646
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Reference is by name, or a term-plus-circumstance, or ostensively, or by description [Reid]
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Full Idea:
An individual is expressed by a proper name, or by a general word joined to distinguishing circumstances; if unknown, it may be pointed out to the senses; when beyond the reach of the senses it may be picked out by an imperfect but true description.
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From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 4: Conception [1785], 1)
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A reaction:
[compressed] If Putnam, Kripke and Donnellan had read this paragraph they could have save themselves a lot of work! I take reference to be the activity of speakers and writers, and these are the main tools of the trade.
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8433
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There are few traces of an event before it happens, but many afterwards [Lewis, by Horwich]
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Full Idea:
Lewis claims that most events are over-determined by subsequent states of the world, but not by their history. That is, the future of every event contains many independent traces of its occurrence, with little prior indication that it would happen.
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From:
report of David Lewis (Counterfactual Dependence and Time's Arrow [1979]) by Paul Horwich - Lewis's Programme p.209
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A reaction:
Lewis uses this asymmetry to deduce the direction of causation, and hence the direction of time. Most people (including me, I think) would prefer to use the axiomatic direction of time to deduce directions of causation. Lewis was very wicked.
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