21 ideas
| 4424 | A warlike philosopher challenges problems to single combat [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: A warlike philosopher challenges problems to single combat. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], Wise §7) | |
| A reaction: And what do pacifist philosophers do? It is a moot point whether philosophy is even possible without a streak of aggression. Otherwise you circle the problem, but don't confront it. |
| 11103 | We aren't stuck with our native conceptual scheme; we can gradually change it [Quine] |
| Full Idea: We must not leap to the fatalistic conclusion that we are stuck with the conceptual scheme that we grew up in. We can change it bit by bit, plank by plank. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 5) | |
| A reaction: This is an interesting commitment to Strawson's 'revisionary' metaphysics, rather than its duller cousin 'descriptive' metaphysics. Good for Quine. Remember, though, Davidson's 'On the Very Idea of Conceptual Scheme'. |
| 18344 | Truth and falsehood must track what does or doesn't exist [Bigelow] |
| Full Idea: If something is true, then it would not be possible for it to be false unless either certain things were to exist which don't, or else certain things had not existed which do. | |
| From: John Bigelow (The Reality of Numbers [1988], 19) | |
| A reaction: This is described by Rami as Bigelow's 'famous' formulation of the idea that 'truth supervenes on being' in a general way. An immediate question would be about fictions. Is Malvolio a stupid man, given that he doesn't exist? We must stretch 'exist'. |
| 11092 | A river is a process, with stages; if we consider it as one thing, we are considering a process [Quine] |
| Full Idea: A river is a process through time, and the river stages are its momentary parts. Identification of the river bathed in once with the river bathed in again is just what determines our subject matter to be a river process as opposed to a river stage. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 1) | |
| A reaction: So if we take a thing which has stages, but instead of talking about the stages we talk about a single thing that endures through them, then we are talking about a process. Sounds very good to me. |
| 11093 | We don't say 'red' is abstract, unlike a river, just because it has discontinuous shape [Quine] |
| Full Idea: 'Red' is surely not going to be opposed to 'Cayster' [name of a river], as abstract to concrete, merely because of discontinuity in geometrical shape? | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 2) | |
| A reaction: I've been slow to grasp the truth of this. However, Quine assumes that 'red' is concrete because 'Cayster' is, but it is perfectly arguable that 'Cayster' is an abstraction, despite all that water. |
| 11101 | General terms don't commit us ontologically, but singular terms with substitution do [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The use of general terms does not commit us to admitting a corresponding abstract entity into our ontology, but an abstract singular term, including the law of putting equals for equals, flatly commits us to an abstract entity named by the term. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 4) | |
| A reaction: Does this mean that in 'for the sake of the children', I have to believe in 'sakes' if I can find a synonym which will substitute for it? |
| 11096 | Discourse generally departmentalizes itself to some degree [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Discourse generally departmentalizes itself to some degree. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 2) | |
| A reaction: I pick this out because I think it is important. There is a continually shifting domain in any conversation ('what we are talking about'), and speech cannot be understand if the shifting domain or department has not been grasped. |
| 11099 | Understanding 'is square' is knowing when to apply it, not knowing some object [Quine] |
| Full Idea: No more need be demanded of 'is square' than that our listener learn when to expect us to apply it to an object and when not; there is no need for the phrase itself to be the name in turn of a separate object of any kind. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 4) |
| 11094 | 'Red' is a single concrete object in space-time; 'red' and 'drop' are parts of a red drop [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Why not view 'red' as naming a single concrete object extended in space and time? ..To say a drop is red is to say that the one object, the drop, is a spatio-temporal part of the other, red, as a waterfall is part of a river. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 2) |
| 11097 | Red is the largest red thing in the universe [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Red is the largest red thing in the universe - the scattered total thing whose parts are all the red things. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 3) |
| 17595 | To unite a sequence of ostensions to make one object, a prior concept of identity is needed [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The concept of identity is central in specifying spatio-temporally broad objects by ostension. Without identity, n acts of ostension merely specify up to n objects. ..But when we affirm identity of object between ostensions, they refer to the same object. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 1) | |
| A reaction: Quine says that there is an induction involved. On the whole, Quine seems to give a better account of identity than Geach or Wiggins can offer. |
| 11095 | We should just identify any items which are indiscernible within a given discourse [Quine] |
| Full Idea: We might propound the maxim of the 'identification of indiscernibles': Objects indistinguishable from one another within the terms of a given discourse should be construed as identical for that discourse. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 2) | |
| A reaction: This increasingly strikes me as the correct way to discuss such things. Identity is largely contextual, and two things can be viewed as type-identical for practical purposes (e.g. teaspoons), but distinguished if it is necessary. |
| 11104 | Concepts are language [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Concepts are language. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 5) | |
| A reaction: Hm. This seems to mean that animals and pre-linguistic children have no concepts. I just don't believe that. |
| 11102 | Apply '-ness' or 'class of' to abstract general terms, to get second-level abstract singular terms [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Applying the operator '-ness' or 'class of' to abstract general terms, we get second-level abstract singular terms. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 5) | |
| A reaction: This is the derivation of abstract concepts by naming classes, rather than by deriving equivalence classes. Any theory which doesn't allow multi-level abstraction is self-evidently hopeless. Quine says Frege and Russell get numbers this way. |
| 2886 | The distinction between egoistic and non-egoistic acts is absurd [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: There are neither egoistic nor unegoistic actions: both concepts are psychologically nonsense. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: Not quite true, but I like this observation. The idea that you could divide everyone's actions into these two groups is certainly nonsense. But some people are more altruistic than others! |
| 4426 | A bad result distorts one's judgement about the virtue of what one has done [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I should prefer to exclude the bad result, the consequences, from the question of value as a matter of principle. Faced with a bad result, one loses all too easily the right perspective for what one has done. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], Clever §1) | |
| A reaction: If the perspective is easily lost, we should make more effort, not ignore consequences. The question is whether you could have foreseen or controlled the consequences. |
| 4425 | The overcoming of pity I count among the noble virtues [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The overcoming of pity I count among the noble virtues. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], Wise §4) | |
| A reaction: Hm. I can just about see that there might be more important things than compassion for suffering, but I can't see any human activity that makes it worthwhile to trample on pity. |
| 20132 | To become what you are you must have no self-awareness [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: To become what one is, one must not have the faintest notion of what one is. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], II.9), quoted by Brian Leiter - Nietzsche On Morality 3 'fatalism' | |
| A reaction: [Don't understand 'II.9'] Enigmatic but striking. As I understand it, Nietzsche thought that knowing what you are is virtually impossible, though he spent a lifetime studying himself. Would you recognise someone who had become what they are? |
| 20144 | Eternal recurrence is the highest attainable affirmation [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Eternal recurrence is the highest formula of affirmation that is at all attainable. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], III.Z-1?), quoted by Brian Leiter - Nietzsche On Morality | |
| A reaction: Did Nietzsche have in mind an even higher formulation that was unattainable? The aim of eternal recurrence is to offer the highest possible ideal that remains rooted in the nature of ordinary life. It is a cut-down version of the Form of the Good. |
| 2889 | One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], Fore) |
| 2887 | I am not an atheist because of reasoning or evidence, but because of instinct [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I have absolutely no knowledge of atheism as an outcome of reasoning, still less an event: with me it is obvious by instinct. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], 3.1) |