14 ideas
| 7460 | The great moments are the death of Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Romanticism [Berlin, by Watson] |
| Full Idea: Berlin says there were three great turning points: after the death of Aristotle (when Greek schools focused on the inner life of individuals, instead of as social beings), Machiavelli's division of political and individual virtues, and Romanticism. | |
| From: report of Isaiah Berlin (The Sense of Reality [1996], p.168-9) by Peter Watson - Ideas Intro | |
| A reaction: I have the impression that Machiavelli introduced a new hard-boiled ethics, which dominated the sixteenth century, but in the seventeenth and eighteenth century they fought back, and Machiavellianism turned out to be just a phase. |
| 18274 | Analysis complicates a statement, but only as far as the complexity of its meaning [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Analysis makes the statement more complicated than it was; but it cannot and ought not to make it more complicated than its meaning (Bedeutung) was to begin with. When the statement is as complex as its meaning, then it is completely analysed. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Notebooks 1914-1916 [1915], 46e) | |
| A reaction: But how do you assess how complex the 'Bedeutung' was before you started? |
| 16908 | We can dispense with self-evidence, if language itself prevents logical mistakes [Jeshion on Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: The 'self-evidence' of which Russell talks so much can only be dispensed with in logic if language itself prevents any logical mistake. | |
| From: comment on Ludwig Wittgenstein (Notebooks 1914-1916 [1915], 4) by Robin Jeshion - Frege's Notion of Self-Evidence 4 | |
| A reaction: Jeshion presents this as a key idea, turning against Frege, and is the real source of the 'linguistic turn' in philosophy. If self-evidence is abandoned, then language itself is the guide to truth, so study language. I think I prefer Frege. See Quine? |
| 18276 | A statement's logical form derives entirely from its constituents [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: The logical form of the statement must already be given in the forms of its constituents. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Notebooks 1914-1916 [1915], 23e) | |
| A reaction: This would evidently require each constituent to have a 'logical form'. It is hard to see what that could beyond its part of speech. Do two common nouns have the same logical form? |
| 6563 | 'And' and 'not' are non-referring terms, which do not represent anything [Wittgenstein, by Fogelin] |
| Full Idea: Wittgenstein's 'fundamental idea' is that the 'and' and 'not' which guarantee the truth of "not p and not-p" are meaningful, but do not get their meaning by representing or standing for or referring to some kind of entity; they are non-referring terms. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Notebooks 1914-1916 [1915], §37) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: Wittgenstein then defines the terms using truth tables, to show what they do, rather than what they stand for. This seems to me to be a candidate for the single most important idea in the history of the philosophy of logic. |
| 23472 | The sense of propositions relies on the world's basic logical structure [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: In order for a proposition to be CAPABLE of making sense, the world must already have the logical structure it has. The logic of the world is prior to all truth and falsehood. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Notebooks 1914-1916 [1915], p.14c) | |
| A reaction: It seems that in Tractatus it is propositions about facts which are true or false, but prior to the facts are substance and the objects, and it is there that we find the logical structure of the world. I see this view as modern stoicism. |
| 18439 | Because things can share attributes, we cannot individuate attributes clearly [Quine] |
| Full Idea: No two classes have exactly the same members, but two different attributes may be attributes of exactly the same things. Classes are identical when their members are identical. ...On the other hand, attributes have no clear principle of individuation. | |
| From: Willard Quine (On the Individuation of Attributes [1975], p.100) |
| 18442 | You only know an attribute if you know what things have it [Quine] |
| Full Idea: May we not say that you know an attribute only insofar as you know what things have it? | |
| From: Willard Quine (On the Individuation of Attributes [1975], p.106) | |
| A reaction: Simple, and the best defence of class nominalism (a very implausible theory) which I have encountered. Do I have to know all the things? Do I not know 'red' if I don't know tomatoes have it? |
| 18441 | No entity without identity (which requires a principle of individuation) [Quine] |
| Full Idea: We have an acceptable notion of class, or physical object, or attribute, or any other sort of object, only insofar as we have an acceptable principle of individuation for that sort of object. There is no entity without identity. | |
| From: Willard Quine (On the Individuation of Attributes [1975], p.102) | |
| A reaction: Note that this is his criterion for an 'acceptable' notion. Presumably that is for science. It permits less acceptable notions which don't come up to the standard. And presumably true things can be said about the less acceptable entities. |
| 18440 | Identity of physical objects is just being coextensive [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Physical objects are identical if and only if coextensive. | |
| From: Willard Quine (On the Individuation of Attributes [1975], p.101) | |
| A reaction: The supposed counterexample to this is the statue and the clay it is made of, which are said to have different modal properties (destroying the statue doesn't destroy the clay). |
| 23500 | My main problem is the order of the world, and whether it is knowable a priori [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: The great problem around which everything turns that I write is: is there an order in the world a priori, and if so what does it consist in? | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Notebooks 1914-1916 [1915], 15.06.01) | |
| A reaction: Morris identifies this as a 'Kantian question'. I trace it back to stoicism. This question has never bothered me. It just seems weird to think that you can infer reality from the examination of your own thinking. Perhaps I should take it more seriously? |
| 22323 | The philosophical I is the metaphysical subject, the limit - not a part of the world [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: The philosophical I is not the man, not the human body, or the human soul of wh9ch psychology treats, but the metaphysical subject, the limit - not a part of the world. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Notebooks 1914-1916 [1915], 1916. 2 Sep), quoted by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 58 Intro | |
| A reaction: This is to treat the self as a phenomenon of thought, rather than of a human being. So if a machine could think, would it hence necessarily have a metaphysical self? |
| 23481 | Propositions assemble a world experimentally, like the model of a road accident [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: In the proposition a world is as it were put together experimentally. (As when in the law court in Paris a motor-car accident is represented by means of dolls, etc). | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Notebooks 1914-1916 [1915], 14.09.29) | |
| A reaction: [see Tractatus 4.031] This is the first appearance of LW's picture (or model) theory of meaning. It may well be the best theory of meaning anyone has come up with, since meaning being out in the world strikes me as absurd. |
| 4678 | Absolute prohibitions are the essence of ethics, and suicide is the most obvious example [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: If suicide is allowed, then everything is allowed. If anything is not allowed, then suicide is not allowed. This throws a light on the nature of ethics, for suicide is, so to speak, the elementary sin. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Notebooks 1914-1916 [1915], end), quoted by Jonathan Glover - Causing Death and Saving Lives §13 | |
| A reaction: This reveals the religious streak in Wittgenstein. I am reluctant to judge suicide, but this seems wrong. Should a 'jumper' worry if they land on someone else and kill them? Of course they should. |