Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Scope and Language of Science', 'Entity and Identity' and 'Appearance and Reality'

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14 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 5. Metaphysics beyond Science
Claims about 'the Absolute' are not even verifiable in principle [Ayer on Bradley]
     Full Idea: Such a metaphysical pseudo-proposition as 'the Absolute enters into, but is itself incapable of, evolution and progress' (F.H.Bradley) is not even in principle verifiable.
     From: comment on F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by A.J. Ayer - Language,Truth and Logic Ch.1
     A reaction: One may jeer at the Verification Principle for either failing to be precise, or for failing to pass its own test, but Ayer still has a point here. When we drift off into sustained abstractions, we must keeping asking if we are still saying anything real.
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 7. Against Metaphysics
Metaphysics is finding bad reasons for instinctive beliefs [Bradley]
     Full Idea: Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an instinct.
     From: F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]), quoted by Robin Le Poidevin - Interview with Baggini and Stangroom p.165
     A reaction: A famous and very nice remark. The idea of believing things on instinct sounds more like David Hume than an idealist. Personally I am not so pessimistic about the enterprise. I think metaphysics is capable of changing what we believe.
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / b. Names as descriptive
Names need a means of reidentifying their referents [Bradley, by Read]
     Full Idea: Unless a name has associated with it a means of reidentifying its referent, we cannot use it.
     From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by Stephen Read - Thinking About Logic Ch.4
     A reaction: Brilliant! This point is totally undeniable. It is not enough that someone be 'baptised'. We need to hang onto both the name and what it refers to, and how are we going to do that?
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 6. Mathematics as Set Theory / a. Mathematics is set theory
Maths can be reduced to logic and set theory [Quine]
     Full Idea: Researches in the foundations of mathematics have made it clear that all of (interpreted) mathematics can be got down to logic and set theory, and the objects needed for mathematics can be got down to the category of classes (and classes of classes..).
     From: Willard Quine (The Scope and Language of Science [1954], §VI)
     A reaction: This I take to be a retreat from pure logicism, presumably influenced by Gödel. So can set theory be reduced to logic? Crispin Wright is the one the study.
8. Modes of Existence / A. Relations / 2. Internal Relations
Internal relations are said to be intrinsic properties of two terms, and of the whole they compose [Bradley, by Russell]
     Full Idea: The doctrine of internal relations held that every relation between two terms expresses, primarily, intrinsic properties of the two terms and, in ultimate analysis, a property of the whole which the two compose.
     From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by Bertrand Russell - My Philosophical Development Ch.5
     A reaction: Russell's first big campaign was to reject this view, and his ontology from then on included relations among the catalogue of universals. The coherence theory of truth also gets thrown out at the same time. Russell seems right.
Relations must be linked to their qualities, but that implies an infinite regress of relations [Bradley]
     Full Idea: If a relation between qualities is to be something, then clearly we will now require a new connecting relation. The links are united by a link, and this link has two ends, which require a fresh link to connect them to the old.
     From: F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893], p.28), quoted by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things Ch.6
     A reaction: That is: external relations generates an infinite regress, so relations must be internal. Russell launched his own philosophy with an attack on Bradley's idea. Personally I take how two things 'relate' to one another as one of the deepest of mysteries.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 1. Nature of Properties
The category of objects incorporates the old distinction of substances and their modes [Quine]
     Full Idea: The category of objects embraces indiscriminately what would anciently have been distinguished as substances and as modes or states of substances.
     From: Willard Quine (The Scope and Language of Science [1954], §6)
     A reaction: This nicely captures Quine's elimination of properties, by presenting them as inseparable from their objects/substances. Armstrong calls this 'Ostrich Nominalism' (for refusing to address the universals problem) but Quineans are unshaken.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 2. Abstract Objects / b. Need for abstracta
We need a logical use of 'object' as predicate-worthy, and an 'ontological' use [Strawson,P]
     Full Idea: There is a good case for a conservative reform of the word 'object'. Objects in the 'logical' sense would be all predicate-worthy identifiabilia whatever. Objects in the 'ontological' sense would form one ontological category among many others.
     From: Peter F. Strawson (Entity and Identity [1978], I n4)
     A reaction: This ambiguity has caused me no end of confusion (and irritation!). I wish philosophers wouldn't hijack perfectly good English words and give them weird meanings. Nice to have a distinguished fellow like Strawson make this suggestion.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences
It makes no sense to ask of some individual thing what it is that makes it that individual [Strawson,P]
     Full Idea: For no object is there a unique character or relation by which it must be identified if it is to be identified at all. This is why it makes no sense to ask, impersonally and in general, of some individual object what makes it the individual object it is.
     From: Peter F. Strawson (Entity and Identity [1978], I)
     A reaction: He links this remark with the claim that there is no individual essence, but he seems to view an individual essence as indispensable to recognition or individuation of the object, which I don't see. Recognise it first, work out its essence later.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / d. Absolute idealism
British Idealists said reality is a single Mind which experiences itself [Bradley, by Grayling]
     Full Idea: The idealism of Green and Bradley, both of whom were much influenced by the German Idealists, espoused the thesis that the universe ultimately consists of a single Mind which, so to speak, experiences itself.
     From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2
     A reaction: This looks now like the last (extreme) throw by the religious view of the world, which collapsed in the face of the empirical realism of Russell and Moore. It is all Kant's fault, for cutting us off from his 'noumenon'.
Bradley's objective idealism accepts reality (the Absolute), but says we can't fully describe it [Bradley, by Potter]
     Full Idea: Objective idealists such as Bradley (rather than Berkeley's subjective view) accepted the substantial existence of reality (which they called the 'Absolute') but held that thought cannot fully describe it.
     From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 23 'Abs'
     A reaction: That thought can't 'fully' describe it seems obvious, so I suspect Bradley's view are stronger than that. This sounds like modern strong and weak anti-realists; strong ones deny reality, but weak ones just deny we know where the joints are.
Qualities and relations are mere appearance; the Absolute is a single undifferentiated substance [Bradley, by Heil]
     Full Idea: In Bradley's view, qualities and relations belong to the realm of appearance. We are left with a single, undifferentiated substance: the Absolute.
     From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by John Heil - Relations 'Internal'
     A reaction: I've not read Bradley, but I can't distinguish this proposal from Parmenides's belief in The One. Or maybe Spinoza's monist view of God and Nature (but that is 'differentiated'). It doesn't sound like Hegel.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 6. Conceptual Dualism
A hallucination can, like an ague, be identified with its host; the ontology is physical, the idiom mental [Quine]
     Full Idea: A physical ontology has a place for states of mind. An inspiration or a hallucination can, like the fit of ague, be identified with its host for the duration. It leaves our mentalistic idioms fairly intact, but reconciles them with a physical ontology.
     From: Willard Quine (The Scope and Language of Science [1954], §VI)
     A reaction: Quine is employing the same strategy that he uses for substances and properties (Idea 8461): take the predication as basic, rather than reifying the thing being predicated. The ague analogy suggests that Quine is an incipient functionalist.
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / e. The One
Reality is one, because plurality implies relations, and they assert a superior unity [Bradley]
     Full Idea: Reality is one. It must be simple because plurality, taken as real, contradicts itself. Plurality implies relations, and, through its relations it unwillingly asserts always a superior unity.
     From: F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893], p.519), quoted by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2
     A reaction: This argument depends on a belief in 'internal' relations, which Russell famously attacked. If an internal feature of every separate item was its relation to other things, then I suppose Bradley would be right. But it isn't, and he isn't.