Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Roots of Reference', 'talk' and 'Has Philosophy Lost Contact with People?'

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

---

4 ideas

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 3. Wisdom Deflated

9764	Inspiration and social improvement need wisdom, but not professional philosophy [Quine]
	Full Idea: Professional philosophers have no peculiar fitness for inspirational and edifying writing, or helping to get society on an even keel (though we should do what we can). Wisdom may fulfil these crying needs: 'sophia' yes, but 'philosophia' not necessarily.
	From: Willard Quine (Has Philosophy Lost Contact with People? [1979], p.193)
	A reaction: This rather startlingly says that philosophy is unlikely to lead to wisdom, which is rather odd when it is defined as love of that very thing. Does love of horticulture lead to good gardening. I can't agree. Philosophy is the best hope of 'sophia'.

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 6. Hopes for Philosophy

9763	For a good theory of the world, we must focus on our flabby foundational vocabulary [Quine]
	Full Idea: Our traditional introspective notions - of meaning, idea, concept, essence, all undisciplined and undefined - afford a hopelessly flabby and unmanageable foundation for a theory of the world. Control is gained by focusing on words.
	From: Willard Quine (Has Philosophy Lost Contact with People? [1979], p.192)
	A reaction: A very nice statement of the aim of modern language-centred philosophy, though the task offered appears to be that of an under-labourer, when the real target, even according to Quine, is supposed to be a 'theory of the world'.

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 3. Powers as Derived

14296	Dispositions are physical states of mechanism; when known, these replace the old disposition term [Quine]
	Full Idea: Each disposition, in my view, is a physical state or mechanism. ...In some cases nowadays we understand the physical details and set them forth explicitly in terms of the arrangement and interaction of small bodies. This replaces the old disposition.
	From: Willard Quine (The Roots of Reference [1990], p.11), quoted by Stephen Mumford - Dispositions 01.3
	A reaction: A challenge to the dispositions and powers view of nature, one which rests on the 'categorical' structural properties, rather than the 'hypothetical' dispositions. But can we define a mechanism without mentioning its powers?

25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 1. Basis of justice

21229	If everyone is treated with equal injustice, at least that is fair [Morgenbesser]
	Full Idea: When the police hit me over the head at the demonstration, it was unjust but at least it was fair, because they hit everybody else over the head.
	From: Sidney Morgenbesser (talk [1970]), quoted by PG - Db (ideas)
	A reaction: An example of Morganbesser's famous wit, but this is the perfect and simplest riposte to Rawls's claim that justice is fairness. Horrific injustices can be distributed fairly, and often are, in prisons, schools, families and armies.