11 ideas
| 11211 | If a sound conclusion comes from two errors that cancel out, the path of the argument must matter [Rumfitt] |
| Full Idea: If a designated conclusion follows from the premisses, but the argument involves two howlers which cancel each other out, then the moral is that the path an argument takes from premisses to conclusion does matter to its logical evaluation. | |
| From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], II) | |
| A reaction: The drift of this is that our view of logic should be a little closer to the reasoning of ordinary language, and we should rely a little less on purely formal accounts. |
| 11210 | Standardly 'and' and 'but' are held to have the same sense by having the same truth table [Rumfitt] |
| Full Idea: If 'and' and 'but' really are alike in sense, in what might that likeness consist? Some philosophers of classical logic will reply that they share a sense by virtue of sharing a truth table. | |
| From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000]) | |
| A reaction: This is the standard view which Rumfitt sets out to challenge. |
| 11212 | The sense of a connective comes from primitively obvious rules of inference [Rumfitt] |
| Full Idea: A connective will possess the sense that it has by virtue of its competent users' finding certain rules of inference involving it to be primitively obvious. | |
| From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], III) | |
| A reaction: Rumfitt cites Peacocke as endorsing this view, which characterises the logical connectives by their rules of usage rather than by their pure semantic value. |
| 16473 | Modal Rationalism: conceivability gives a priori access to modal truths [Chalmers, by Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Chalmers' 'modal rationalist' is one who identifies what is possible with what is conceivable; the central claim of the doctrine is that we have a priori access to modal truth. | |
| From: report of David J.Chalmers (Does Conceivability Entail Possibility? [2002]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 5 | |
| A reaction: A helpful clarification, as I can now see how hopelessly and utterly wrong Chalmers is (about almost everything), and I find my confidence in any sort of genuine a priori knowledge (except of conceptual relations) dwindling by the minute. |
| 19258 | Evaluate primary possibility from some world, and secondary possibility from this world [Chalmers, by Vaidya] |
| Full Idea: For Chalmers, that water is XYZ is 'primary possible' (a priori, or conceptually), because it is true in some world considered as actual. It is 'secondary impossible', when it is evaluated from the Earth as actual. | |
| From: report of David J.Chalmers (Does Conceivability Entail Possibility? [2002]) by Anand Vaidya - Understanding and Essence Intro | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This is Chalmers' account of how we can know possibility from conceivability, via his two-dimensional semantics (see alphabetical themes). |
| 1457 | Morality requires a minimum commitment to the self [Rashdall] |
| Full Idea: A bare minimum of metaphysical belief about the self is found to be absolutely presupposed in the very idea of morality. | |
| From: Hastings Rashdall (Theory of Good and Evil [1907], II.III.I.4) | |
| A reaction: This may not be true of virtue theory, where we could have a whole creature which lacked any sense of personhood, but yet had clear virtues and vices in its social functioning. Even if choices are central to morality, that might not need a self. |
| 11214 | We learn 'not' along with affirmation, by learning to either affirm or deny a sentence [Rumfitt] |
| Full Idea: The standard view is that affirming not-A is more complex than affirming the atomic sentence A itself, with the latter determining its sense. But we could learn 'not' directly, by learning at once how to either affirm A or reject A. | |
| From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], IV) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This seems fairly anti-Fregean in spirit, because it looks at the psychology of how we learn 'not' as a way of clarifying what we mean by it, rather than just looking at its logical behaviour (and thus giving it a secondary role). |
| 6674 | All moral judgements ultimately concern the value of ends [Rashdall] |
| Full Idea: All moral judgements are ultimately judgements as to the value of ends. | |
| From: Hastings Rashdall (Theory of Good and Evil [1907], VII.I) | |
| A reaction: I am increasingly struck by this, especially when observing that it is the great gap in Kant's theory. For some odd reason, he gives being rational the highest possible value. Why? Nietzsche is good on this. 'Eudaimonia' seems a good start, to me. |
| 6673 | Ideal Utilitarianism is teleological but non-hedonistic; the aim is an ideal end, which includes pleasure [Rashdall] |
| Full Idea: My view, called Ideal Utilitarianism, combines the utilitarian principle that Ethics must be teleological with a non-hedonistic view of ethical ends; actions are right or wrong as they produce an ideal end, which includes, but is not limited to, pleasure. | |
| From: Hastings Rashdall (Theory of Good and Evil [1907], VII.I) | |
| A reaction: I certainly think that if you are going to be a consequentialist, then it is ridiculous to limit the end to pleasure, as it is an 'open question' as to whether we judge pleasures or pains to be good or bad. I am fond of beauty, goodness and truth, myself. |
| 1458 | Conduct is only reasonable or unreasonable if the world is governed by reason [Rashdall] |
| Full Idea: Absolutely reasonable or unreasonable conduct could not exist in a world which was not itself the product of reason or governed by its dictates. | |
| From: Hastings Rashdall (Theory of Good and Evil [1907], II.III.I.4) |
| 1459 | Absolute moral ideals can't exist in human minds or material things, so their acceptance implies a greater Mind [Rashdall, by PG] |
| Full Idea: An absolute moral ideal cannot exist in material things, or in the minds of individual people, so belief in it requires belief in a Mind which contains the ideal and is its source. | |
| From: report of Hastings Rashdall (Theory of Good and Evil [1907], II.III.I.4) by PG - Db (ideas) |