22 ideas
| 7426 | Critical philosophy is what questions domination at every level [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: In its critical aspect, philosophy is that which calls into question domination at every level | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom [1984], p.300) | |
| A reaction: A very French view of the subject. It is tempting to say that they had their adolescent outburst in 1789, and it is time to grow up. With rights come responsibilities... |
| 7423 | Philosophy and politics are fundamentally linked [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: The relationship between philosophy and politics is permanent and fundamental. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom [1984], p.293) | |
| A reaction: This idea is one of the biggest gulfs between continental and analytical philosophy. Many aspects of philosophy are turning out to be much more social than analytical philosophers might have thought - epistemology, for example. |
| 7420 | When logos controls our desires, we have actually become the logos [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: Plutarch says if you have mastered principles then logos will silence your desires like a master silencing a dog - in which case the logos functions without intervention on your part - you have become the logos, or the logos has become you. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom [1984], p.286) | |
| A reaction: If you believe that logos is pure reason, you might be quite happy with this, but if you thought it was a cultural construct, you might feel that you had been cunningly enslaved. If I ask 'what is 7+6?', logos interrupts me to give the answer. |
| 16405 | To understand a name (unlike a description) picking the thing out is sufficient? [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: If we ask 'what must you know to understand a name?', the naïve answer is that one must know who or what it names - nothing more. (But no one would give this answer about what is needed to understand a definite description). | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Reference and Necessity [1997], 4) | |
| A reaction: Presumably this is naive because names can be full of meaning ('the Empress'), or description and reference together ('there's the man who robbed me') and so on. It's a nice starting point though. A number can serve as a name. |
| 8502 | Realism doesn't explain 'a is F' any further by saying it is 'a has F-ness' [Devitt] |
| Full Idea: Realists feel that the one-place predication 'a is F' leaves something unexplained, yet all that is offered is a two-place predication (a relational statement). There is an equal problem about 'a having F-ness'. | |
| From: Michael Devitt ('Ostrich Nominalism' or 'Mirage Realism'? [1980], p.97) | |
| A reaction: I think this is a key argument on the nominalist side - the denial that the theory of universals actually makes any progress at all in giving an explanation of what is going on around here. Platonist have the problem of 'partaking'. |
| 8503 | The particular/universal distinction is unhelpful clutter; we should accept 'a is F' as basic [Devitt] |
| Full Idea: Talk of 'particulars' and 'universals' clutters the landscape without adding to our understanding. We should rest with the basic fact that a is F. | |
| From: Michael Devitt ('Ostrich Nominalism' or 'Mirage Realism'? [1980], p.98) | |
| A reaction: Ramsey was first to challenge the basic distinction. I find the approach of Quine and Devitt unsatisfactory. We abandon explanation when it is totally hopeless, but that is usually in the face of complexity. Properties are difficult but simple. |
| 8501 | Quineans take predication about objects as basic, not reference to properties they may have [Devitt] |
| Full Idea: For 'a and b have the same property, F-ness' the Quinean Nominalist has a paraphrase to hand: 'a and b are both F'. ..In denying that this object need have properties, the Quinean is not denying that it really is F. | |
| From: Michael Devitt ('Ostrich Nominalism' or 'Mirage Realism'? [1980], p.95) | |
| A reaction: The question that remains is why 'F' is used of both a and b. We don't call a and b 'a', because they are different. Quine falls back on resemblance. I suspect Quineans of hiding behind the semantics. |
| 16407 | Possible worlds allow separating all the properties, without hitting a bare particular [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: The possible worlds framework suggests a way to express the idea that a particular is conceptually separable from its properties without relying on the rejected picture of a bare particular. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Reference and Necessity [1997], 5) | |
| A reaction: As I read him, Stalnaker's proposal just comes down to replacing each property in turn with a different one. 'Strip away' red by making it green. It being green in w1 doesn't throw extra light. Can it be a bare particular in w37? |
| 16397 | If it might be true, it might be true in particular ways, and possible worlds describe such ways [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: A clarifying assumption is that if something might be true, then it might be true in some particular way. …Possible worlds begin from this, and the assumption that what might be true can be described as how a possibility might be realised. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Reference and Necessity [1997], 2) | |
| A reaction: This is a leading practitioner giving his best shot at explaining the rationale of the possible worlds approach, addressed to many sceptics. Most sceptics, I think, don't understand the qualifications the practitioners apply to their game. |
| 16399 | Possible worlds are ontologically neutral, but a commitment to possibilities remains [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: I argue for the metaphysical neutrality of the possible worlds framework, but I do not suggest that its use is free of ontological commitment to possibilities (ways things might be, counterfactual situations, possible states of worlds). | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Reference and Necessity [1997], 2) | |
| A reaction: Glad to hear this, as I have always been puzzled at possible aspirations to eliminate modality (such as possibility) by introducing 'possible' worlds. Commitment to possibilities I take to be basic and unavoidable. |
| 16398 | Possible worlds allow discussion of modality without controversial modal auxiliaries [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: The main benefit of the possible worlds move is to permit one to paraphrase modal claims in an extensional language that has quantifiers, but no modal auxiliaries, so the semantic stucture of modal discourse can be discussed without the controversies. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Reference and Necessity [1997], 2) | |
| A reaction: The strategy introduces the controversy of possible worlds instead, but since they just boil down to collections of objects with properties, classical logic can reign. Possible worlds are one strategy alongside many others. |
| 16396 | Kripke's possible worlds are methodological, not metaphysical [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: The possible worlds framework that Kripke introduces should be understood not as a metaphysical theory, but as a methodological framework. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Reference and Necessity [1997], Intro) | |
| A reaction: That's certainly how I see possible worlds. I lose no sleep over whether they exist. I just take a set of possible worlds to be like cells in a spreadsheet, or records in a database. |
| 16408 | Rigid designation seems to presuppose that differing worlds contain the same individuals [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: A rigid designator is a designator that denotes the same individual in all possible worlds; doesn't this presuppose that the same individuals can be found in differing possible worlds? | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Reference and Necessity [1997], 5) | |
| A reaction: This is part of Stalnaker's claim that Kripke already has a metaphysics in place when he starts on his semantics and his theory of reference. Kripke needs a global domain, not a variable domain. Possibilities suggest variable domains to me. |
| 7424 | Saying games of truth were merely power relations would be a horrible exaggeration [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: When I talk about power relations and games of truth, I am absolutely not saying that games of truth are just concealed power relations - that would be a horrible exaggeration. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom [1984], p.296) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be a denial of the more absurd forms of relativism. I think there is an interesting convergence between this kind of continental thinking, and the social view of justification found in the later work of Alvin Goldman. |
| 7422 | A subject is a form which can change, in (say) political or sexual situations [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: The subject is not a substance but a form, which is not always identical to itself. You do not have the same relation to yourself when you go to vote and when you seek to fulfil your desires in a sexual relationship. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom [1984], p.290) | |
| A reaction: I don't think I believe this. If it were true, the concept of 'sexual politics' would mean nothing to me. A brutal or sympathetic nature is likely to express itself in both situations. |
| 16406 | If you don't know what you say you can't mean it; what people say usually fits what they mean [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: If you don't know what you are saying then you don't mean what you say, and also speakers generally mean what they say (in that what they say coincides with what they mean). | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Reference and Necessity [1997], 4) | |
| A reaction: Both these thoughts seem completely acceptable and correct, but rely on something called 'meaning' that is distinct from saying. I would express this in terms of propositions, which I take to be mental events. |
| 16404 | In the use of a name, many individuals are causally involved, but they aren't all the referent [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: The causal theory of reference is criticised for vagueness. Causal connections are ubiquitous, and there are obviously many individuals that are causally implicated in the speaker's use of a name, but they aren't all plausible candidates for the referent. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Reference and Necessity [1997], 4) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a very good objection. Among all the causal links back to some baptised object, we have to pick out the referential link, which needs a criterion. |
| 16403 | 'Descriptive' semantics gives a system for a language; 'foundational' semantics give underlying facts [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: 'Descriptive' semantics gives a semantics for the language without saying how practice explains why the semantics is right; …'foundational' semantics concerns the facts that give expressions their semantic values. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Reference and Necessity [1997], §1) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Sounds parallel to the syntax/semantics distinction, or proof-theoretical and semantic validity. Or the sense/reference distinction! Or object language/metalanguage. Shall I go on? |
| 16401 | To understand an utterance, you must understand what the world would be like if it is true [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: To understand what is said in an utterance of 'The first dog born at sea was a basset hound', one needs to know what the world would have been like in order for what was said in that utterance to be true. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Reference and Necessity [1997], 3) | |
| A reaction: Put like that, the idea is undeniable. Understanding involves truth conditions. Does mean involve the understanding of the meaning. What do you understand when you understand a sentence? Just facts about dogs? Or something in the sentence? |
| 7419 | Ethics is the conscious practice of freedom [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: What is ethics, if not the practice of freedom, the conscious [réfléchie] practice of freedom? | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom [1984], p.284) | |
| A reaction: Makes Foucault sound very existentialist. I'm not sure I understand this kind of remark, given that serial killers seem to be exceptionally good at 'practising their freedom'. However, the idea is akin to Kant's notion of a truly good will (Idea 3710). |
| 7425 | The aim is not to eliminate power relations, but to reduce domination [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: The problem is not to dissolve power relations in a utopia of transparent communications, but to acquire the rules of law, the management techniques, the morality, the practice of the self, that allows games of power with minimum domination. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom [1984], p.298) | |
| A reaction: If you are a democrat it is hard to disagree with this, though I am still unclear why being dominated should rank as a total disaster. A healthy personal relationship might involve domination. 'Management techniques' is interesting. |
| 7418 | The idea of liberation suggests there is a human nature which has been repressed [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: I am somewhat suspicious of the notion of liberation, because one runs the risk of falling back on the idea that there is a human nature, that has been concealed or alienated by mechanisms of repression. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom [1984], p.282) | |
| A reaction: Personally I think there is (to some extent) a human nature, and that it fails to flourish if it gets too much 'liberation. However, the world contains a lot more repression than liberation, so we should all be fans of liberty. |