10 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. |
| 3900 | Maybe experience is not essential to perception, but only to the causing of beliefs [Armstrong, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Armstrong has argued that experience, as normally understood, is not necessary to perception. To perceive is to acquire beliefs, through a causal process. | |
| From: report of David M. Armstrong (Belief Truth and Knowledge [1973]) by Roger Scruton - Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey 23.4 |
| 4253 | Externalism says knowledge involves a natural relation between the belief state and what makes it true [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Externalist accounts of non-inferential knowledge say what makes a true non-inferential belief a case of knowledge is some natural relation which holds between the belief state and the situation which makes the belief true. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Belief Truth and Knowledge [1973], 11.III.6) | |
| A reaction: Armstrong's concept is presumably a response to Quine's desire to 'naturalise epistemology'. Bad move, I suspect. It probably reduces knowledge to mere true belief, and hence a redundant concept. |
| 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). |
| 19896 | It is not a law if not endorsed by the public [Hooker,R] |
| Full Idea: Laws they are not which public approbation hath not made so. | |
| From: Richard Hooker (Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity [1593], I s.10), quoted by John Locke - Second Treatise of Government 134 n1 | |
| A reaction: Margaret Thatcher's Poll Tax, rejected by public rebellion, illustrates the point. |
| 19891 | Rule of law is superior to autonomy, because citizens can see what is expected [Hooker,R] |
| Full Idea: Men saw that to live by one man's will became the cause of all men's misery. This contrained them to come unto laws wherein all men might see their duty beforehand, and know the penalties of transgressing them. | |
| From: Richard Hooker (Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity [1593], I s.10), quoted by John Locke - Second Treatise of Government 111 n1 | |
| A reaction: One British school has a single rule, that pupils 'shall always treat other people with respect'. Presumably the rulers, as well as the pupils, must decide when this is transgressed. The rule of law may be preferable. |
| 19897 | Human laws must accord with the general laws of Nature [Hooker,R] |
| Full Idea: Laws human must be made according to the general laws of Nature. | |
| From: Richard Hooker (Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity [1593], III s.9), quoted by John Locke - Second Treatise of Government | |
| A reaction: The point simply seems to be that they won't get assent from the public if they are not in accord with natural justice. Positivists say you can make any damned law you like. |
| 17005 | Natural things observe certain laws, and things cannot do otherwise if they retain their forms [Hooker,R] |
| Full Idea: Things natural …do so necessarily observe their certain laws, that as long as they keep those forms which give them their being they cannot possibly be apt or inclinable to do otherwise than they do. | |
| From: Richard Hooker (Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity [1593], 1.3.4), quoted by Marc Lange - Laws and Lawmakers 1.2 | |
| A reaction: Cited by some as the beginnings of the idea of 'laws of nature', but it is striking that Hooker says the laws are controlled by 'forms' (which are Aristotelian essences). This is an essentialist view of laws, not a regularity or divine power one. |