7 ideas
| 9355 | One sort of circularity presupposes a premise, the other presupposes a rule being used [Braithwaite, by Devitt] |
| Full Idea: An argument is 'premise-circular' if it aims to establish a conclusion that is assumed as a premise of that very argument. An argument is 'rule-circular' if it aims to establish a conclusion that asserts the goodness of the rule used in that argument. | |
| From: report of R.B. Braithwaite (Scientific Explanation [1953], p.274-8) by Michael Devitt - There is no a Priori §2 | |
| A reaction: Rule circularity is the sort of thing Quine is always objecting to, but such circularities may be unavoidable, and even totally benign. All the good things in life form a mutually supporting team. |
| 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. |
| 5052 | When Gentiles follow the law, they must have the law written in their hearts [Paul] |
| Full Idea: When the Gentiles which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, which shew the works of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness. | |
| From: St Paul (06: Epistle to the Romans [c.55], 02.15) | |
| A reaction: This passage was used by theologians as proof of innate ideas, which are, of course, divinely implanted (in the guise of doing things 'by nature'). It is quoted by Leibniz. Thus Christians annexed credit for pagan morality to God. |
| 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). |
| 7572 | Power is ordained by God, so anyone who resists power resists God, and will be damned [Paul] |
| Full Idea: Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained by God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. | |
| From: St Paul (06: Epistle to the Romans [c.55], 13:1-2) | |
| A reaction: This notorious passage was used to justify the Divine Right of Kings in England in the seventeenth century. It strikes me as being utterly preposterous, though you might say that violent resistance to an evil dictator only brings worse evil. |