17 ideas
7396 | Hobbes created English-language philosophy [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
Full Idea: Hobbes created English-language philosophy. | |
From: report of Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Pref | |
A reaction: Tuck mentions Hooker as a predecessor in jurisprudence. Otherwise, an impressive label. |
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. |
16638 | The qualities of the world are mere appearances; reality is the motions which cause them [Hobbes] |
Full Idea: Whatsoever accidents or qualities our senses make us think there be in the world, they are not there, but are seemings and apparitions only. The things that really are in the world without us are those motions by which these seemings are caused. | |
From: Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640], I.2.10), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 10.2 | |
A reaction: This seems to count as a sense-datum theory, rather than a representative theory of perception, since it makes no commitment to the qualities containing any accurate information at all. We just start from the qualities and try to work it out. |
16688 | Evidence is conception, which is imagination, which proceeds from the senses [Hobbes] |
Full Idea: All evidence is conception, as it is said, and all conception is imagination and proceeds from sense. And spirits we suppose to be those substances which work not upon the sense, and therefore not conceptible. | |
From: Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640], I.11.5), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 16.2 | |
A reaction: This is exactly the same as Hume's claim that all ideas are the result of impressions, and is the very essence of empiricism. We see here that such an epistemology can have huge consequences. |
7405 | Experience can't prove universal truths [Hobbes] |
Full Idea: Experience concludeth nothing universally. | |
From: Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640], I.4.10), quoted by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.2 | |
A reaction: Empiricists seem proud to claim this limitation on human understanding, where rationalists like Leibniz use it as an argument against empiricism. Kripke says (e.g. Idea 4966) they are both wrong! I sympathise with Kripke. |
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). |
7408 | It is an error that reason should control the passions, which give right guidance on their own [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
Full Idea: Hobbes (and Descartes, and many contemporaries) argued that the traditional idea that reason should control the passions was an error, and that (properly understood) our emotions would guide us in the right direction. | |
From: report of Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.2 | |
A reaction: I'm an intellectualist on this one. It strikes me as rather naïve and romantic to think that unthinking emotion could ever consistently approach what is right. A recipe for disaster. |
7407 | Good and evil are what please us; goodness and badness the powers causing them [Hobbes] |
Full Idea: We call good and evil the things that please and displease us; and so we call goodness and badness, the qualities of powers whereby they do it. | |
From: Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640], I.7.3), quoted by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.2 | |
A reaction: It is pointed out by Tuck that this is just like his treatment of colour terms (values as secondary qualities). I would have thought it was obvious that I could say 'x pleases me, although I disapprove of it' (e.g. black humour). |
23683 | Moral norms are objective, connected to facts about human goods [Foot, by Hacker-Wright] |
Full Idea: In her early work she defends the objectivity of moral norms, demonstrating their essential connection to facts about what is good for human beings. | |
From: report of Philippa Foot (Moral Beliefs [1959]) by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought Intro | |
A reaction: I don't think she ever gave up this idea, which strikes me as thoroughly Aristotelian. The issue is how to understand what is good for us. |
23684 | Morality gives everyone reasons to act, irrespective of their desires [Foot, by Hacker-Wright] |
Full Idea: In her early work she also defends moral rationalism, which is the idea that morality gives reasons for action to everyone, even those who lack the desire to do what is right. | |
From: report of Philippa Foot (Moral Beliefs [1959]) by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought Intro | |
A reaction: Evidently a rejection of the Humean view that only a desire can motivate action, including moral action. There is an ongoing debate about whether reasons can cause anything, or motivate anything. I think the contents of reasons pull us towards action. |
23690 | We all have reason to cultivate the virtues, even when we lack the desire [Foot, by Hacker-Wright] |
Full Idea: Foot advocates the view that anyone has reason to cultivate the virtues, even if they lack the desire to do so at a given moment. | |
From: report of Philippa Foot (Moral Beliefs [1959], Pt II) by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought 2 'Concepts' | |
A reaction: The view which she soon abandoned, but then returned to later. It specifically repudiates the view of Hume, that only desires can motivate. I'm unsure, because the concept of 'reason' strikes me as too imprecise. She sees self-interest as a reason. |
7410 | Self-preservation is basic, and people judge differently about that, implying ethical relativism [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
Full Idea: If men are their own judges of what conduces to their preservation, ..all men make different decisions about what counts as a danger, so (for Hobbes) the grimmest version of ethical relativism seems to be the only possible ethical vision. | |
From: report of Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.2 | |
A reaction: This might depend on self-preservation being the only fundamental value. But if self-preservation is not a pressing issue, presumably other values might come into play, some of them less concerned with the individual's own interests. |
22379 | The meaning of 'good' and other evaluations must include the object to which they attach [Foot] |
Full Idea: There is no describing the evaluative meaning of 'good', evaluation, commending, or anything of the sort, without fixing the object to which they are supposed to be attached. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Moral Beliefs [1959], p.112) | |
A reaction: I go further, and say that a specification of the feature(s) of the object that produce the value must also be available (if requested). 'That's a good car, but I've no idea why' makes no sense. 'Apparently that's a good car', if other people know why. |
7409 | Hobbes shifted from talk of 'the good' to talk of 'rights' [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
Full Idea: Hobbes (like Grotius) shifted from talking about 'the good', which had been the traditional subject for both ancient and Renaissance moralists, to talking instead about 'rights'. | |
From: report of Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.2 | |
A reaction: This is part of the crucial shift away from the Greek interest in excellence of character, towards the Enlightenment legalistic interest in right actions, as well as social rights. Bad move, well analysed by MacIntyre. |
7411 | The attributes of God just show our inability to conceive his nature [Hobbes] |
Full Idea: All the attributes of God signify our inability and defect of power to conceive any thing concerning his nature. | |
From: Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640], I.10.2), quoted by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.2 | |
A reaction: Presumably he means that 'omnipotence' should just be translated as 'mind-boggling power'. St Anselm's concept of God (Idea 1405) is helpful here, placing it at the upper limit of what can actually be conceived. |