24 ideas
8220 | Philosophy is in a perpetual state of digression [Deleuze/Guattari] |
Full Idea: Philosophy can be seen as being in a perpetual state of digression. | |
From: G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], 1.1) | |
A reaction: Anyone who has ever tried to teach philosophy will vouch for this. Philosophy is the 'Arabian Nights', conjuring up wonderful stories, to avoid having to face something nasty. Philosophy is perpetual postponement of problems. |
8217 | Philosophy is a concept-creating discipline [Deleuze/Guattari] |
Full Idea: Philosophy is the discipline that involves creating concepts. | |
From: G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], Intro) | |
A reaction: One might very reasonably reply that Geography is a discipline which creates concepts. However, this emphasis is an interesting corrective to the school of analysis, which appears confined to existing, and even 'folk', concepts. |
8242 | Philosophy aims at what is interesting, remarkable or important - not at knowledge or truth [Deleuze/Guattari] |
Full Idea: Philosophy does not consist in knowing, and is not inspired by truth. Rather, it is categories like Interesting, Remarkable, or Important that determine success or failure. | |
From: G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], 1.3) | |
A reaction: Speak for yourself. I wonder what the criteria are for 'Interesting' or 'Important'. They can't seriously count 'remarkable' as a criterion of philosophical success, can they? There can be remarkable stupidity. |
8223 | The plague of philosophy is those who criticise without creating, and defend dead concepts [Deleuze/Guattari] |
Full Idea: Those who criticise without creating, those who are content to defend the vanished concept without being able to give it the forces it needs to return to life, are the plague of philosophy. | |
From: G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], 1.1) | |
A reaction: This seems to be the continental view of analytical philosophy, that it is pathetically conservative. I would offer MacIntyre as a response, who gives a beautiful analysis of why the super-modern view is dead. The French are hopelessly romantic. |
8247 | Phenomenology needs art as logic needs science [Deleuze/Guattari] |
Full Idea: Phenomenology needs art as logic needs science. | |
From: G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], 2.6) | |
A reaction: I would have thought that it was science that needs logic. Art is more elitist than science, and less universal. I presume artists and phenomenologists share a target of deconstructing lived human experience. |
8224 | 'Eris' is the divinity of conflict, the opposite of Philia, the god of friendship [Deleuze/Guattari] |
Full Idea: 'Eris' is the Greek divinity of discord, conflict, and strife, the complementary opposite of Philia, the divinity of union and friendship. | |
From: G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], 1.2 n) | |
A reaction: Are these actual gods? This interestingly implies that the wonders of dialectic and Socrates' elenchus are simply aspects of friendship, which was elevated by Epicurus to the highest good. The Greeks just wanted wonderful friends and fine speeches. |
14626 | In S5 matters of possibility and necessity are non-contingent [Williamson] |
Full Idea: In system S5 matters of possibility and necessity are always non-contingent. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic [2010], 3) | |
A reaction: This will be because if something is possible in one world (because it can be seen to be true in some possible world) it will be possible for all worlds (since they can all see that world in S5). |
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. |
8219 | Logic has an infantile idea of philosophy [Deleuze/Guattari] |
Full Idea: Logic has an infantile idea of philosophy. | |
From: G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], 1.1) | |
A reaction: This offers some explanation of why Anglo-American philosophers are steeped in logic, and the continentals just ignore it. I have some sympathy with the French view. Logic seems to study language with all the interesting part drained off. |
8246 | Logic hates philosophy, and wishes to supplant it [Deleuze/Guattari] |
Full Idea: A real hatred inspires logic's rivalry with, or its will to supplant, philosophy. | |
From: G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], 2.6) | |
A reaction: A delightful corrective to the neurotic inferiority that most English-speaking philosophers feel about their failure to master logic. What was Aristotle playing at when he invented logic? Philosophical talent is utterly different from a talent for logic. |
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. |
14625 | Necessity is counterfactually implied by its negation; possibility does not counterfactually imply its negation [Williamson] |
Full Idea: Modal thinking is logically equivalent to a type of counterfactual thinking. ...The necessary is that which is counterfactually implied by its own negation; the possible is that which does not counterfactually imply its own negation. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic [2010], 1) | |
A reaction: I really like this, because it builds modality on ordinary imaginative thinking. He says you just need to grasp counterfactuals, and also negation and absurdity, and you can then understand necessity and possibility. We can all do that. |
14623 | Strict conditionals imply counterfactual conditionals: □(A⊃B)⊃(A□→B) [Williamson] |
Full Idea: The strict conditional implies the counterfactual conditional: □(A⊃B) ⊃ (A□→B) - suppose that A would not have held without B holding too; then if A had held, B would also have held. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic [2010], 1) | |
A reaction: [He then adds a reading of his formula in terms of possible worlds] This sounds rather close to modus ponens. If A implies B, and A is actually the case, what have you got? B! |
14624 | Counterfactual conditionals transmit possibility: (A□→B)⊃(◊A⊃◊B) [Williamson] |
Full Idea: The counterfactual conditional transmits possibility: (A□→B) ⊃ (◊A⊃◊B). Suppose that if A had held, B would also have held; the if it is possible for A to hold, it is also possible for B to hold. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic [2010], 1) |
14531 | Rather than define counterfactuals using necessity, maybe necessity is a special case of counterfactuals [Williamson, by Hale/Hoffmann,A] |
Full Idea: Instead of regarding counterfactuals as conditionals restricted to a range of possible worlds, we can define the necessity operator by means of counterfactuals. Metaphysical necessity is a special case of ordinary counterfactual thinking. | |
From: report of Timothy Williamson (Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic [2010]) by Bob Hale/ Aviv Hoffmann - Introduction to 'Modality' 2 | |
A reaction: [compressed] I very much like Williamson's approach, of basing these things on the ordinary way that ordinary people think. To me it is a welcome inclusion of psychology into metaphysics, which has been out in the cold since Frege. |
8221 | We cannot judge the Cogito. Must we begin? Must we start from certainty? Can 'I' relate to thought? [Deleuze/Guattari] |
Full Idea: There is no point in wondering whether Descartes' Cogito is right or wrong. Is it necessary "to begin", and, if so, is it necessary to start from the point of view of a subjective certainty? Can thought be the verb of an I? There is no direct answer. | |
From: G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], 1.1) | |
A reaction: A nice first sentence for a work of philosophy would be "It is necessary to begin". Is the Cogito the only idea that is beyond judgement? I fear a slippery slope here, which would paralyse all of our judgements - and would therefore be ridiculous. |
8222 | Concepts are superior because they make us more aware, and change our thinking [Deleuze/Guattari] |
Full Idea: If one concept is 'better' than an earlier one, it is because it makes us aware of new variations and unknown resonances, it carries out unforeseen cuttings-out, it brings forth an Event that surveys (survole) us. | |
From: G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], 1.1) | |
A reaction: I don't get much of that, but it is certainly in tune with the Kuhn/Feyerabend idea that what science can generate is fresh visions, rather than precisely expanded truths. Personally I consider it dangerous nonsense, but I thought I ought to pass it on. |
8218 | Other people completely revise our perceptions, because they are possible worlds [Deleuze/Guattari] |
Full Idea: The concept of the Other Person as expression of a possible world in a perceptual field leads us to consider the components of this field in a new way. | |
From: G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], 1.1) | |
A reaction: I like the idea that other people are possible worlds. You can give reductionist accounts of the human animal till the cows come home, but when one walk into your visual field, the mind takes off. See Crusoe and Friday. |
14628 | Imagination is important, in evaluating possibility and necessity, via counterfactuals [Williamson] |
Full Idea: Imagination can be made to look cognitively worthless. Once we recall its fallible but vital role in evaluating counterfactual conditionals, we should be more open to the idea that it plays such a role in evaluating claims of possibility and necessity. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic [2010], 6) | |
A reaction: I take this to be a really important idea, because it establishes the importance of imagination within the formal framework of modern analytic philosopher (rather than in the whimsy of poets and dreamers). |
8248 | Phenomenology says thought is part of the world [Deleuze/Guattari] |
Full Idea: According to phenomenology, thought depends on man's relations with the world - with which the brain is necessarily in agreement because it is drawn from these relations. | |
From: G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], Conclusion) | |
A reaction: The development of externalist views of mind, arising from the Twin Earth idea, seems to provide a link to continental philosophy, where similar ideas are found in Husserl, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. So study science, psychology, or sociology? |
8245 | The logical attitude tries to turn concepts into functions, when they are really forms or forces [Deleuze/Guattari] |
Full Idea: Logic is reductionist not accidentally, but essentially and necessarily: following the route marked out by Frege and Russell, it wants to turn the concept into a function (...when actually a concept is a form, or a force). | |
From: G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], 2.6) | |
A reaction: [Last part on p.144] I'm not sure that I understand 'form or force', but the idea that concepts are mere functions is like describing something as 'transport', without saying whether it is bus/bike/train.. Is a concept a vision, or a tool? |
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). |
8243 | Atheism is the philosopher's serenity, and philosophy's achievement [Deleuze/Guattari] |
Full Idea: It is amazing that so many philosophers take the death of God as tragic. Atheism is not a drama, but the philosopher's serenity and philosophy's achievement. | |
From: G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], 1.4) | |
A reaction: It seems to me that it is the late nineteenth and early twentieth century that feels the death of God as a tragedy. Modern Anglo-American philosophers are mostly pretty serene on the subject, unless, like Dennett, they go on the offensive. |