Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Principia Ethica' and 'Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature'

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31 ideas

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 7. Limitations of Analysis
Analytical philosophy seems to have little interest in how to tell a good analysis from a bad one [Rorty]
2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 3. Eristic
Rational certainty may be victory in argument rather than knowledge of facts [Rorty]
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 9. Rejecting Truth
Rorty seems to view truth as simply being able to hold one's view against all comers [Rorty, by O'Grady]
3. Truth / E. Pragmatic Truth / 1. Pragmatic Truth
For James truth is "what it is better for us to believe" rather than a correct picture of reality [Rorty]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 2. Pragmatic justification
If knowledge is merely justified belief, justification is social [Rorty]
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 8. Social Justification
Knowing has no definable essence, but is a social right, found in the context of conversations [Rorty]
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 6. Scepticism Critique
You can't debate about whether to have higher standards for the application of words [Rorty]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / a. Mind
The mind is a property, or it is baffling [Rorty]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / c. Features of mind
Pain lacks intentionality; beliefs lack qualia [Rorty]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / b. Intentionality theories
Is intentionality a special sort of function? [Rorty]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 1. Meaning
Nature has no preferred way of being represented [Rorty]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / b. Language holism
Can meanings remain the same when beliefs change? [Rorty]
19. Language / B. Reference / 1. Reference theories
A theory of reference seems needed to pick out objects without ghostly inner states [Rorty]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 6. Truth-Conditions Semantics
Davidson's theory of meaning focuses not on terms, but on relations between sentences [Rorty]
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 4. Beauty
The beautiful is whatever it is intrinsically good to admire [Moore,GE]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / b. Defining ethics
Moore tries to show that 'good' is indefinable, but doesn't understand what a definition is [MacIntyre on Moore,GE]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / a. Idealistic ethics
The Open Question argument leads to anti-realism and the fact-value distinction [Boulter on Moore,GE]
The naturalistic fallacy claims that natural qualties can define 'good' [Moore,GE]
Moore cannot show why something being good gives us a reason for action [MacIntyre on Moore,GE]
Can learning to recognise a good friend help us to recognise a good watch? [MacIntyre on Moore,GE]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / c. Ethical intuitionism
Moore's combination of antinaturalism with strong supervenience on the natural is incoherent [Hanna on Moore,GE]
Despite Moore's caution, non-naturalists incline towards intuitionism [Moore,GE, by Smith,M]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / c. Objective value
We should ask what we would judge to be good if it existed in absolute isolation [Moore,GE]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / a. Form of the Good
It is always an open question whether anything that is natural is good [Moore,GE]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / b. Types of good
The three main values are good, right and beauty [Moore,GE, by Ross]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / c. Right and good
For Moore, 'right' is what produces good [Moore,GE, by Ross]
'Right' means 'cause of good result' (hence 'useful'), so the end does justify the means [Moore,GE]
23. Ethics / E. Utilitarianism / 1. Utilitarianism
Relationships imply duties to people, not merely the obligation to benefit them [Ross on Moore,GE]
24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 1. A People / a. Human distinctiveness
Since Hegel we have tended to see a human as merely animal if it is outside a society [Rorty]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield]