Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Tragedy of Reason', 'Syntactic Structure' and 'Ethics and Language'

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19 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 1. Philosophy
You have to be a Platonist to debate about reality, so every philosopher is a Platonist [Roochnik]
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / b. Philosophy as transcendent
Philosophy aims to satisfy the chief human desire - the articulation of beauty itself [Roochnik]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 2. Logos
In the seventeenth century the only acceptable form of logos was technical knowledge [Roochnik]
Logos is not unconditionally good, but good if there is another person willing to engage with it [Roochnik]
The hallmark of a person with logos is that they give reasons why one opinion is superior to another [Roochnik]
Human desire has an ordered structure, with logos at the pinnacle [Roochnik]
'Logos' ranges from thought/reasoning, to words, to rational structures outside thought [Roochnik]
Logos cannot refute the relativist, and so must admit that it too is a matter of desire (for truth and agreement) [Roochnik]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 4. Aims of Reason
We prefer reason or poetry according to whether basics are intelligible or not [Roochnik]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 8. Naturalising Reason
Modern science, by aiming for clarity about the external world, has abandoned rationality in the human world [Roochnik]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 9. Limits of Reason
Unfortunately for reason, argument can't be used to establish the value of argument [Roochnik]
Attempts to suspend all presuppositions are hopeless, because a common ground must be agreed for the process [Roochnik]
2. Reason / F. Fallacies / 8. Category Mistake / c. Category mistake as semantic
Chomsky established the view that category mistakes are well-formed but meaningless [Chomsky, by Magidor]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 3. Reality
Reality can be viewed neutrally, or as an object of desire [Roochnik]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 6. Relativism Critique
Relativism is a disease which destroys the possibility of rational debate [Roochnik]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 1. Syntax
Syntax is independent of semantics; sentences can be well formed but meaningless [Chomsky, by Magidor]
19. Language / F. Communication / 1. Rhetoric
Reasoning aims not at the understanding of objects, but at the desire to give beautiful speeches [Roochnik]
If relativism is the correct account of human values, then rhetoric is more important than reasoning [Roochnik]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / h. Expressivism
Moral words have an inherited power from expressing attitudes in emotional situations [Stevenson,CL]