Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence', 'Russell's Ontological Development' and 'The Tragedy of Reason'

expand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

25 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 1. Philosophy
1606 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
1595 Philosophy aims to satisfy the chief human desire - the articulation of beauty itself [Roochnik]
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 3. Metaphysical Systems
13917 Metaphysics aims to identify categories of being, and show their interdependency [Lowe]
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 6. Metaphysics as Conceptual
13919 Philosophy aims not at the 'analysis of concepts', but at understanding the essences of things [Lowe]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 2. Logos
1571 'Logos' ranges from thought/reasoning, to words, to rational structures outside thought [Roochnik]
1572 In the seventeenth century the only acceptable form of logos was technical knowledge [Roochnik]
1573 The hallmark of a person with logos is that they give reasons why one opinion is superior to another [Roochnik]
1592 Logos cannot refute the relativist, and so must admit that it too is a matter of desire (for truth and agreement) [Roochnik]
1593 Human desire has an ordered structure, with logos at the pinnacle [Roochnik]
1603 Logos is not unconditionally good, but good if there is another person willing to engage with it [Roochnik]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 4. Aims of Reason
1598 We prefer reason or poetry according to whether basics are intelligible or not [Roochnik]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 8. Naturalising Reason
1584 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
1591 Unfortunately for reason, argument can't be used to establish the value of argument [Roochnik]
1599 Attempts to suspend all presuppositions are hopeless, because a common ground must be agreed for the process [Roochnik]
2. Reason / D. Definition / 12. Paraphrase
21699 Russell offered a paraphrase of definite description, to avoid the commitment to objects [Quine]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 3. Reality
1605 Reality can be viewed neutrally, or as an object of desire [Roochnik]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / d. Coincident objects
13918 Holes, shadows and spots of light can coincide without being identical [Lowe]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 8. Essence as Explanatory
13921 All things must have an essence (a 'what it is'), or we would be unable to think about them [Lowe]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 14. Knowledge of Essences
13922 Knowing an essence is just knowing what the thing is, not knowing some further thing [Lowe]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 4. Type Identity
13920 Each thing has to be of a general kind, because it belongs to some category [Lowe]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 6. Relativism Critique
1577 Relativism is a disease which destroys the possibility of rational debate [Roochnik]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / a. Sentence meaning
21700 Taking sentences as the unit of meaning makes useful paraphrasing possible [Quine]
21701 Knowing a word is knowing the meanings of sentences which contain it [Quine]
19. Language / F. Communication / 1. Rhetoric
1578 If relativism is the correct account of human values, then rhetoric is more important than reasoning [Roochnik]
1596 Reasoning aims not at the understanding of objects, but at the desire to give beautiful speeches [Roochnik]