Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Origin of the Work of Art', 'The Tragedy of Reason' and 'The Philosophy of Philosophy'

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30 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
Later Heidegger sees philosophy as more like poetry than like science [Heidegger, by Polt]
Philosophy aims to satisfy the chief human desire - the articulation of beauty itself [Roochnik]
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / e. Philosophy as reason
Progress in philosophy is incremental, not an immature seeking after drama [Williamson]
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]
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 3. Correspondence Truth critique
Correspondence to the facts is a bad account of analytic truth [Williamson]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 3. Reality
Reality can be viewed neutrally, or as an object of desire [Roochnik]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
The realist/anti-realist debate is notoriously obscure and fruitless [Williamson]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / b. Vagueness of reality
There cannot be vague objects, so there may be no such thing as a mountain [Williamson]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / e. Vague objects
Common sense and classical logic are often simultaneously abandoned in debates on vagueness [Williamson]
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 1. A Priori Necessary
Modal thinking isn't a special intuition; it is part of ordinary counterfactual thinking [Williamson]
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / a. Conceivable as possible
Williamson can't base metaphysical necessity on the psychology of causal counterfactuals [Lowe on Williamson]
We scorn imagination as a test of possibility, forgetting its role in counterfactuals [Williamson]
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 2. Self-Evidence
There are 'armchair' truths which are not a priori, because experience was involved [Williamson]
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 2. Intuition
Intuition is neither powerful nor vacuous, but reveals linguistic or conceptual competence [Williamson]
When analytic philosophers run out of arguments, they present intuitions as their evidence [Williamson]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 6. Relativism Critique
Relativism is a disease which destroys the possibility of rational debate [Roochnik]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 6. Meaning as Use
You might know that the word 'gob' meant 'mouth', but not be competent to use it [Williamson]
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]
24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 5. Culture
If languages are intertranslatable, and cognition is innate, then cultures are all similar [Williamson]