6007
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If you know your father, but don't recognise your father veiled, you know and don't know the same person [Eubulides, by Dancy,R]
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Full Idea:
The 'undetected' or 'veiled' paradox of Eubulides says: if you know your father, and don't know the veiled person before you, but that person is your father, you both know and don't know the same person.
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From:
report of Eubulides (fragments/reports [c.390 BCE]) by R.M. Dancy - Megarian School
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A reaction:
Essentially an uninteresting equivocation on two senses of "know", but this paradox comes into its own when we try to give an account of how linguistic reference works. Frege's distinction of sense and reference tried to sort it out (Idea 4976).
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6008
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Removing one grain doesn't destroy a heap, so a heap can't be destroyed [Eubulides, by Dancy,R]
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Full Idea:
The 'sorites' paradox of Eubulides says: if you take one grain of sand from a heap (soros), what is left is still a heap; so no matter how many grains of sand you take one by one, the result is always a heap.
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From:
report of Eubulides (fragments/reports [c.390 BCE]) by R.M. Dancy - Megarian School
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A reaction:
(also Cic. Acad. 2.49) This is a very nice paradox, which goes to the heart of our bewilderment when we try to fully understand reality. It homes in on problems of identity, as best exemplified in the Ship of Theseus (Ideas 1212 + 1213).
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18084
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When successive variable values approach a fixed value, that is its 'limit' [Cauchy]
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Full Idea:
When the values successively attributed to the same variable approach indefinitely a fixed value, eventually differing from it by as little as one could wish, that fixed value is called the 'limit' of all the others.
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From:
Augustin-Louis Cauchy (Cours d'Analyse [1821], p.19), quoted by Philip Kitcher - The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge 10.4
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A reaction:
This seems to be a highly significan proposal, because you can now treat that limit as a number, and adds things to it. It opens the door to Cantor's infinities. Is the 'limit' just a fiction?
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21497
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If undetailed, 'coherence' is just a vague words that covers all possible arguments [Ewing]
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Full Idea:
Without a detailed account, coherence is reduced to the mere muttering of the word 'coherence', which can be interpreted so as to cover all arguments, but only by making its meaning so wide as to rob it of almost all significance.
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From:
A.C. Ewing (Idealism: a critical survey [1934], p.246), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 2.2
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A reaction:
I'm a fan of coherence, but it is a placeholder, involving no intrinsic or detailed theory. I just think it points to the reality of how we make judgements, especially practical ones. We can categorise the inputs, and explain the required virtues.
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18671
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The ground for an attitude is not a thing's 'goodness', but its concrete characteristics [Ewing]
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Full Idea:
The ground for an attitude lies not in some other ethical concept, goodness, but in the concrete, factual characteristics of what we pronounce good. ...We shall not be better off if we interpolate an indefinable characteristic of goodness besides.
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From:
A.C. Ewing (The Definition of Good [1948], p.172), quoted by Francesco Orsi - Value Theory 1.4
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A reaction:
This is a forerunner of Scanlon's Buck-Passing theory of the source of value (in other properties). I approve of this approach. If I say 'actually this very strong cheese is really good', I'm not adding goodness to the cheese.
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