Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim, Danielle Macbeth and John Richardson

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10 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 3. Metaphysical Systems

20349	Metaphysics aims at the essence of things, and a system to show how this explains other truths [Richardson]
	Full Idea: The core of metaphysics is an account of the 'essence' or 'being' of things. ...And metaphysics needs system, to show how these primary truths reach out into all the other truths, to help us see that, and how, they are true.
	From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro)
	A reaction: I like the phrase 'the essential nature' of things, because it doesn't invoke rather dodgy entities called 'essences', but everyone understands the idea of focusing on what is essential, and on things having a distinct 'nature'.

20351	Metaphysics needs systems, because analysis just obsesses over details [Richardson]
	Full Idea: Metaphysics makes system a virtue, contrary to the tendency of analysis, which breaks a problem into ever finer parts and then absorbs itself in these.
	From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro)
	A reaction: I disagree, because it seems to rule out analytic metaphysics. I prefer Bertrand Russell's view. Admittedly analysis oftens gets stuck in the bog, especially if it hopes for salvation in logic, only to discover its certainties endlessly receding.

20350	Metaphysics generalises the data, to get at the ontology [Richardson]
	Full Idea: The evidence lies at the periphery of the [metaphysical] system and runs in from there, through decreasingly specific accounts of the data, to the central ontology.
	From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro)
	A reaction: Philosophy is the study of high level generalisations, IMHO. Studying them means studying the reasons for asserting them. Richardson puts it very nicely.

3. Truth / E. Pragmatic Truth / 1. Pragmatic Truth

19086	Does the pragmatic theory of meaning support objective truth, or make it impossible? [Macbeth]
	Full Idea: Peirce and Sellars takes Peirce's conception of meaning, on which pragmatism is founded, to support an adequate account of objective truth; James, Dewey and Rorty say it forecloses all possibility of such an account.
	From: Danielle Macbeth (Pragmatism and Objective Truth [2007], p.169)
	A reaction: Ah. Very helpful. I thought there was a pragmatic theory of truth, then began to think that it was just a denial of truth. I've long suspected that Peirce is wonderful, and James is not very good (on this topic).

6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 5. Definitions of Number / b. Greek arithmetic

19093	Greek mathematics is wholly sensory, where ours is wholly inferential [Macbeth]
	Full Idea: Ancient mathematical concepts were essentially sensory; they were not mathematical in our sense - that is, wholly constituted by their inferential potential.
	From: Danielle Macbeth (Pragmatism and Objective Truth [2007], p.187)
	A reaction: The latter view is Frege's, though I suppose it had been emerging for a couple of centuries before him. I like the Greek approach, and would love to see that reunited with the supposedly quite different modern view. (Keith Hossack is attempting it).

14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 1. Scientific Theory

19091	Seeing reality mathematically makes it an object of thought, not of experience [Macbeth]
	Full Idea: As mathematically understood, the world is not an object of experience but instead an object of thought.
	From: Danielle Macbeth (Pragmatism and Objective Truth [2007], p.183)
	A reaction: Since I am keen on citing biology to show that science does not have to be mathematical, this nicely shows that there is something wrong with a science which places a large gap between itself and the world.

14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction

20653	Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson]
	Full Idea: There are six 'reductive levels' in science: social groups, (multicellular) living things, cells, molecules, atoms, and elementary particles.
	From: report of H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim (Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis [1958]) by Peter Watson - Convergence 10 'Intro'
	A reaction: I have the impression that fields are seen as more fundamental that elementary particles. What is the status of the 'laws' that are supposed to govern these things? What is the status of space and time within this picture?

18. Thought / D. Concepts / 1. Concepts / a. Nature of concepts

19088	For pragmatists a concept means its consequences [Macbeth]
	Full Idea: In the pragmatist view, the meaning of a concept is exhausted by its consequences.
	From: Danielle Macbeth (Pragmatism and Objective Truth [2007], p.173)
	A reaction: I'm unclear why the concept of a volcanic eruption only concerns its dire consequences, and is supposed to contain nothing of its causes. Pragmatists seem to be all future, and no past. Very American.

24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 1. A People / a. Human distinctiveness

20356	Humans dominate because, unlike other animals, they have a synthesis of conflicting drives [Richardson]
	Full Idea: In contrast to the other animals, man has cultivated an abundance of contrary drives and impulses within himself: thanks to this synthesis, he is master of the earth.
	From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], §966)
	A reaction: If this is true, it presents the fundamental challenge of politicial philosophy - to visual a successful social system for a creature which does not have a clear and focused nature. For Nietzsche, this 'synthesis' continually evolves.

26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 7. Eliminating causation

20366	A mind that could see cause and effect as a continuum would deny cause and effect [Richardson]
	Full Idea: An intellect that could see cause and effect as a continuum and a flux, and not, as we do, in terms of an arbitrary division and dismemberment, would repudiate the concept of cause and effect.
	From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], §112)
	A reaction: Maybe we do see it as a continuum? The racket swings and the ball is propelled, but the contact is a unity, not two separate events.