12 ideas
| 6855 | Interesting philosophers hardly every give you explicitly valid arguments [Martin,M] |
| Full Idea: Notice that very few philosophers - certainly almost none of the ones who are interesting to read - give you explicitly valid arguments. | |
| From: Michael Martin (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.134) | |
| A reaction: I never thought that was going to happen in philosophy. What I do get is, firstly, lots of interesting reasons for holding beliefs, and a conviction that good beliefs need good reasons, and, secondly, a really coherent view of the world. |
| 20955 | Art can make reason more all-inclusive, by articulating what seemed inexpressible [Bowie] |
| Full Idea: The early German Romantics argued that art pointed to a more all-inclusive conception of reason, which can offer ways of articulating what is not conceptually accessible. | |
| From: Andrew Bowie (Introduction to German Philosophy [2003], 5 'Reason') | |
| A reaction: [This is Novalis, F.Schlegel, Schleiermacher, and Hölderlin] I'm in favour of expanding reason, to include assessment of situations and coherence, rather than just stepwise reasoning. Not sure that art 'articulates' something new. |
| 6856 | Valid arguments can be rejected by challenging the premises or presuppositions [Martin,M] |
| Full Idea: Putting forward a valid argument isn't necessarily going to succeed in getting someone to see things your way, because if they don't accept the conclusion, they ask which premises they should reject, or whether an illegitimate assumption is being made. | |
| From: Michael Martin (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.136) | |
| A reaction: Valid arguments are still vital. It is just that good philosophers realise the problem noted here, and spend huge stretches of discussion on establishing acceptance of premises, and showing that there are no dodgy presuppositions. |
| 22049 | Transcendental idealism aims to explain objectivity through subjectivity [Bowie] |
| Full Idea: The aim of transcendental idealism is to give a basis for objectivity in terms of subjectivity. | |
| From: Andrew Bowie (German Philosophy: a very short introduction [2010], 1) | |
| A reaction: Hume used subjectivity to undermine the findings of objectivity. There was then no return to naive objectivity. Kant's aim then was to thwart global scepticism. Post-Kantians feared that he had failed. |
| 20950 | German Idealism says our thinking and nature have the same rational structure [Bowie] |
| Full Idea: German Idealism aims to demonstrate that our thinking relates to a nature which is intelligibly structured in the same way as our thinking is structured. | |
| From: Andrew Bowie (Introduction to German Philosophy [2003], 3 'Limits') | |
| A reaction: Now that's an idealism I might buy into. Frege thought his logic was mapping rational reality. My angle is that we are a product of this 'reality', so we should expect our thinking to be similarly structured. Reason is derived from nature. |
| 22055 | The Idealists saw the same unexplained spontaneity in Kant's judgements and choices [Bowie] |
| Full Idea: The Idealist saw in Kant that knowledge, which depends on the spontaneity of judgement, and self-determined spontaneous action, can be seen as sharing the same source, which is not accessible to scientific investigation. | |
| From: Andrew Bowie (German Philosophy: a very short introduction [2010]) | |
| A reaction: This is the 'spontaneity' of judgements and choices which was seen as the main idea in Kant. It inspired romantic individualism. The judgements are the rule-based application of concepts. |
| 22054 | German Idealism tried to stop oppositions of appearances/things and receptivity/spontaneity [Bowie] |
| Full Idea: A central aim of German Idealism is to overcome Kant's oppositions between appearances and thing in themselves, and between receptivity and spontaneity. | |
| From: Andrew Bowie (German Philosophy: a very short introduction [2010], 2) | |
| A reaction: I have the impression that there were two strategies: break down the opposition within the self (Fichte), or break down the opposition in the world (Spinozism). |
| 22056 | Crucial to Idealism is the idea of continuity between receptivity and spontaneous judgement [Bowie] |
| Full Idea: A crucial idea for German Idealism (from Hamann) is that apparently passive receptivity and active spontaneity are in fact different degrees of the same 'activity, and the gap between subject and world can be closed. | |
| From: Andrew Bowie (German Philosophy: a very short introduction [2010], 3) | |
| A reaction: The 'passive' bit seems to be Hume's 'impressions', which are Kant's 'intuitions', which need 'spontaneous' interpretation to become experiences. Critics of Kant said this implied a dualism. |
| 6857 | An error theory of perception says our experience is not as it seems to be [Martin,M] |
| Full Idea: You can end up with an error theory of perception, which says our experience is not as it seems to be, as bizarre as that might be. | |
| From: Michael Martin (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.140) | |
| A reaction: This is because of the clash between subjective and objective aspects of perception. It is an enticing proposal, just the sort of thing I pay philosophers to come up with. Given oddities like blindsight, I think it should be taken seriously. |
| 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? |
| 20942 | Nazis think race predetermines the self [Bowie] |
| Full Idea: The Nazi idea is that the self is predetermined primarily by its race. | |
| From: Andrew Bowie (Introduction to German Philosophy [2003], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I suspect that I occasionally encounter this view, in very patriotic people. But then you meet people who feeling that their self is mainly determined by support of a football team. Note, though, 'pre-'determined. Hegel makes this idea possible? |
| 20946 | Rhetoric is built into language, so it cannot be stripped from philosophy [Bowie] |
| Full Idea: The attempt to rid philosophy of rhetoric falls prey precisely to that fact that what is involved in rhetoric is inherent in what is built into all natural languages by their genesis in the real historical world. | |
| From: Andrew Bowie (Introduction to German Philosophy [2003], 2 'Hamann') | |
| A reaction: Rhetoric can range from charming to bullying, and it is the latter which is the problem. The underlying issue is dogma versus dialectic. Some analytic philosophers have a good shot at being non-rhetorical. |