Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim, Alex Oliver and Michel Foucault

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61 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 2. Ancient Thought
Early Greeks cared about city and companions; later Greeks concentrated on the self [Foucault]
1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 4. Later European Philosophy / c. Eighteenth century philosophy
The big issue since the eighteenth century has been: what is Reason? Its effect, limits and dangers? [Foucault]
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined
Critical philosophy is what questions domination at every level [Foucault]
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 1. Nature of Metaphysics
A metaphysics has an ontology (objects) and an ideology (expressed ideas about them) [Oliver]
1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 1. Continental Philosophy
Philosophy and politics are fundamentally linked [Foucault]
1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 4. Linguistic Structuralism
Structuralism systematically abstracted the event from sciences, and even from history [Foucault]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 2. Logos
When logos controls our desires, we have actually become the logos [Foucault]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 7. Status of Reason
Foucault originally felt that liberating reason had become an instrument of domination [Foucault, by Gutting]
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor
Ockham's Razor has more content if it says believe only in what is causal [Oliver]
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 4. Uses of Truth
'Truth' is the procedures for controlling which statements are acceptable [Foucault]
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 9. Rejecting Truth
Truth doesn't arise from solitary freedom, but from societies with constraints [Foucault]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 7. Making Modal Truths
Necessary truths seem to all have the same truth-maker [Oliver]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 12. Rejecting Truthmakers
Slingshot Argument: seems to prove that all sentences have the same truth-maker [Oliver]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / c. Commitment of predicates
Accepting properties by ontological commitment tells you very little about them [Oliver]
Reference is not the only way for a predicate to have ontological commitment [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 1. Nature of Properties
If properties are sui generis, are they abstract or concrete? [Oliver]
There are four conditions defining the relations between particulars and properties [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 2. Need for Properties
There are just as many properties as the laws require [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 3. Types of Properties
We have four options, depending whether particulars and properties are sui generis or constructions [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 10. Properties as Predicates
The expressions with properties as their meanings are predicates and abstract singular terms [Oliver]
There are five main semantic theories for properties [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / a. Nature of tropes
The property of redness is the maximal set of the tropes of exactly similar redness [Oliver]
Tropes are not properties, since they can't be instantiated twice [Oliver]
The orthodox view does not allow for uninstantiated tropes [Oliver]
Maybe concrete particulars are mereological wholes of abstract particulars [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / b. Critique of tropes
Tropes can overlap, and shouldn't be splittable into parts [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 1. Universals
'Structural universals' methane and butane are made of the same universals, carbon and hydrogen [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 3. Instantiated Universals
Located universals are wholly present in many places, and two can be in the same place [Oliver]
If universals ground similarities, what about uniquely instantiated universals? [Oliver]
Aristotle's instantiated universals cannot account for properties of abstract objects [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 4. Uninstantiated Universals
Uninstantiated properties are useful in philosophy [Oliver]
Uninstantiated universals seem to exist if they themselves have properties [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 6. Platonic Forms / b. Partaking
Instantiation is set-membership [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 1. Nominalism / a. Nominalism
Nominalism can reject abstractions, or universals, or sets [Oliver]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / b. Unifying aggregates
Things can't be fusions of universals, because two things could then be one thing [Oliver]
Abstract sets of universals can't be bundled to make concrete things [Oliver]
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 5. Modality from Actuality
Science is modally committed, to disposition, causation and law [Oliver]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 1. Knowledge
Why does knowledge appear in sudden bursts, and not in a smooth continuous development? [Foucault]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 1. Relativism
Foucault challenges knowledge in psychology and sociology, not in the basic sciences [Foucault, by Gutting]
Saying games of truth were merely power relations would be a horrible exaggeration [Foucault]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction
Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / a. Consciousness
Unlike Marxists, Foucault explains thought internally, without deference to conscious ideas [Foucault, by Gutting]
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 2. Self as Social Construct
A subject is a form which can change, in (say) political or sexual situations [Foucault]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / a. Nature of emotions
Feelings are not unchanging, but have a history (especially if they are noble) [Foucault]
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 4. Structure of Concepts / i. Conceptual priority
Conceptual priority is barely intelligible [Oliver]
21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 8. The Arts / b. Literature
The author function of any text is a plurality of selves [Foucault, by Gutting]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / b. Defining ethics
Ethics is the conscious practice of freedom [Foucault]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / h. Fine deeds
Why couldn't a person's life become a work of art? [Foucault]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / b. Types of pleasure
Greeks and early Christians were much more concerned about food than about sex [Foucault]
24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 3. Natural Values / c. Natural rights
Nature is not the basis of rights, but the willingness to risk death in asserting them [Foucault]
24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 1. Purpose of a State
Every society has a politics of truth, concerning its values, functions, prestige and mechanisms [Foucault]
24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 1. Social Power
Marxists denounced power as class domination, but never analysed its mechanics [Foucault]
Power doesn't just repress, but entices us with pleasure, artefacts, knowledge and discourse [Foucault]
Foucault can't accept that power is sometimes decent and benign [Foucault, by Scruton]
The aim is not to eliminate power relations, but to reduce domination [Foucault]
24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 3. Government / a. Government
The big question of the Renaissance was how to govern everything, from the state to children [Foucault]
24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 4. Changing the State / a. Centralisation
Power is localised, so we either have totalitarian centralisation, or local politics [Foucault, by Gutting]
25. Social Practice / A. Freedoms / 5. Freedom of lifestyle
Prisons gradually became our models for schools, hospitals and factories [Foucault, by Gutting]
The idea of liberation suggests there is a human nature which has been repressed [Foucault]
25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 3. Punishment / d. Reform of offenders
Power is used to create identities and ways of life for other people [Foucault, by Shorten]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / d. Study of history
History lacks 'meaning', but it can be analysed in terms of its struggles [Foucault]