Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Concepts without Boundaries' and 'Freedom and Reason'

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9 ideas

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / b. Vagueness of reality

8983	If 'red' is vague, then membership of the set of red things is vague, so there is no set of red things [Sainsbury]
	Full Idea: Sets have sharp boundaries, or are sharp objects; an object either definitely belongs to a set, or it does not. But 'red' is vague; there objects which are neither definitely red nor definitely not red. Hence there is no set of red things.
	From: Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §2)
	A reaction: Presumably that will entail that there IS a set of things which can be described as 'definitely red'. If we describe something as 'definitely having a hint of red about it', will that put it in a set? In fact will the applicability of 'definitely' do?

7. Existence / E. Categories / 2. Categorisation

8986	We should abandon classifying by pigeon-holes, and classify around paradigms [Sainsbury]
	Full Idea: We must reject the classical picture of classification by pigeon-holes, and think in other terms: classifying can be, and often is, clustering round paradigms.
	From: Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §8)
	A reaction: His conclusion to a discussion of the problem of vagueness, where it is identified with concepts which have no boundaries. Pigeon-holes are a nice exemplar of the Enlightenment desire to get everything right. I prefer Aristotle's categories, Idea 3311.

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / e. Vague objects

8982	Vague concepts are concepts without boundaries [Sainsbury]
	Full Idea: If a word is vague, there are or could be borderline cases, but non-vague expressions can also have borderline cases. The essence of vagueness is to be found in the idea vague concepts are concepts without boundaries.
	From: Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], Intro)
	A reaction: He goes on to say that vague concepts are not embodied in clear cut sets, which is what gives us our notion of a boundary. So what is vague is 'membership'. You are either a member of a club or not, but when do you join the 'middle-aged'?

8984	If concepts are vague, people avoid boundaries, can't spot them, and don't want them [Sainsbury]
	Full Idea: Vague concepts are boundaryless, ...and the manifestations are an unwillingness to draw any such boundaries, the impossibility of identifying such boundaries, and needlessness and even disutility of such boundaries.
	From: Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §5)
	A reaction: People have a very fine-tuned notion of whether the sharp boundary of a concept is worth discussing. The interesting exception are legal people, who are often forced to find precision where everyone else hates it. Who deserves to inherit the big house?

8985	Boundaryless concepts tend to come in pairs, such as child/adult, hot/cold [Sainsbury]
	Full Idea: Boundaryless concepts tend to come in systems of contraries: opposed pairs like child/adult, hot/cold, weak/strong, true/false, and complex systems of colour terms. ..Only a contrast with 'adult' will show what 'child' excludes.
	From: Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §5)
	A reaction: This might be expected. It all comes down to the sorites problem, of when one thing turns into something else. If it won't merge into another category, then presumably the isolated concept stays applicable (until reality terminates it? End of sheep..).

21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality

468	Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.]
	Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice.
	From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where?

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / i. Prescriptivism

22331	Moral statements are imperatives rather than the avowals of emotion - but universalisable [Hare, by Glock]
	Full Idea: According to Hare's universal prescriptivism, moral statements are closer to imperatives than to avowals of emotion; their purpose is to guide action. But unlike imeperatives they are universalisable.
	From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963]) by Hans-Johann Glock - What is Analytic Philosophy? 2.9
	A reaction: Why isn't 'everyone ought to support West Ham' a moral judgement?

22484	Universalised prescriptivism could be seen as implying utilitarianism [Hare, by Foot]
	Full Idea: Hare has suggested that a fairly tight form of utilitarianism can be obtained from universalised prescriptivism.
	From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963]) by Philippa Foot - Does Moral Subjectivism Rest on a Mistake? p.191
	A reaction: All the benefits of Bentham, Kant and Hume, in one neat package! Since I take all three of them to be wrong about ethics, that counts against this idea.

23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 4. Categorical Imperative

6449	The categorical imperative leads to utilitarianism [Hare, by Nagel]
	Full Idea: Hare has proposed that utilitarianism is the ultimate standard to which we are led by the categorical imperative.
	From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963], p.123-4) by Thomas Nagel - Equality and Partiality
	A reaction: It seems to me better to say that Kant starts (unwittingly) from something like utilitarianism, that is, an assumption that human happiness and welfare have some sort of intrinsic value that cannot be demonstrated. Otherwise evil can be universalised.