5 ideas
| 15335 | Peirce's theory offers anti-realist verificationism, but surely how things are is independent of us? [Horsten on Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Peirce's anti-realist theory of a truth is a verificationist theory. Truth is judged to be an epistemic notion. But the way things are is independent of the evidence we may be able to obtain for or against a judgement. | |
| From: comment on Charles Sanders Peirce (Pragmatism in Retrospect [1906]) by Leon Horsten - The Tarskian Turn 02.1 | |
| A reaction: This criticism doesn't quite capture the point that Peirce's theory is that truth is an ideal, not the set of opinions that miserable little humans eventually settle for when they get bored. Truth is an aspect of rationality, perhaps. |
| 14796 | Independent truth (if there is any) is the ultimate result of sufficient enquiry [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: I hold that truth's independence of individual opinions is due (so far as there is any 'truth') to its being the predestined result to which sufficient enquiry would ultimately lead. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Pragmatism in Retrospect [1906], p.288) |
| 12735 | Everything has a fixed power, as required by God, and by the possibility of reasoning [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: It follows from the nature of God that there is a fixed power of a definite magnitude [non vagam] in anything whatsoever, otherwise there would be no reasonings about those things. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (De aequopollentia causae et effectus [1679], A6.4.1964), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 6 | |
| A reaction: This is double-edged. On the one hand there is the grand claim that the principle derives from divine nature, but on the other it derives from our capacity to reason and explain. No one doubts that powers are 'fixed'. |
| 14795 | Pragmatism is a way of establishing meanings, not a theory of metaphysics or a set of truths [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Pragmatism is no doctrine of metaphysics, no attempt to determine the truth of things. It is merely a method of ascertaining the meanings of hard words and of abstract concepts. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Pragmatism in Retrospect [1906], p.271) | |
| A reaction: Suddenly I recognise a prominent strand of modern philosophy of language (especially in America) for what it is. |
| 7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
| Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
| From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
| A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate'). |