48 ideas
| 9766 | Study vagueness first by its logic, then by its truth-conditions, and then its metaphysics [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: My investigation of vagueness began with the question 'What is the correct logic of vagueness?', which led to the further question 'What are the correct truth-conditions for a vague language?', which led to questions of meaning and existence. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This is the most perfect embodiment of the strategy of analytical philosophy which I have ever read. It is the strategy invented by Frege in the 'Grundlagen'. Is this still the way to go, or has this pathway slowly sunk into the swamp? |
| 224 | When questions are doubtful we should concentrate not on objects but on ideas of the intellect [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Doubtful questions should not be discussed in terms of visible objects or in relation to them, but only with reference to ideas conceived by the intellect. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135e) |
| 232 | Opposites are as unlike as possible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Opposites are as unlike as possible. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159a) |
| 8937 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic [Hegel on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic. | |
| From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Georg W.F.Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit Pref 71 | |
| A reaction: It is a long way from the analytic tradition of philosophy to be singling out a classic text for its 'artistic' achievement. Eventually we may even look back on, say, Kripke's 'Naming and Necessity' and see it in that light. |
| 9775 | Excluded Middle, and classical logic, may fail for vague predicates [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Maybe classical logic fails for vagueness in Excluded Middle. If 'H bald ∨ ¬(H bald)' is true, then one disjunct is true. But if the second is true the first is false, and the sentence is either true or false, contrary to the borderline assumption. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], 4) | |
| A reaction: Fine goes on to argue against the implication that we need a special logic for vague predicates. |
| 9771 | Logic holding between indefinite sentences is the core of all language [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: If language is like a tree, then penumbral connection (logic holding among indefinite sentences) is the seed from which the tree grows, for it provides an initial repository of truths that are to be retained throughout all growth. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], 2) | |
| A reaction: A nice incidental insight arising from his investigation of vagueness. People accept one another's reasons even when they are confused, or hopeless at expressing themselves. Nice. |
| 13986 | Plato found antinomies in ideas, Kant in space and time, and Bradley in relations [Plato, by Ryle] |
| Full Idea: Plato (in 'Parmenides') shows that the theory that 'Eide' are substances, and Kant that space and time are substances, and Bradley that relations are substances, all lead to aninomies. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Gilbert Ryle - Are there propositions? 'Objections' |
| 14150 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made [Russell on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made. | |
| From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Bertrand Russell - The Principles of Mathematics §337 |
| 16150 | One is, so numbers exist, so endless numbers exist, and each one must partake of being [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If one is, there must also necessarily be number - Necessarily - But if there is number, there would be many, and an unlimited multitude of beings. ..So if all partakes of being, each part of number would also partake of it. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 144a) | |
| A reaction: This seems to commit to numbers having being, then to too many numbers, and hence to too much being - but without backing down and wondering whether numbers had being after all. Aristotle disagreed. |
| 229 | The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 155d) |
| 21821 | Plato's Parmenides has a three-part theory, of Primal One, a One-Many, and a One-and-Many [Plato, by Plotinus] |
| Full Idea: The Platonic Parmenides is more exact [than Parmenides himself]; the distinction is made between the Primal One, a strictly pure Unity, and a secondary One which is a One-Many, and a third which is a One-and-Many. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08 | |
| A reaction: Plotinus approves of this three-part theory. Parmenides has the problem that the highest Being contains no movement. By placing the One outside Being you can give it powers which an existent thing cannot have. Cf the concept of God. |
| 221 | Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The absolute good and the beautiful and all which we conceive to be absolute ideas are unknown to us. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 134c) |
| 9768 | Vagueness is semantic, a deficiency of meaning [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: I take vagueness to be a semantic feature, a deficiency of meaning. It is to be distinguished from generality, undecidability, and ambiguity. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Sounds good. If we cut nature at the joints with our language, then nature is going to be too subtle and vast for our finite and gerrymandered language, and so it will break down in tricky situations. But maybe epistemology precedes semantics? |
| 9776 | A thing might be vaguely vague, giving us higher-order vagueness [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: There is a possibility of 'higher-order vagueness'. The vague may be vague, or vaguely vague, and so on. If J has few hairs on his head than H, then he may be a borderline case of a borderline case. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], 5) | |
| A reaction: Such slim grey areas can also be characterised as those where you think he is definitely bald, but I am not so sure. |
| 9767 | A vague sentence is only true for all ways of making it completely precise [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: A vague sentence is (roughly stated) true if and only if it is true for all ways of making it completely precise (the 'super-truth theory'). | |
| From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Intuitively this sounds quite promising. Personally I think we should focus on the 'proposition' rather than the 'sentence' (where fifteen sentences might be needed before we can agree on the one proposition). |
| 9770 | Logical connectives cease to be truth-functional if vagueness is treated with three values [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: With a three-value approach, if P is 'blob is pink' and R is 'blob is red', then P&P is indefinite, but P&R is false, and P∨P is indefinite, but P∨R is true. This means the connectives & and ∨ are not truth-functional. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], 1) | |
| A reaction: The point is that there could then be no logic in any way classical for vague sentences and three truth values. A powerful point. |
| 9772 | Meaning is both actual (determining instances) and potential (possibility of greater precision) [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The meaning of an expression is the product of both its actual meaning (what helps determine its instances and counter-instances), and its potential meaning (the possibilities for making it more precise). | |
| From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], 2) | |
| A reaction: A modal approach to meaning is gloriously original. Being quite a fan of real modalities (the possibilities latent in actuality), I find this intuitively appealing. |
| 9773 | With the super-truth approach, the classical connectives continue to work [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: With the super-truth approach, if P is 'blob is pink' and R is 'blob is red', then P&R is false, and P∨R is true, since one of P and R is true and one is false in any complete and admissible specification. It encompasses all 'penumbral truths'. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], 3) | |
| A reaction: [See Idea 9767 for the super-truth approach, and Idea 9770 for a contrasting view] The approach, which seems quite appealing, is that we will in no circumstances give up basic classical logic, but we will make maximum concessions to vagueness. |
| 9774 | Borderline cases must be under our control, as capable of greater precision [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Any borderline case must be under our control, in the sense that it can be settled by making the predicates more precise. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], 3) | |
| A reaction: Sounds good. Consider an abstract concept like the equator. It is precise on a map of the world, but vague when you are in the middle of the tropics. But we can always form a committee to draw a (widish) line on the ground delineating it. |
| 227 | You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name [Plato] |
| Full Idea: You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 147d) |
| 223 | If you deny that each thing always stays the same, you destroy the possibility of discussion [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If a person denies that the idea of each thing is always the same, he will utterly destroy the power of carrying on discussion. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135c) |
| 210 | It would be absurd to think there were abstract Forms for vile things like hair, mud and dirt [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Are there abstract ideas for such things as hair, mud and dirt, which are particularly vile and worthless? That would be quite absurd. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 130d) |
| 220 | The concept of a master includes the concept of a slave [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Mastership in the abstract is mastership of slavery in the abstract. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133e) |
| 211 | If admirable things have Forms, maybe everything else does as well [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is troubling that if admirable things have abstract ideas, then perhaps everything else must have ideas as well. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 130d) |
| 219 | If absolute ideas existed in us, they would cease to be absolute [Plato] |
| Full Idea: None of the absolute ideas exists in us, because then it would no longer be absolute. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133c) |
| 228 | Greatness and smallness must exist, to be opposed to one another, and come into being in things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: These two ideas, greatness and smallness, exist, do they not? For if they did not exist, they could not be opposites of one another, and could not come into being in things. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 149e) |
| 16151 | Plato moves from Forms to a theory of genera and principles in his later work [Plato, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: It seems to me that Plato in the later dialogues, beginning with the second half of 'Parmenides', wants to substitute a theory of genera and theory of principles that constitute these genera for the earlier theory of forms. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Title, Unity, Authenticity of the 'Categories' V | |
| A reaction: My theory is that the later Plato came under the influence of the brilliant young Aristotle, and this idea is a symptom of it. The theory of 'principles' sounds like hylomorphism to me. |
| 218 | Participation is not by means of similarity, so we are looking for some other method of participation [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Participation is not by means of likeness, so we must seek some other method of participation. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133a) |
| 212 | The whole idea of each Form must be found in each thing which participates in it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The whole idea of each form (of beauty, justice etc) must be found in each thing which participates in it. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 131a) |
| 213 | Each idea is in all its participants at once, just as daytime is a unity but in many separate places at once [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Just as day is in many places at once, but not separated from itself, so each idea might be in all its participants at once. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 131b) |
| 216 | If things are made alike by participating in something, that thing will be the absolute idea [Plato] |
| Full Idea: That by participation in which like things are made like, will be the absolute idea, will it not? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132e) |
| 215 | If things partake of ideas, this implies either that everything thinks, or that everything actually is thought [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If all things partake of ideas, must either everything be made of thoughts and everything thinks, or everything is thought, and so can't think? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132c) |
| 217 | Nothing can be like an absolute idea, because a third idea intervenes to make them alike (leading to a regress) [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible for anything to be like an absolute idea, because a third idea will appear to make them alike, and if that is like anything, it will lead to another idea, and so on. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133a) |
| 214 | If absolute greatness and great things are seen as the same, another thing appears which makes them seem great [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If you regard the absolute great and the many great things in the same way, will not another appear beyond, by which all these must appear to be great? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132a) |
| 15851 | Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The part would not be the part of many things or all, but of some one character ['ideas'] and of some one thing, which we call a 'whole', since it has come to be one complete [perfected] thing composed [created] of all. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157d) | |
| A reaction: A serious shot by Plato at what identity is. Harte quotes it (125) and shows that 'character' is Gk 'idea', and 'composed' will translate as 'created'. 'Form' links this Platonic passage to Aristotle's hylomorphism. |
| 9769 | Vagueness can be in predicates, names or quantifiers [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: There are three possible sources of vagueness: the predicates, the names, and the quantifiers. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], 1) | |
| A reaction: Presumably a vagueness about the domain of discussion would be a vagueness in the quantifier. This is a helpful preliminary division, in the semantic approach to vagueness. |
| 15846 | In Parmenides, if composition is identity, a whole is nothing more than its parts [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: At the heart of the 'Parmenides' puzzles about composition is the thesis that composition is identity. Considered thus, a whole adds nothing to an ontology that already includes its parts | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 2.5 | |
| A reaction: There has to be more to a unified identity that mere proximity of the parts. When do parts come together, and when do they actually 'compose' something? |
| 15849 | Plato says only a one has parts, and a many does not [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: In 'Parmenides' it is argued that a part cannot be part of a many, but must be part of something one. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 3.2 | |
| A reaction: This looks like the right way to go with the term 'part'. We presuppose a unity before we even talk of its parts, so we can't get into contradictions and paradoxes about their relationships. |
| 15850 | Anything which has parts must be one thing, and parts are of a one, not of a many [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The whole of which the parts are parts must be one thing composed of many; for each of the parts must be part, not of a many, but of a whole. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
| A reaction: This is a key move of metaphysics, and we should hang on to it. The other way madness lies. |
| 13259 | It seems that the One must be composed of parts, which contradicts its being one [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The One must be composed of parts, both being a whole and having parts. So on both grounds the One would thus be many and not one. But it must be not many, but one. So if the One will be one, it will neither be a whole, nor have parts. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137c09), quoted by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2 | |
| A reaction: This is the starting point for Plato's metaphysical discussion of objects. It seems to begin a line of thought which is completed by Aristotle, surmising that only an essential structure can bestow identity on a bunch of parts. |
| 15847 | Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Everything is surely related to everything as follows: either it is the same or different; or, if it is not the same or different, it would be related as part to whole or as whole to part. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 146b) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a really helpful first step in trying to analyse the nature of identity. Two things are either two or (actually) one, or related mereologically. |
| 6587 | It is always wrong to believe things on insufficient evidence [Clifford] |
| Full Idea: It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. | |
| From: William K. Clifford (works [1870]), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.4 | |
| A reaction: This is a famous remark, but is in danger of being tautological unless one gives some account of what 'insufficient' means. If Clifford means the evidence must be conclusive, this is nonsense. 'Never believe if there is no evidence' is better. |
| 222 | Only a great person can understand the essence of things, and an even greater person can teach it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Only a man of very great natural gifts will be able to understand that everything has a class and absolute essence, and an even more wonderful man can teach this. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135a) |
| 225 | The unlimited has no shape and is endless [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The unlimited partakes neither of the round nor of the straight, because it has no ends nor edges. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137e) |
| 233 | Some things do not partake of the One [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The others cannot partake of the one in any way; they can neither partake of it nor of the whole. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159d) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 231 |
| 2062 | The only movement possible for the One is in space or in alteration [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If the One moves it either moves spatially or it is altered, since these are the only motions. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 138b) |
| 231 | Everything partakes of the One in some way [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The others are not altogether deprived of the one, for they partake of it in some way. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 233. |
| 234 | We couldn't discuss the non-existence of the One without knowledge of it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There must be knowledge of the one, or else not even the meaning of the words 'if the one does not exist' would be known. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 160d) |