Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'On the Syllogism IV' and 'Morality and the emotions'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

9 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 6. Relations in Logic

17744	De Morgan started the study of relations and their properties [De Morgan, by Walicki]
	Full Idea: De Morgan started the sustained interest in the study of relations and their properties.
	From: report of Augustus De Morgan (On the Syllogism IV [1859]) by Michal Walicki - Introduction to Mathematical Logic History D.1.1

13501	De Morgan found inferences involving relations, which eluded Aristotle's syllogistic [De Morgan, by Hart,WD]
	Full Idea: There was a prejudice against relations (in favour of properties) but De Morgan and others that impeccable inferences turn on relations and elude Aristotle's syllogistic. Thus: All horses are animals. Hence, all heads of horses are heads of animals.
	From: report of Augustus De Morgan (On the Syllogism IV [1859]) by William D. Hart - The Evolution of Logic 4
	A reaction: This is actually an early example of modern analytic philosophy in action. You start with the inferences, and then work back to the ontology and the definition of concepts. But in pinning down such concepts, do we miss their full meaning?

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / c. Role of emotions

24008	Reference to a person's emotions is often essential to understanding their actions [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: The reference to a man's emotions has a significance for our understanding of his moral sincerity, not as a substitute for or addition to how he acts, but as, on occasion, underlying our understanding of how he acts.
	From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.223)
	A reaction: Williams aims to rescue emotion from the emotivists, and replace it at the centre of traditional modes of moral judgement. I suppose we could assess one rogue robot as behaving 'badly' in a community of robots.

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / g. Controlling emotions

24009	Moral education must involve learning about various types of feeling towards things [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: If moral education does not revolve around what to fear, to be angry about, to despise, and where to draw the line between kindness and a stupid sentimentality - I do not know what it is. (Though there are principles, of truth-telling and justice).
	From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.225)
	A reaction: He cites Aristotle as the obvious source of this correct idea. The examples of principle both require us to place a high value on truth and justice, and not just follow rules in the style of arithmetic.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / h. Expressivism

24007	Emotivism saw morality as expressing emotions, and influencing others' emotions [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: Emotivism held that there were two purposes of moral judgements: to express the emotions of the speaker, and to influence the emotions of his hearers.
	From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.209)
	A reaction: I take Ayer to be typical of the first project, and Hare of the second. The theory is much more plausible when the second aim is added. Would we ever utter a moral opinion if we didn't hope to influence someone?

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / e. Character

24010	An admirable human being should have certain kinds of emotional responses [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: One's conception of an admirable human being implies that he should be disposed to certain kinds of emotional response, and not to others.
	From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.225)
	A reaction: So are the good emotions an indicator of being a good person, or is that what their goodness consists of? The goodness must be cashed out in actions, and presumably good emotions both promise good actions, and motivate them.

23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 6. Motivation for Duty

24012	Kant's love of consistency is too rigid, and it even overrides normal fairness [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: There is a certain moral woodenness or even insolence in Kant's blank regard for consistency. It smacks of Keynes's Principle of Unfairness - that if you can't do a good turn to everybody, you shouldn't do it to anybody.
	From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.226)
	A reaction: He says it also turns each of us into a Supreme Legislator, which deifies man. It is clearly not the case that morality consists entirely of rules and principles, but Williams recognises their role, in truth-telling for example.

25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles

13304	Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius]
	Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes.
	From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078
	A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book.

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / d. Time as measure

20820	Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus]
	Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness.
	From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42
	A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them.