|
5182
|
Claims about 'the Absolute' are not even verifiable in principle [Ayer on Bradley]
|
|
Full Idea:
Such a metaphysical pseudo-proposition as 'the Absolute enters into, but is itself incapable of, evolution and progress' (F.H.Bradley) is not even in principle verifiable.
|
|
From:
comment on F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by A.J. Ayer - Language,Truth and Logic Ch.1
|
|
A reaction:
One may jeer at the Verification Principle for either failing to be precise, or for failing to pass its own test, but Ayer still has a point here. When we drift off into sustained abstractions, we must keeping asking if we are still saying anything real.
|
|
6007
|
If you know your father, but don't recognise your father veiled, you know and don't know the same person [Eubulides, by Dancy,R]
|
|
Full Idea:
The 'undetected' or 'veiled' paradox of Eubulides says: if you know your father, and don't know the veiled person before you, but that person is your father, you both know and don't know the same person.
|
|
From:
report of Eubulides (fragments/reports [c.390 BCE]) by R.M. Dancy - Megarian School
|
|
A reaction:
Essentially an uninteresting equivocation on two senses of "know", but this paradox comes into its own when we try to give an account of how linguistic reference works. Frege's distinction of sense and reference tried to sort it out (Idea 4976).
|
|
6008
|
Removing one grain doesn't destroy a heap, so a heap can't be destroyed [Eubulides, by Dancy,R]
|
|
Full Idea:
The 'sorites' paradox of Eubulides says: if you take one grain of sand from a heap (soros), what is left is still a heap; so no matter how many grains of sand you take one by one, the result is always a heap.
|
|
From:
report of Eubulides (fragments/reports [c.390 BCE]) by R.M. Dancy - Megarian School
|
|
A reaction:
(also Cic. Acad. 2.49) This is a very nice paradox, which goes to the heart of our bewilderment when we try to fully understand reality. It homes in on problems of identity, as best exemplified in the Ship of Theseus (Ideas 1212 + 1213).
|
|
6422
|
Internal relations are said to be intrinsic properties of two terms, and of the whole they compose [Bradley, by Russell]
|
|
Full Idea:
The doctrine of internal relations held that every relation between two terms expresses, primarily, intrinsic properties of the two terms and, in ultimate analysis, a property of the whole which the two compose.
|
|
From:
report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by Bertrand Russell - My Philosophical Development Ch.5
|
|
A reaction:
Russell's first big campaign was to reject this view, and his ontology from then on included relations among the catalogue of universals. The coherence theory of truth also gets thrown out at the same time. Russell seems right.
|
|
7966
|
Relations must be linked to their qualities, but that implies an infinite regress of relations [Bradley]
|
|
Full Idea:
If a relation between qualities is to be something, then clearly we will now require a new connecting relation. The links are united by a link, and this link has two ends, which require a fresh link to connect them to the old.
|
|
From:
F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893], p.28), quoted by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things Ch.6
|
|
A reaction:
That is: external relations generates an infinite regress, so relations must be internal. Russell launched his own philosophy with an attack on Bradley's idea. Personally I take how two things 'relate' to one another as one of the deepest of mysteries.
|
|
6404
|
British Idealists said reality is a single Mind which experiences itself [Bradley, by Grayling]
|
|
Full Idea:
The idealism of Green and Bradley, both of whom were much influenced by the German Idealists, espoused the thesis that the universe ultimately consists of a single Mind which, so to speak, experiences itself.
|
|
From:
report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2
|
|
A reaction:
This looks now like the last (extreme) throw by the religious view of the world, which collapsed in the face of the empirical realism of Russell and Moore. It is all Kant's fault, for cutting us off from his 'noumenon'.
|
|
6406
|
Reality is one, because plurality implies relations, and they assert a superior unity [Bradley]
|
|
Full Idea:
Reality is one. It must be simple because plurality, taken as real, contradicts itself. Plurality implies relations, and, through its relations it unwillingly asserts always a superior unity.
|
|
From:
F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893], p.519), quoted by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2
|
|
A reaction:
This argument depends on a belief in 'internal' relations, which Russell famously attacked. If an internal feature of every separate item was its relation to other things, then I suppose Bradley would be right. But it isn't, and he isn't.
|