25 ideas
| 9376 | A sentence may simultaneously define a term, and also assert a fact [Boghossian] |
| Full Idea: It doesn't follow from the fact that a given sentence is being used to implicitly define one of its ingredient terms, that it is not a factual statement. 'This stick is a meter long at t' may define an ingredient terms and express something factual. | |
| From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §III) | |
| A reaction: This looks like a rather good point, but it is tied in with a difficulty about definition, which is deciding which sentences are using a term, and which ones are defining it. If I say 'this stick in Paris is a meter long', I'm not defining it. |
| 9375 | Conventionalism agrees with realists that logic has truth values, but not over the source [Boghossian] |
| Full Idea: Conventualism is a factualist view: it presupposes that sentences of logic have truth values. It differs from a realist view in its conception of the source of those truth values, not on their existence. I call the denial of truths Non-Factualism. | |
| From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §III) | |
| A reaction: It barely seems to count as truth is we say 'p is true because we say so'. It is a truth about an agreement, not a truth about logic. Driving on the left isn't a truth about which side of the road is best. |
| 9369 | 'Snow is white or it isn't' is just true, not made true by stipulation [Boghossian] |
| Full Idea: Isn't it overwhelmingly obvious that 'Either snow is white or it isn't' was true before anyone stipulated a meaning for it, and that it would have been true even if no one had thought about it, or chosen it to be expressed by one of our sentences? | |
| From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §I) | |
| A reaction: Boghossian would have to believe in propositions (unexpressed truths) to hold this - which he does. I take the notion of truth to only have relevance when there are minds around. Otherwise the so-called 'truths' are just the facts. |
| 9367 | The a priori is explained as analytic to avoid a dubious faculty of intuition [Boghossian] |
| Full Idea: The central impetus behind the analytic explanation of the a priori is a desire to explain the possibility of a priori knowledge without having to postulate a special evidence-gathering faculty of intuition. | |
| From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §I) | |
| A reaction: I don't see at all why one has to postulate a 'faculty' in order to talk about intuition. I take an intuition to be an apprehension of a probable truth, combined with an inability to articulate how the conclusion was arrived at. |
| 9373 | That logic is a priori because it is analytic resulted from explaining the meaning of logical constants [Boghossian] |
| Full Idea: The analytic theory of the apriority of logic arose indirectly, as a by-product of the attempt to explain in what a grasp of the meaning of the logical constants consists. | |
| From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §III) | |
| A reaction: Preumably he is referring to Wittgenstein's anguish over the meaning of the word 'not' in his World War I notebooks. He first defined the constants by truth tables, then asserted that they were purely conventional - so logic is conventional. |
| 9380 | We can't hold a sentence true without evidence if we can't agree which sentence is definitive of it [Boghossian] |
| Full Idea: If there is no sentence I must hold true if it is to mean what it does, then there is no basis on which to argue that I am entitled to hold it true without evidence. | |
| From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §III) | |
| A reaction: He is exploring Quine's view. Truth by convention depends on agreeing which part of the usage of a term constitutes its defining sentence(s), and that may be rather tricky. Boghossian says this slides into the 'dreaded indeterminacy of meaning'. |
| 9384 | We may have strong a priori beliefs which we pragmatically drop from our best theory [Boghossian] |
| Full Idea: It is consistent with a belief's being a priori in the strong sense that we should have pragmatic reasons for dropping it from our best overall theory. | |
| From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], n 6) | |
| A reaction: Does 'dropping it' from the theory mean just ignoring it, or actually denying it? C.I. Lewis is the ancestor of this view. Could it be our 'best' theory, while conflicting with beliefs that were strongly a priori? Pragmatism can embrace falsehoods. |
| 9374 | If we learn geometry by intuition, how could this faculty have misled us for so long? [Boghossian] |
| Full Idea: If we learn geometrical truths by intuition, how could this faculty have misled us for so long? | |
| From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §III) | |
| A reaction: This refers to the development of non-Euclidean geometries, though the main misleading concerns parallels, which involves infinity. Boghossian cites 'distance' as a concept the Euclideans had misunderstood. Why shouldn't intuitions be wrong? |
| 9378 | If meaning depends on conceptual role, what properties are needed to do the job? [Boghossian] |
| Full Idea: Conceptual Role Semantics must explain what properties an inference or sentence involving a logical constant must have, if that inference or sentence is to be constitutive of its meaning. | |
| From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §III) | |
| A reaction: This is my perennial request that if something is to be defined by its function (or role), we must try to explain what properties it has that make its function possible, and those properties will be the more basic explanation. |
| 9377 | 'Conceptual role semantics' says terms have meaning from sentences and/or inferences [Boghossian] |
| Full Idea: 'Conceptual role semantics' says the logical constants mean what they do by virtue of figuring in certain inferences and/or sentences involving them and not others, ..so some inferences and sentences are constitutive of an expression's meaning. | |
| From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §III) | |
| A reaction: If the meaning of the terms derives from the sentences in which they figure, that seems to be meaning-as-use. The view that it depends on the inferences seems very different, and is a more interesting but more risky claim. |
| 9372 | Could expressions have meaning, without two expressions possibly meaning the same? [Boghossian] |
| Full Idea: Could there be a fact of the matter about what each expression means, but no fact of the matter about whether they mean the same? | |
| From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §II) | |
| A reaction: He is discussing Quine's attack on synonymy, and his scepticism about meaning. Boghossian and I believe in propositions, so we have no trouble with two statements having the same meaning. Denial of propositions breeds trouble. |
| 17721 | There are no truths in virtue of meaning, but there is knowability in virtue of understanding [Boghossian, by Jenkins] |
| Full Idea: Boghossian distinguishes metaphysical analyticity (truth purely in virtue of meaning, debunked by Quine, he says) from epistemic analyticity (knowability purely in virtue of understanding - a notion in good standing). | |
| From: report of Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996]) by Carrie Jenkins - Grounding Concepts 2.4 | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This fits with Jenkins's claim that we have a priori knowledge just through understanding and relating our concepts. She, however, rejects that idea that a priori is analytic. |
| 9368 | Epistemological analyticity: grasp of meaning is justification; metaphysical: truth depends on meaning [Boghossian] |
| Full Idea: The epistemological notion of analyticity: a statement is 'true by virtue of meaning' provided that grasp of its meaning alone suffices for justified belief in its truth; the metaphysical reading is that it owes its truth to its meaning, not to facts. | |
| From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §I) | |
| A reaction: Kripke thinks it is neither, but is a purely semantic notion. How could grasp of meaning alone be a good justification if it wasn't meaning which was the sole cause of the statement's truth? I'm not convinced by his distinction. |
| 23865 | Morality would improve if people could pursue private interests [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The common run of moralists complain that man is moved by his private interest: would to heaven it were so! | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.65) | |
| A reaction: Her point is that currently people have to sacrifice their own interests to communal activities which offer dubious benefits. |
| 23866 | In oppressive societies the scope of actual control is extended by a religion of power [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Every oppressive society is cemented by a religion of power, which falsifies all social relations by enabling the powerful to command over and above what they are able to impose. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.69) | |
| A reaction: A rather acute and accurate observation, I think. Flashy cars, grand uniforms, lots of medals, rituals of deference….. Sometimes I like the order and security this brings, but Simone Weil could quickly change my view. |
| 23871 | No central authority can initiate decentralisation [Weil] |
| Full Idea: It is quite patently impossible for decentralisation to be initiated by the central authority. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.113) | |
| A reaction: This is contradicted by the creation of regional parliaments and mayors, but we see nothing beyond that. A state could crumble into small parts if there were'lots of autonomous regional groups. Easier for weird minorities to take control. |
| 23867 | After a bloody revolution the group which already had the power comes to the fore [Weil] |
| Full Idea: There is no real break in continuity after a bloody struggle for regime change; for the victory just sanctions forces that before the struggle were the decisive factor in community life, patterns which were replacing those of the declining regime. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.73) | |
| A reaction: [from Marx] I assume she has in mind the French Revolution, and perhaps the Russian Revolution, though in the latter the new bourgeois leaders also got swept away. So revolutions are not nearly as dramatic as they appear to be. |
| 23870 | Decentralisation is only possible by co-operation between strong and weak - which is absurd [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The only possibility of salvation would lie in a co-operation between weak and strong, with a view to accomplishing a progressive decentralisation of social life; but the absurdity of such an idea strikes one immediately. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.113) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be a judgement on the anarchist ideal, rather than a bit of modest devolution. The UK government set up regional parliaments. She says centralisation is remorseless. |
| 23863 | Only individual people of good will can achieve social progress [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The enlightened goodwill of men acting in an individual capacity is the only possible principle of social progress. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.57) | |
| A reaction: I identify with this. Virtually every admirable institution in a society can be traced back to the initiative of a few individuals. Every helpful technology was someone's brainwave. |
| 23869 | In the least evil societies people can think, control community life, and be autonomous [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The least evil society is that in which the general run of men are most often obliged to think while acting, have the most opportunities for exercising control over collective life as a whole, and enjoy the greatest amount of independence. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.97) | |
| A reaction: So Simone Weil was a liberal. How do you stop the most dynamic thinkers, social controllers, and exercisers of their own independence from coming to dominate the others? Only liberal institutions, such as the law and education, can do this. |
| 23861 | Marx showed that capitalist oppression, because of competition, is unstoppable [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Marx gives a first-rate account of the mechanism of capitalist oppression; but so good is it that one finds it hard to visualise how this mechanism could cease to function. …The exploitation is the competitive need to expand as rapidly as possible. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.39) | |
| A reaction: [Last bit compressed] This pinpoints the main motivation for desiring to overthrow capitalism. Resistance to that view is presumably the fear that an even worse oppression might replace it. |
| 23868 | The pleasure of completing tasks motivates just as well as the whip of slavery [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The sight of the unfinished task attracts the free man as powerfully as the over-seer's whip stimulates the slave. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.94) | |
| A reaction: This is Weil's key social idea - that freely performed productive work can be, and should be, a joy, as long as it is accompanied by respect and friendship, rather than oppression. Did this idea ever occur to a slave owner? |
| 23864 | Inequality could easily be mitigated, if it were not for the struggle for power [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Inequality could easily be mitigated by the resistance of the weak and the feeling for justice of the strong, …were it not for the intervention of a further factor, namely, the struggle for power. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.62) | |
| A reaction: The implication is that many of 'the strong' are inclined to diminish inequality, but find themselves trapped and unable to do so, because of irresistable capitalist forces. Sounds plausible. |
| 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. |
| 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. |