The USA’s Founding Fathers were influenced by John Locke’s concept that mankind was endowed with inalienable rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and by his concept of a social contract between mankind and its Government. Both of them were in his Two Treatises of Government of 1690. Jefferson was well-versed in political philosophers of the Enlightenment. Thomas Hobbes, a few decades earlier in the 17th century,…
Analytic Philosophy Anti-Philosophy
‘Philosophy’ has always been bunk, 21: Quine 2
Here follows a whole litany of Quine’s thoughts that I have failed to tie into my first post on him (here) but am afraid to omit for fear of leaving something important out. My philosophically retarded mind can’t even grasp some of them: From here: Another approach to Quine’s objection to analyticity and synonymy emerges from the modal notion of logical possibility. A traditional Wittgensteinian view of meaning [in his…
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Analytic Philosophy Anti-Philosophy
‘Philosophy’ has always been bunk, 18: later Wittgenstein
The later Wittgenstein was already drifting away from his original thoughts (which I had summarized here). He began to think now that meaningful language wasn’t just the picturing of sensory or scientific facts in the world (plus logic and maths). He did such a volte-face that he now said in effect: Words mean what you use them for in the context you share with your audience (i.e. the ‘language-game’ you…
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Continental Philosophy Heidegger Anti-Philosophy
Heidegger
This post is rather long, but I didn’t want to divide Heidegger into two. The difference between Heidegger’s early and late works is more a matter of emphasis than a radical break like that between early and late Wittgenstein (from here). I will first give you the grasp I thought I had got of his philosophizing from various sites. Then I will refer to difficult sites that contradict much of…
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Analytic Philosophy Anti-Philosophy
‘Philosophy’ has always been bunk: chapter 17: Early Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein’s thought is divided into early and late W. The early Wittgenstein said that statements only have meaning if they refer to facts (or are statements of logic or maths). This stimulated other philosophers into Logical Positivism. But the later W. then did an about-turn and said that words mean what you use them for in the context you share with your audience (i.e. the ‘language-game’ you are all in),…
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Analytic Philosophy Anti-Philosophy
‘Philosophy’ has always been bunk, 20: Quine 1
Quine is famous for saying that there is actually no difference between so-called ‘analytic’ and so-called ‘synthetic’ statements. The difference had first been recognized by Hume (or by even earlier empiricists) but only so named by Kant. It had, since then, become gospel in Philosophy.. The example of analytic statement that everyone gives is ‘All bachelors are unmarried’, which is inevitably and necessarily 100% true because of the definition of…
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Bertrand Russell Philosophy Anti-Philosophy
‘Philosophy’ has always been bunk, 16: Bertrand Russell 4: break statements into logical atoms
(See the first two paragraphs of my first post on BR, here.) BR thought that many problems of Philosophy could be solved by exposing the hidden elements of meaning that statements are made of. Philosophy had always created insoluble pseudo-problems for itself by not exposing them. This was his Logical Atomism or Logical Analysis. Russell’s had previously tried to reduce mathematics to logic, which was called Logicism (see here). Now…
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Russell's epistemology Anti-Philosophy
‘Philosophy’ has always been bunk, 15: Bertrand Russell 3: What is Knowledge?
(See the first two paragraphs of my first post on BR, here.) Thirdly on Russell, here is a summary of his Epistemology: his understanding of what knowledge is and how we acquire it. [first published in his book The Problems of Philosophy (1912), continued in his Our Knowledge of the External World (1914), and in his article The Relation of Sense-Data to Physics (1914).] I am suddenly speechless on what to…
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Bertrand Russell Logicism Anti-Philosophy
‘Philosophy’ has always been bunk, 14: Bertrand Russell 2: boiling maths down to logic
(See the first two paragraphs of my first post on BR, here.) Russell’s attempt to show that mathematics is just glorified logic is called Logicism. It was a pretty convincing attempt. He published it in Principia Mathematica (1910-1913) which he wrote with Whitehead. This post is a summary of it, paraphrased from other sites that explain it for us. Logicism is in the philosophy of mathematics and consists of one…
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Bertrand Russell Anti-Philosophy
‘Philosophy’ has always been bunk, 13: Bertrand Russell 1: his human wisdoms
Bertrand Russell always struck me as conspicuously lackingin human intelligence, otherwise known as Wisdom. He showed no awareness of the darkness and depth in men’s souls. His mind whirred like a clock endlessly doing logico-mathematical puzzles, and applying it to human matters. He was rationalistic, humanistic and pacifistic, and believed in his own goodness because goodness is what he intended, you see. When I was a little boy, a close…
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