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Ratiocination

Thomas on Knowledge


William F. Vallicella quotes Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica I, q. 1, art. 5):

...the least knowledge that may be obtained of the highest things is more desirable than the most certain knowledge obtained of the lowest things...

I suspect that many who do speculative analytic metaphysics will find something right about this sentiment. =)

Classic Quine


Quine was surely one of our best writers. And in the Wadsworth Philosophers Series book On Quine, Nelson and Nelson pick out this choice selection of phrases that came from his pen:

We sit and think, but do we sit and believe? The White Queen, indeed, professed to do so. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as manay as six impossible things before breakfast." But it will be agreed that the White Queen was atypical. ("Quiddities")

A curious thing about the ontological problem is its simplicity. It can be put in three Anglo-Saxon monosyllables: 'What is there?' It can be answered, moreover, in a word, 'Everything.' ("On What There Is")

Our argument is not flatly circular, but something like it. It has the form, figuratively speaking, of a closed curve in space. ("Two Dogmas")

I am a physical object sitting in a physical world. Some of the forces of this physical world impinge on my surface. Light rays strike my retinas; molecules bombard my eardrums and fingertips. I strike back, emanating concentric air waves. These waves take the form of a torrent of discourse about tables, people, molecules, light rays, retinas, air waves, prime numbers, infinite classes, joy and sorrow, good and evil. ("The Scope and Language of Science")

According to physics, my desk is, for all its seeming fixity and solidity, a swarm of vibrating molecules... no glimpse is to be had of separate molecules of the desk; they are, we are told, too small. ("Posits and Reality")

One can find in these paragraphs the seeds of style that would blossom in the works of Quine's successors. I have in mind Quine's sly wit, his preference for the compact sentence in an active voice, and the imaginative illustrations he draws on. Not all of us will succeed in writing with such skill and panache. But we can (and I will) try so to do.

Hawthorne's Metaphysics


E. J. Lowe reviews this collection of essays in analytic metaphysics by John Hawthorne. Of particular note are Lowe's comments about the debt owed to David Lewis by Hawthorne (and indeed, by most other metaphysicians writing today). Lowe also offers a critique of Hawthorne's love for the doctrine of 'plenitude,' according to which 'we should supplement the ontology of common sense with a range of additional objects whose existence we recognize on grounds of parity.'

SCP Pacific (again)


I attended the SCP Pacific meeting last year; I had loads of fun (easily one of the best philosophy conferences I've been to). And this year's looks even better. First, there are a number of free will sessions that will definitely be worth attending. Second, the lineup of plenary speakers (Mike Rea, Timothy O'Connor, and Rob Koons) promises to be a good show. Better yet, Ted Sider will be responding to each of them, a philosophical battle well worth witnessing.

Infinite Humor


"Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall, Aleph-null bottles of beer, Take one down, and pass it around, Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall" (repeat). HT