A quote from Lewis Carroll 11 Jun 202411 Jun 2024 Well, it’s actually from Charles Dodgson’s The Game of Logic 1887: The world contains many Things (such as “Buns”, “Babies”, “Beetles”, “Battledores”, &c.) ; and the Things possess many Attributes (such as “baked”, “beautiful”, “black”, “broken”, &c: in fact, whatever can be “attributed to”, that is “said to belong to”, any Thing, is an Attribute). Whenever we wish to mention a Thing, we use a Substantive : when we wish to mention an Attribute, we use an Adjective. People have asked the question “Can a Thing exist without any Attributes belonging to it?” It is a very puzzling question, and I’m not going to try to answer it : let us turn up our noses, and treat it with contemptuous silence, as if it really wasn’t worth noticing. But, if they put it the other way, and ask “Can an Attribute exist without any Thing for it to belong to?”, we may say at once “No: no more than a Baby could go a railway-journey with no one to take care of it ! ” You never saw “beautiful” floating about in the air, or littered about on the floor, without any Thing to be beautiful, now did you ? Chapter 1, §1, page 2 The really lovely thing here, apart from the wonderful alliteration [“Buns”, “Babies”, “Beetles”, and “Battledores” is my new band name] is that Dodgson gives, in one paragraph, a summary of metaphysics, philosophy of language, and logical classification. The rest of the book is pretty good too. Logic and philosophy Metaphysics Philosophy
Epistemology More Whewell 26 Jul 2009 When we have thus obtained, with reference to any such subject as those we have here spoken of, these two portions of science, a systematic description of the facts, and a rigorous analysis of the causes, — the Phenomenology and the Ætiology of the subject, — we are prepared for… Read More
Epistemology Philosophy as forgetting, and index characters 13 Nov 2009 I was talking to a friend, Damian Cox, yesterday, and we were discussing how many of the ideas of, say, a Wittgenstein had been a rediscovery or reformulation of what had been commonly held over a century before. Damian made the comment that philosophy is a process of forgetting what… Read More
Philosophy I will not read Dan Brown’s latest 17 Sep 2009 He’s a pap writer. Nicely chewed and digested screenplays for filming. Nothing deep, nothing that might stretch a reader. Obvious plot turns. So the reviewer at First Post UK suggests some other reading. I add this: I am surprised that the reviewer did not suggest some Umberto Eco novels. I… Read More