P. F. Strawson Quotes
Sir Peter Frederick Strawson was a British analytic philosopher and a long-standing fellow of University College, Oxford. His paper On Referring criticized Russell's theory of descriptions, and his Individuals produced a descriptive metaphysics that took persons and material bodies as the basic particulars of our conceptual scheme. The quotes below are attributed to P. F. Strawson, organized by topic.
Browse P. F. Strawson by topic
P. F. Strawson on Knowledge
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Attributed to P. F. Strawson:
“Descriptive metaphysics is content to describe the actual structure of our thought about the world.”
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Attributed to P. F. Strawson:
“It is no use looking for a transcendental deduction in the form of a knock-down argument.”
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“Neither Aristotelian nor Russellian rules give the exact logic of any expression of ordinary language; for ordinary language has no exact logic.”
Strawson (1950) On Referring p. 27. -
“Strawson (1950) On Referring p. 27.”
Neither Aristotelian nor Russellian rules give the exact logic of any expression of ordinary language; for ordinary language has no exact logic. -
“[A] man who contradicts himself may have succeeded in exercising his vocal chords. But from the point of view of imparting information, of communicating facts (or falsehoods) it is as if he had never opened his mouth. He utters words, but does not say anything.”
p. 2. -
“Part of my aim is to exhibit some general and structural features of the conceptual scheme in terms of which we think about particular things.”
p. 2.
P. F. Strawson on Mind
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Attributed to P. F. Strawson:
“Persons are the basic particulars of our conceptual scheme.”
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“There is a massive central core of human thinking which has no history — or none recorded in histories of thought; there are categories and concepts which, in their most fundamental character, change not at all. Obviously these are not the specialities of the most refined thinking. They are the commonplaces of the least refined thinking; and are yet the indispensable core of the conceptual equipment of the most sophisticated human beings. It is with these, their interconnexions, and the structure that they form, that a descriptive metaphysics will be primarily concerned.”
p. xiv.
P. F. Strawson on Nature
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“It remains to mention some of the ways in which people have spoken misleadingly of logical form. One of the commonest of these is to talk of ' the logical form' of a statement; as if a statement could never have more than one kind of formal power; as if statements could, in respect of their formal powers, be grouped in mutually exclusive classes, like animals at a zoo in respect of their species. ”
p. 53 as cited in: Ian Hacking (1975) Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy? , p. 83.
P. F. Strawson on Truth
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“The distinction between identifying reference and uniquely existential assertion is something quite undeniable. The sense in which the existence of something answering to a definite description used for the purpose of identifying reference, and its distinguishability by an audience from anything else, is presupposed and not asserted in an utterance containing such an expression, so used, stands ab”
Strawson (1964) "Identifying Reference and Truth-Values", Theoria Vol xxx; As cited in: Paul Snowdon (2009) " Peter Frederick Strawson ", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
P. F. Strawson on Virtue
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Attributed to P. F. Strawson:
“Reactive attitudes are the foundation of moral life.”
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Attributed to P. F. Strawson:
“Moral responsibility is rooted in our actual practices of reaction and demand.”