Blackstone’s view that certain abstract terms definitionally incorporate a wide range of specific results is tied intimately to his perception of a hard and suprahuman reality behind these general terms. If the word ‘property,’ for example, actually describes some underlying and noncontingent reality, then it follows easily that certain specific embodiments are necessarily part of that reality, just as pelicans are part of the underlying reality that is the universe of birds.
Evidence
There is however in Plato and among philosophers of certain other schools a very different doctrine, to the effect that there is nothing worthy to be called ‘knowledge’ to be derived from the senses, and that the only real knowledge has to do with concepts. … In this view, ‘2 + 2 = 4’ is genuine knowledge, but such a statement as ‘snow is white’ is so full of ambiguity and uncertainty that it cannot find a place in the philosopher’s corpus of truths. — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 674 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
It may be that modern physics fits best into some framework of idealistic philosophy—I do not believe it, but there are eminent physicists who say so. Pure mathematics, on the other hand, seems to me a rock on which all idealism founders: 317 is a prime, not because we think so, or because our minds are shaped in one way rather than another, but because it is so, because mathematical reality is built that way. — G. H. Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology, 264 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
Categorization
- corroborated: 5 independent passages support this claim
- XREF: connects to: Lochner is merely one example in which a false assertion of inexorability is decried as formalistic. Much contemporary criticism of Blackstone, Langdell, and others of their persuasion attacks their jurisprudence on similar grounds. They stand accused of presenting contestable applications of general terms as definitionally incorporated within the meaning of the general term. It is important, however, to understand the relationship between the linguistic and the ontological questions for those of Blackstone’s vision. Blackstone’s view that certain abstract terms definitionally incorporate a wide range of specific results is tied intimately to his perception of a hard and suprahuman reality behind these general terms. If the word ‘property,’ for example, actually describes some underlying and noncontingent reality, then it follows easily that certain specific embodiments are necessarily part of that reality, just as pelicans are part of the underlying reality that is the universe of birds. These instantiations might still follow even if the general term is not a natural kind whose existence and demarcation is beyond the control of human actors. There is nothing natural or noncontingent about the term ‘basketball,’ but it is nevertheless an error in this culture at this time to apply that word to a group of people hitting small hard balls with one of a collection of fourteen different sticks. Still, linguistic clarity and rigidity are both facilitated insofar as the words track the natural kinds of the world. To the extent that Blackstone and others believed that categories like liberty, property, and contract were natural kinds rather than human artifacts, they were less likely to perceive the choices we would now not think to deny. When one believes that a general term reflects a deep reality beyond the power of human actors, the view that certain particulars are necessarily part of that reality follows with special ease.; Thus, one view of the vice of formalism takes that vice to be one of deception, either of oneself or of others. To disguise a choice in the language of definitional inexorability obscures that choice and thus obstructs questions of how it was made and whether it could have been made differently. Use of the word ‘formalism’ in this sense hinges on the existence of a term (or phrase, sentence, or paragraph) whose contested application generates the choice. Some terms, like ‘liberty’ and ‘equality,’ are pervasively indeterminate. It is not that such terms have no content whatsoever; it is that every application, every concretization, every instantiation requires the addition of supplementary premises to apply the general term to specific cases. Therefore, any application of that term that denies the choice made among various eligible supplementary premises is formalistic in this sense.; The contingency of definition hardly entails the view that it is within the province of any one actor, legal or otherwise, to change it. Neither you nor I have the power to make it proper to use the word ‘bird’ to refer to a frog, even though the word ‘bird’ could in another world be used to refer to frogs. (+7 more)
Related
- Plato argues that real knowledge derives from concepts rather than sensory perception (similarity 0.83)
- Academic contestation over a concept’s definition does not negate its world-making power (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Plato argues that real knowledge derives from concepts rather than sensory perception
#corroborates(0.65) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 674 - Mathematical facts are true independently of human thought
#corroborates(0.60) — G. H. Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology, 264