Tag Archives: Grammar of Assent

Newman as Transcendental Idealist?

Posted on July 13, 2016 by

Here’s a thought: what if Newman’s distinction in the Grammar between “notions” and “things” was basically akin to Kant’s distinction between sensibility and cognition? Kant said that intuitions without concepts are blind, and that concepts without intuitions are empty; Newman insisted … Continue reading →

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The Logician’s Pyrrhic Victory

Posted on July 4, 2015 by

From Newman’s Grammar of Assent: Logical inference…will be found partly to succeed and partly to fail; succeeding so far as words can in fact be found for representing the countless varieties and subtleties of human thought, failing on account of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Grammar of Assent, Inference, John Henry Newman, John O'Callaghan, Newman, Notions and Things, Thomist Realism and the Linguistic Turn | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Humean Newman

Posted on June 30, 2015 by

In one of his Grammar of Assent‘s more famous lines, Newman remarks: “As to Logic, its chain of conclusions hangs loose at both ends; both the point from which the proof should start, and the points at which it should arrive, … Continue reading →

Posted in Alvin Plantinga, Blaise Pascal, David Hume, Epistemology, Grammar of Assent, Grue, Induction, Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, John Henry Newman, Logic, Nelson Goodman, Pascal | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Notions and Things in Newman’s “Idea of a University”

Posted on November 29, 2012 by

I wonder if the real key to origin of Newman’s use of “notion” and “thing” in the Grammar is to be found in the Second Discourse of the Idea, namely in his discussion of the relation of individual sciences to … Continue reading →

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