display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
3 ideas
14895 | 'Superficial' contingency: false in some world; 'Deep' contingency: no obvious verification [Evans, by Macià/Garcia-Carpentiro] |
Full Idea: Evans says intuitively a sentence is 'superficially' contingent if the function from worlds to truth values assigns F to some world; it is 'deeply' contingent if understanding it does not guarantee that there is a verifying state of affairs. | |
From: report of Gareth Evans (Reference and Contingency [1979]) by Macià/Garcia-Carpentiro - Introduction to 'Two-Dimensional Semantics' 2 | |
A reaction: This distinction is used by Davies and Humberstone (1980) to construct an early version of 2-D semantics (see under Language|Semantics). The point is that part comes from understanding it, and another part from assigning truth values. |
23900 | Chance is compatible with necessity, and the two occur together [Weil] |
Full Idea: Chance is not the contrary of necessity; it is not incompatible with necessity. On the contrary, it never appears except at the same time as necessity. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Scientific Image [1941], p.175) | |
A reaction: She illustrates it with the six terminating results of a die throw, and the innumerabe ways the throw can occur. This thought strikes me as relevant to discussions of free will. …But I'm not sure I fully understand it. |
11881 | Rigid designators can be meaningful even if empty [Evans, by Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: Evans argues that there can be rigid designators that are meaningful even if empty. | |
From: report of Gareth Evans (Reference and Contingency [1979]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 1.8 |