Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Hermarchus, Willard Quine and H. Paul Grice

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4 ideas

4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 1. Modal Logic

10928	Maybe we can quantify modally if the objects are intensional, but it seems unlikely [Quine]
	Full Idea: Perhaps there is no objection to quantifying into modal contexts as long as the values of any variables thus quantified are limited to intensional objects, but they also lead to disturbing examples.
	From: Willard Quine (Reference and Modality [1953], §3)
	A reaction: [Quine goes on to give his examples] I take it that possibilities are features of actual reality, not merely objects of thought. The problem is that they are harder to know than actual objects.

5745	Quine says quantified modal logic creates nonsense, bad ontology, and false essentialism [Melia on Quine]
	Full Idea: Quine charges quantified modal systems of logic with giving rise to unintended sense or nonsense, committing us to an incomprehensible ontology, and entailing an implausible or unsustainable Aristotelian essentialism.
	From: comment on Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966]) by Joseph Melia - Modality Ch.3
	A reaction: A nice summary. Personally I like essentialism in accounts of science (see Nature|Laws of Nature|Essentialism), so would like to save it in metaphysics. Possible worlds ontology may be very surprising, rather than 'incomprehensible'.

13591	Quantified modal logic collapses if essence is withdrawn [Quine]
	Full Idea: The whole of quantified modal logic collapses if essence is withdrawn.
	From: Willard Quine (Intensions Revisited [1977], p.121)
	A reaction: Quine offers an interesting qualification to this crushing remark in Idea 13590. The point is that objects must retain their identity in modal contexts, as if I say 'John Kennedy might have been Richard Nixon'. What could that mean?

4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 6. Temporal Logic

22433	It is important that the quantification over temporal entities is timeless [Quine]
	Full Idea: It would be hard to exaggerate the importance of recognising the timelessness of quantification over temporal entities.
	From: Willard Quine (Mr Strawson on Logical Theory [1953], IV)
	A reaction: 'Some moments in this cricket match were crucial'. The domain is not timeless, but consists of moments in this match. Can you say the quantifier is timeless but its domain is not? Only in the sense that 'very' is a timeless word, I think.