Combining Philosophers

Ideas for H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim, Michael Jubien and Stephen Davies

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these philosophers

display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers


2 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 3. Objectual Quantification
'All horses' either picks out the horses, or the things which are horses [Jubien]
     Full Idea: Two ways to see 'all horses are animals' are as picking out all the horses (so that it is a 'horse-quantifier'), ..or as ranging over lots of things in addition to horses, with 'horses' then restricting the things to those that satisfy 'is a horse'.
     From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 2)
     A reaction: Jubien says this gives you two different metaphysical views, of a world of horses etc., or a world of things which 'are horses'. I vote for the first one, as the second seems to invoke an implausible categorical property ('being a horse'). Cf Idea 11116.
Philosophers reduce complex English kind-quantifiers to the simplistic first-order quantifier [Jubien]
     Full Idea: There is a readiness of philosophers to 'translate' English, with its seeming multitude of kind-driven quantifiers, into first-order logic, with its single wide-open quantifier.
     From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 4.1)
     A reaction: As in example he says that reference to a statue involves a 'statue-quantifier'. Thus we say things about the statue that we would not say about the clay, which would involve a 'clay-quantifier'.