display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
5 ideas
9119 | No attempt to deny bivalence has ever been accepted [Sorensen] |
Full Idea: The history of deviant logics is without a single success. Bivalence has been denied at least since Aristotle, yet no anti-bivalent theory has ever left the philosophical nursery. | |
From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], Intro) | |
A reaction: This is part of a claim that nothing in reality is vague - it is just our ignorance of the truth or falsity of some propositions. Personally I don't see why 'Grandad is bald' has to have a determinate truth value. |
4752 | Deflationism must reduce bivalence ('p is true or false') to excluded middle ('p or not-p') [Engel] |
Full Idea: It is said that deflationism cannot even formulate the principle of bivalence, for 'either p is true or p is false' will amount to the principle of excluded middle, 'either p or not-p'. | |
From: Pascal Engel (Truth [2002], §2.4) | |
A reaction: Presumably deflationists don't lost any sleep over this - in fact, it looks like a good concise way to state the deflationist thesis. However, excluded middle refers to a proposition (not-p) that was never mentioned by bivalence. Cf Idea 6163. |
9135 | We now see that generalizations use variables rather than abstract entities [Sorensen] |
Full Idea: As philosophers gradually freed themselves from the assumption that all words are names, ..they realised that generalizations really use variables rather than names of abstract entities. | |
From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 8.4) | |
A reaction: This looks like a key thought in trying to understand abstraction - though I don't think you can shake it off that easily. (For all x)(x-is-a-bird then x-has-wings) seems to require a generalised concept of a bird to give a value to the variable. |
9125 | Denying problems, or being romantically defeated by them, won't make them go away [Sorensen] |
Full Idea: An unsolvable problem is still a problem, despite Wittgenstein's view that there are no genuine philosophical problems, and Kant's romantic defeatism in his treatment of the antinomies of pure reason. | |
From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 4.3) | |
A reaction: I like the spin put on Kant, that he is a romantic in his defeatism. He certainly seems reluctant to slash at the Gordian knot, e.g. by being a bit more drastically sceptical about free will. |
9137 | Banning self-reference would outlaw 'This very sentence is in English' [Sorensen] |
Full Idea: The old objection to the ban on self-reference is that it is too broad; it bans innocent sentences such as 'This very sentence is in English'. | |
From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 11.1) | |
A reaction: Tricky. What is the sigificant difference between 'this sentence is in English' and 'this sentence is a lie'? The first concerns context and is partly metalinguistic. The second concerns semantics and truth. Concept and content.. |