Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Hermarchus, E.M. Cioran and Crispin Wright

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3 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / c. not
Negation doesn't arise from reasoning, but from deep instincts [Cioran]
     Full Idea: Negation never proceeds from reasoning but from something much more obscure and old. Arguments come afterward, to justify and sustain it. Every no rises out of the blood.
     From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 02)
     A reaction: Music to my ears. In the Fregean era no one is allowed to talk about the origins of logical relations in the universal facts of physical existence. You can watch dogs saying no.
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / d. Singular terms
An expression refers if it is a singular term in some true sentences [Wright,C, by Dummett]
     Full Idea: For Wright, an expression refers to an object if it fulfils the 'syntactic role' of a singular term, and if we have fixed the truth-conditions of sentences containing it in such a way that some of them come out true.
     From: report of Crispin Wright (Frege's Concept of Numbers as Objects [1983]) by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics Ch.15
     A reaction: Much waffle is written about reference, and it is nice to hear of someone actually trying to state the necessary and sufficient conditions for reference to be successful. So is it possible for 'the round square' to ever refer? '...is impossible to draw'
5. Theory of Logic / K. Features of Logics / 1. Axiomatisation
An axiom has no more authority than a frenzy [Cioran]
     Full Idea: This earth is a place where can confirm anything with an equal likelihood: here axioms and frenzies are interchangeable.
     From: E.M. Cioran (A Short History of Decay [1949], 3)
     A reaction: A perceptive and poetic expression of the modern anti-Euclidean and anti-Fregean view of axioms, as purely formal features of a model or system.