display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
4 ideas
| 16416 | The quantifier in logic is not like the ordinary English one (which has empty names, non-denoting terms etc) [Hofweber] |
| Full Idea: The inferential role of the existential quantifier in first order logic does not carry over to the existential quantifier in English (we have empty names, singular terms that are not even in the business of denoting, and so on). | |
| From: Thomas Hofweber (Ambitious, yet modest, Metaphysics [2009], 2) |
| 21643 | The inferential quantifier focuses on truth; the domain quantifier focuses on reality [Hofweber] |
| Full Idea: When we ask 'is there a number?' in its inferential role (or internalist) reading, then we ask whether or not there is a true instance of 't is a number'. When we ask in its domain conditions (externalist) reading, we ask if the world contains a number. | |
| From: Thomas Hofweber (Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics [2016], 03.6) | |
| A reaction: Hofweber's key distinction. The distinction between making truth prior and making reference prior is intriguing and important. The internalist version is close to substitutional quantification. Only the externalist view needs robust reference. |
| 10007 | Quantifiers for domains and for inference come apart if there are no entities [Hofweber] |
| Full Idea: Quantifiers have two functions in communication - to range over a domain of entities, and to have an inferential role (e.g. F(t)→'something is F'). In ordinary language these two come apart for singular terms not standing for any entities. | |
| From: Thomas Hofweber (Number Determiners, Numbers, Arithmetic [2005], §6.3) | |
| A reaction: This simple observations seems to me to be wonderfully illuminating of a whole raft of problems, the sort which logicians get steamed up about, and ordinary speakers don't. Context is the key to 90% of philosophical difficulties (?). See Idea 10008. |
| 17988 | Quantification can't all be substitutional; some reference is obviously to objects [Hofweber] |
| Full Idea: The view that all quantification is substitutional is not very plausible in general. Some uses of quantifiers clearly seem to have the function to make a claim about a domain of objects out there, no matter how they relate to the terms in our language. | |
| From: Thomas Hofweber (Inexpressible Properties and Propositions [2006], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: Robust realists like myself are hardly going to say that quantification is just an internal language game. |