85 ideas
8797 | The negation of all my beliefs about my current headache would be fully coherent [Sosa] |
Full Idea: If I have a headache, I could have a set of beliefs that I do not have a headache, that I am not in pain, that no one is in pain, and so on. The resulting system of beliefs would cohere as fully as does my actual system of beliefs. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §9) | |
A reaction: I think this is a misunderstanding of coherentism. Beliefs are not to be formulated through a process of coherence, but are evaluated that way. A belief that I have headache just arrives; I then see that its denial is incoherent, so I accept it. |
8877 | We can't attain a coherent system by lopping off any beliefs that won't fit [Sosa] |
Full Idea: Coherence involves the logical, explanatory and probabilistic relations among one's beliefs, but it could not do to attain a tightly iterrelated system by lopping off whatever beliefs refuse to fit. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.4) | |
A reaction: This is clearly right, so the coherentist has to distinguish between lopping off a belief because it is inconvenient (fundamentalists rejecting textual contradictions), and lopping it off because it is wrong (chemists rejecting phlogiston). |
18335 | There are five problems which the truth-maker theory might solve [Rami] |
Full Idea: It is claimed that truth-makers explain universals, or ontological commitment, or commitment to realism, or to the correspondence theory of truth, or to falsify behaviourism or phenomenalism. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 04) | |
A reaction: [compressed] This expands the view that truth-making is based on its explanatory power, rather than on its intuitive correctness. I take the theory to presuppose realism. I don't believe in universals. It marginalises correspondence. Commitment is good! |
18334 | The truth-maker idea is usually justified by its explanatory power, or intuitive appeal [Rami] |
Full Idea: The two strategies for justifying the truth-maker principle are that it has an explanatory role (for certain philosophical problems and theses), or that it captures the best philosophical intuition of the situation. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 04) | |
A reaction: I would go for 'intuitive', but not in the sense of a pure intuition, but with 'intuitive' as a shorthand for overall coherence. To me the appeal of truth-maker is its place in a naturalistic view of reality. I love explanation, but not here. |
18339 | The truth-making relation can be one-to-one, or many-to-many [Rami] |
Full Idea: The truth-making relation can be one-to-one, or many-many. In the latter case, different truths may have the same truth-maker, and one truth may have different truth-makers. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 05) | |
A reaction: 'There is at least one cat' obviously has many possible truth-makers. Many statements will be made true by the mere existence of a particular cat (such as 'there is an animal in the room' and 'there is a cat in the room'). Many-many wins? |
18333 | Central idea: truths need truthmakers; and possibly all truths have them, and makers entail truths [Rami] |
Full Idea: The main full-blooded truth-maker principle is that x is true iff there is a y that is its truth-maker. This implies the principles that if x is true x has a truth-maker, and the principle that if x has a truth-maker then x is true. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 03) | |
A reaction: [compressed] Rami calls the second principle 'maximalism' and the third principle 'purism'. To reject maximalism is to hold a more restricted version of truth-makers. That is, the claim is that lots of truths have truth-makers. |
18342 | Most theorists say that truth-makers necessitate their truths [Rami] |
Full Idea: Most truth-maker theorists regard the necessitation of a truth by a truth-maker as a necessary condition of truth-making. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 07) | |
A reaction: It seems to me that reality is crammed full of potential truth-makers, but not crammed full of truths. If there is no thinking in the universe, then there are no truths. If that is false, then what sort of weird beast is a 'truth'? |
18340 | It seems best to assume different kinds of truth-maker, such as objects, facts, tropes, or events [Rami] |
Full Idea: Truthmaker anti-monism holds the view that there are truth-makers of different kinds. For example, objects, facts, tropes or events can all be regarded as truthmakers. Objects seem right for existential truths but not others, so anti-monism seems best. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 05) | |
A reaction: Presumably we need to identify the different types of truth (analytic, synthetic, general, particular...), and only then ask what truth-makers there are for the different types. To presuppose one type of truthmaker would be crazy. |
18341 | Truth-makers seem to be states of affairs (plus optional individuals), or individuals and properties [Rami] |
Full Idea: As truth-makers, some theorists only accept states of affairs, some only accept individuals and states of affairs, and some only accept individuals and particular properties. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 06) | |
A reaction: It seems to me rash to opt for one of these. Truths come in wide-ranging and subtly different types, and the truth-makers probably have a similar range. Any one of these theories will almost certainly quickly succumb to a counterexample. |
18346 | 'Truth supervenes on being' only gives necessary (not sufficient) conditions for contingent truths [Rami] |
Full Idea: The thesis that 'truth supervenes on being' (with or without possible worlds) offers only a necessary condition for the truth of contingent propositions, whereas the standard truth-maker theory offers necessary and sufficient conditions. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 09) | |
A reaction: The point, I suppose, is that the change in being might be irrelevant to the proposition in question, so any old change in being will not ensure a change in the truth of the proposition. Again we ask - but what is this truth about? |
18345 | 'Truth supervenes on being' avoids entities as truth-makers for negative truths [Rami] |
Full Idea: The important advantage of 'truth supervenes on being' is that it can be applied to positive and negative contingent truths, without postulating any entities that are responsible for the truth of negative truths. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 09) | |
A reaction: [For this reason, Lewis favours a possible worlds version of the theory] I fear that it solves that problem by making the truth-maker theory so broad-brush that it not longer says very much, apart from committing it to naturalism. |
18343 | Maybe a truth-maker also works for the entailments of the given truth [Rami] |
Full Idea: The 'entailment principle' for truth-makers says that if x is a truth-maker for y, and y entails z, then x is a truth-maker for z. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 08) | |
A reaction: I think the correct locution is that 'x is a potential truth-maker for z' (should anyone every formulate z, which in most cases they never will, since the entailments of y are probably infinite). Merricks would ask 'but are y and z about the same thing?'. |
18338 | Truth-making is usually internalist, but the correspondence theory is externalist [Rami] |
Full Idea: Most truth-maker theorists are internalists about the truth-maker relation. ...But the correspondence theory makes truth an external relation to some portion of reality. So a truth-maker internalist should not claim to be a narrow correspondence theorist. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 05) | |
A reaction: [wording rearranged] Like many of Rami's distinctions in this article, this feels simplistic. Sharp distinctions can only be made using sharp vocabulary, and there isn't much of that around in philosophy! |
18337 | Correspondence theories assume that truth is a representation relation [Rami] |
Full Idea: One guiding intuition concerning a correspondence theory of truth says that the relation that accounts for the truth of a truth-bearer is some kind of representation relation. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 05) | |
A reaction: I unfashionably cling on to some sort of correspondence theory. The paradigm case is of a non-linguistic animal which forms correct or incorrect views about its environment. Truth is a relation, not a property. I see the truth in a bad representation. |
18347 | Deflationist truth is an infinitely disjunctive property [Rami] |
Full Idea: According to the moderate deflationist truth is an infinitely disjunctive property. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 10) | |
A reaction: [He cites Horwich 1998] That is, I presume, that truth is embodied in an infinity of propositions of the form '"p" is true iff p'. |
18350 | Truth-maker theorists should probably reject the converse Barcan formula [Rami] |
Full Idea: There are good reasons for the truth-maker theorist to reject the converse Barcan formula. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], note 16) | |
A reaction: In the text (p.15) Rami cites the inference from 'necessarily everything exists' to 'everything exists necessarily'. [See Williamson 1999] |
22246 | A train of reasoning must be treated as all happening simultaneously [Recanati] |
Full Idea: For logic purposes, a train of reasoning has to be construed as synchronic. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 5.2) | |
A reaction: If we are looking for a gulf between logic and the real world this is a factor to be considered, along with Nietzsche's observation about necessary simplification. [ref to Kaplan 'Afterthoughts' 1989, 584-5] |
16357 | Mental files are the counterparts of singular terms [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Mental files are the mental counterparts of singular terms. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 3.3) | |
A reaction: A thoroughly satisfactory theory. We can build up a picture of filing merging, duplication, ambiguity, error etc. Eventually neuroscience will map the whole system, and we will have cracked it. |
8884 | The phenomenal concept of an eleven-dot pattern does not include the concept of eleven [Sosa] |
Full Idea: You could detect the absence of an eleven-dot pattern without having counted the dots, so your phenomenal concept of that array is not an arithmetical concept, and its content will not yield that its dots do indeed number eleven. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 7.3) | |
A reaction: Sosa is discussing foundational epistemology, but this draws attention to the gulf that has to be leaped by structuralists. If eleven is not derived from the pattern, where does it come from? Presumably two eleven-dotters are needed, to map them. |
18336 | Internal relations depend either on the existence of the relata, or on their properties [Rami] |
Full Idea: An internal relation is 'existential' if x and y relate in that way whenever they both exist. An internal relation is 'qualitative' if x and y relate in that way whenever they have certain intrinsic properties. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 05) | |
A reaction: [compressed - Rami likes to write these things in fashionable quasi-algebra, but I have a strong prejudice in this database for expressing ideas in English; call me old-fashioned] The distinction strikes me as simplistic. I would involve dispositions. |
10938 | The extremes of essentialism are that all properties are essential, or only very trivial ones [Rami] |
Full Idea: It would be natural to label one extreme view 'maximal essentialism' - that all of an object's properties are essential - and the other extreme 'minimal' - that only trivial properties such as self-identity of being either F or not-F are essential. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008]) | |
A reaction: Personally I don't accept the trivial ones as being in any way describable as 'properties'. The maximal view destroys any useful notion of essence. Leibniz is a minority holder of the maximal view. I would defend a middle way. |
10940 | An 'individual essence' is possessed uniquely by a particular object [Rami] |
Full Idea: An 'individual essence' is a property that in addition to being essential is also unique to the object, in the sense that it is not possible that something distinct from that object possesses that property. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §5) | |
A reaction: She cites a 'haecceity' (or mere bare identity) as a trivial example of an individual essence. |
10939 | 'Sortal essentialism' says being a particular kind is what is essential [Rami] |
Full Idea: According to 'sortal essentialism', an object could not have been of a radically different kind than it in fact is. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §4) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as thoroughly wrong. Things belong in kinds because of their properties. Could you remove all the contingent features of a tiger, leaving it as merely 'a tiger', despite being totally unrecognisable? |
10934 | Unlosable properties are not the same as essential properties [Rami] |
Full Idea: It is easy to confuse the notion of an essential property that a thing could not lack, with a property it could not lose. My having spent Christmas 2007 in Tennessee is a non-essential property I could not lose. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §1) | |
A reaction: The idea that having spent Christmas in Tennessee is a property I find quite bewildering. Is my not having spent my Christmas in Tennessee one of my properties? I suspect that real unlosable properties are essential ones. |
8443 | Mereological essentialism says an entity must have exactly those parts [Sosa] |
Full Idea: Mereological essentialism says that nothing else could have been the unique entity composed of certain parts except the very thing that is composed of those parts. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Varieties of Causation [1980], 2) | |
A reaction: This sounds initially implausible. It means the ship of Theseus ceases to be that ship if you change a single nail of it. Whether we say that seems optional, but if we do, it leads to the collaps of all our normal understanding of identity. |
16360 | Identity statements are informative if they link separate mental files [Recanati] |
Full Idea: An identity statement 'A=B' is informative to the extent that the terms 'A' and 'B' are associated with distinct mental files. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 4.1) | |
A reaction: Hence the information in 'Scott is the author of 'Waverley'' is information about what is in your mind, not what is happening in Scotland. This is Recanati's solution to one of Frege's classic puzzles. 'Morning Star' and 'Evening Star' files. Nice. |
10933 | Physical possibility is part of metaphysical possibility which is part of logical possibility [Rami] |
Full Idea: The usual view is that 'physical possibilities' are a natural subset of the 'metaphysical possibilities', which in turn are a subset of the 'logical possibilities'. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §1) | |
A reaction: [She cites Fine 2002 for an opposing view] I prefer 'natural' to 'physical', leaving it open where the borders of the natural lie. I take 'metaphysical' possibility to be 'in all naturally possible worlds'. So is a round square a logical possibility? |
10932 | If it is possible 'for all I know' then it is 'epistemically possible' [Rami] |
Full Idea: There is 'epistemic possibility' when it is 'for all I know'. That is, P is epistemically possible for agent A just in case P is consistent with what A knows. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §1) | |
A reaction: Two problems: maybe 'we' know, and A knows we know, but A doesn't know. And maybe someone knows, but we are not sure about that, which seems to introduce a modal element into the knowing. If someone knows it's impossible, it's impossible. |
8878 | It is acceptable to say a supermarket door 'knows' someone is approaching [Sosa] |
Full Idea: I am quite flexible on epistemic terminology, and am even willing to grant that a supermarket door can 'know' that someone is approaching. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.6) | |
A reaction: I take this amazing admission to be a hallmark of externalism. Sosa must extend this to thermostats. So flowers know the sun has come out. This is knowledge without belief. Could the door ever be 'wrong'? |
16374 | There is a continuum from acquaintance to description in knowledge, depending on the link [Recanati] |
Full Idea: It is not too difficult to imagine a continuum of cases between straightforward instances of knowledge by acquaintance and straightforward instances of knowledge by description, with more or less tenuous informational links to the referent. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 12.2) |
8880 | In reducing arithmetic to self-evident logic, logicism is in sympathy with rationalism [Sosa] |
Full Idea: In trying to reduce arithmetic to self-evident logical axioms, logicism is in sympathy with rationalism. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.7) | |
A reaction: I have heard Frege called "the greatest of all rationalist philosophers". However, the apparent reduction of arithmetic to analytic truths played into the hands of logical positivists, who could then marginalise arithmetic. |
8881 | Most of our knowledge has insufficient sensory support [Sosa] |
Full Idea: Almost nothing that one knows of history or geography or science has adequate sensory support, present or even recalled. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.7) | |
A reaction: This seems a bit glib, and may be false. The main issue to which this refers is, of course, induction, which (almost by definition) is a supposedly empirical process which goes beyond the empirical evidence. |
8794 | There are very few really obvious truths, and not much can be proved from them [Sosa] |
Full Idea: Radical foundationalism suffers from two weaknesses: there are not so many perfectly obvious truths as Descartes thought; and if we restrict ourselves to what it truly obvious, very little supposed common sense knowledge can be proved. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §3) | |
A reaction: It is striking how few examples can ever be found of self-evident a priori truths. However, if there are self-evident truths about direct experience (pace Descartes), that would give us more than enough. |
8882 | Perception may involve thin indexical concepts, or thicker perceptual concepts [Sosa] |
Full Idea: There is a difference between having just an indexical concept which one can apply to a perceptual characteristic (just saying 'this is thus'), and having a thicker perceptual concept of that characteristic. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 7.2) | |
A reaction: Both of these, of course, would precede any categorial concepts that enabled one to identify the characteristic or the object. This is a ladder foundationalists must climb if they are to reach the cellar of basic beliefs. |
8883 | Do beliefs only become foundationally justified if we fully attend to features of our experience? [Sosa] |
Full Idea: Are foundationally justified beliefs perhaps those that result from attending to our experience and to features of it or in it? | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 7.3) | |
A reaction: A promising suggestion. I do think our ideas acquire a different epistmological status once we have given them our full attention, though is that merely full consciousness, or full thoughtful evaluation? The latter I take to be what matters. Cf Idea 2414. |
8885 | Some features of a thought are known directly, but others must be inferred [Sosa] |
Full Idea: Some intrinsic features of our thoughts are attributable to them directly, or foundationally, while others are attributable only based on counting or inference. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 7.5) | |
A reaction: In practice the brain combines the two at a speed which makes the distinction impossible. I'll show you ten dot-patterns: you pick out the sixer. The foundationalist problem is that only those drained of meaning could be foundational. |
8876 | Much propositional knowledge cannot be formulated, as in recognising a face [Sosa] |
Full Idea: Much of our propositional knowledge is not easily formulable, as when a witness looking at a police lineup may know what the culprit's face looks like. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.1) | |
A reaction: This is actually a very helpful defence of foundationalism, because it shows that we will accept perceptual experiences as knowledge when they are not expressed as explicit propositions. Davidson (Idea 8801), for example, must deal with this difficulty. |
8796 | A single belief can trail two regresses, one terminating and one not [Sosa] |
Full Idea: A single belief can trail at once regresses of both sorts: one terminating and one not. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §6) | |
A reaction: This makes foundationalism possible, while admitting the existence of regresses. It is a good point, and triumphalist anti-foundationalists can't just point out a regress and then smugly troop off to the pub. |
8799 | If mental states are not propositional, they are logically dumb, and cannot be foundations [Sosa] |
Full Idea: If a mental state is not propositional, then how can it possibly serve as a foundation for belief? How can one infer or justify anything on the basis of a state that, having no propositional content, must be logically dumb? | |
From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §11) | |
A reaction: This may be the best objection to foundationalism. McDowell tries to argue that conceptual content is inherent in perception, thus giving the beginnings of inbuilt propositional content. But an organism awash with bare experiences knows nothing. |
8795 | Mental states cannot be foundational if they are not immune to error [Sosa] |
Full Idea: If a mental state provides no guarantee against error, then it cannot serve as a foundation for knowledge. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §4) | |
A reaction: That assumes that knowledge entails certainty, which I am sure it should not. On a fallibilist account, a foundation could be incredibly secure, despite a barely imaginable scenario in which it turned out to be false. |
8879 | Fully comprehensive beliefs may not be knowledge [Sosa] |
Full Idea: One's beliefs can be comprehensively coherent without amounting to knowledge. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.6) | |
A reaction: Beliefs that are fully foundational or reliably sourced may also fail to be knowledge. I take it that any epistemological theory must be fallibilist (Idea 6898). Rational coherentism will clearly be sensitive to error. |
8798 | Vision causes and justifies beliefs; but to some extent the cause is the justification [Sosa] |
Full Idea: Visual experience is recognized as both the cause and the justification of our visual beliefs. But these are not wholly independent. Presumably the justification that something is red derives partly from the fact that it originates in visual experience. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §10) | |
A reaction: Yes, but the fact that certain visual experiences originate in dreams is taken as grounds for denying their truth, not affirming it. So why do we distinguish them? I am thinking that only in the 'space of reasons' can a cause become a justification. |
18409 | Indexicals apply to singular thought, and mental files have essentially indexical features [Recanati] |
Full Idea: I defend the applicability of the indexical model to singular thought, and to mental files qua vehicles of singular thought. Mental files, I will argue, possess the essential features of indexicals. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 05.1) | |
A reaction: I love mental files, but am now (thanks to Cappelen and Dever) deeply averse to giving great significance to indexicals. A revised account of files will be needed. |
22247 | Indexicality is not just a feature of language; examples show it also occurs in thought [Recanati] |
Full Idea: People once took indexicality to be exclusively a property of language, ....but a series of examples seemed to establish that the thought expressed by uttering an indexical sentence is itself indexical (and is thus 'essential'). | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 6.1) | |
A reaction: Perry's example of not realising it is him leaking the sugar in a supermarket is the best known example. Was this a key moment for realising that philosophy of thought is (pace Dummett) more important than philosophy of language? |
22248 | How can we communicate indexical thoughts to people not in the right context? [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Indexical thoughts create an obvious problem with regard to communication. How can we manage to communicate such thoughts to those who are not in the right context? | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 7.1) | |
A reaction: One answer is that you often cannot communicate them. If I write on a wall 'I am here now', that doesn't tell the next passer-by very much. But 'it's raining here' said in a telephone call works fine - if you know the location of the caller. |
16354 | Indexicality is closely related to singularity, exploiting our direct relations with things [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Singularity and indexicality are closely related: for indexicals systematically exploit the contextual relations in which we stand to what we talk about. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 2.2) | |
A reaction: Recanati builds a nice case that we may only have an ontology of singular objects because we conceptualise and refer to things in a particular way. He denies the ontology, but that's the bit that interests me. |
16371 | Files can be confused, if two files correctly have a single name, or one file has two names [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Paderewski cases are cases in which a subject associates two distinct files with a single name. Inverse Paderewski cases are cases in which there are two names but the subject associates them with a single file. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 10.1) | |
A reaction: In the inverse there are two people with the same name, and someone thinks they are one person (with their combined virtues and vices). E.g. Einstein the famous physicist, and Einstein the famous musicologist. What a man! |
16373 | Encylopedic files have further epistemic links, beyond the basic one [Recanati] |
Full Idea: The reference of a file is the object to which the subject stands in the relevant epistemic relation. In the case of encylopedic entries there is an arbitrary number of distinct relations. The file grows new links in an opportunistic manner. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 11.3) | |
A reaction: I'm not convinced by Recanati's claim that encylopedic files are a distinct type. My files seem to grow these opportunistic links right from their inception. All files seem to have that feature. A file could have four links at its moment of launching. |
16375 | Singular thoughts need a mental file, and an acquaintance relation from file to object [Recanati] |
Full Idea: The mental file framework rests on two principles: that the subject cannot entertain a singular thought about an object without possessing and exercising a mental file about it, and that this requires an acquaintance relation with the object. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 12.3) | |
A reaction: I'm puzzled by the case where I design and build a completely new object. I seem to assemble a file, and only bestow singularity on it towards the end. Or the singularity can just be a placeholder, referred to as 'something'. […see p.158] |
16377 | Expected acquaintance can create a thought-vehicle file, but without singular content [Recanati] |
Full Idea: On my view, actual acquaintance is not necessary to open a mental file; expected acquaintance will suffice; yet opening a mental file itself is not sufficient to entertain a singular thought-content. It only enables a thought-vehicle. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 13.1) | |
A reaction: I'm not clear why I can't create a file with no expectation at all of acquaintance, as in a fictional case. Depends what 'acquaintance' means. Recanati longs for precise distinctions where they may not be available. |
16378 | An 'indexed' file marks a file which simulates the mental file of some other person [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Files function metarepresentationally if they serve to represent how other subjects think about objects in the world. ..An 'indexed' file has an index referring to the other subject whose files the indexed file stands for or simulates. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 14.1) | |
A reaction: Presumably there is an implicit index on all files, which says in a conversation whether my interlocutor does or does not hold the same file-type as me. Recanati wants many 'types' of files, but I suspect there is just one file type. |
16387 | Reference by mental files is Millian, in emphasising acquaintance, rather than satisfaction [Recanati] |
Full Idea: The mental file account preserves the original, Millian inspiration of direct reference theories in giving pride of place to acquaintance relations and downplaying satisfaction factors. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 17.3) | |
A reaction: I find this a very satisfying picture, in which reference links to the simple label of a file (which could be a number), and not to its contents. There are tricky cases of non-existents, fictional entities and purely possible entities to consider. |
16358 | The reference of a file is fixed by what it relates to, not the information it contains [Recanati] |
Full Idea: What files refer to is not determined by properties which the subject takes the referent to have (information, or misinformation, in the file), but through the relations on which the files are based. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 3.3) | |
A reaction: Maybe. 'Lot 22'. I can build up a hypothetical file by saying 'Imagine an animal which is F, G, H…', and build a reference that relates to nothing. Maybe Recanati overestimates the role of his 'epistemically rewarding' relations in file creation. |
16361 | A mental file treats all of its contents as concerning one object [Recanati] |
Full Idea: The role of a mental file is precisely to treat all the information as if it concerned one and the same object, from which it derives. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 4.1) | |
A reaction: Recanati's book focuses entirely on singular objects, but we presumably have files for properties, generalisation, groups etc. Can they only be thought about if they are reified? Maybe. |
16367 | There are transient 'demonstrative' files, habitual 'recognitional' files, cumulative 'encyclopedic' files [Recanati] |
Full Idea: A 'demonstrative' file only exists during the demonstrative relation to something; …a 'recognitional' file is based on 'familiarity' (a disposition to recognise); …an 'encylopedic' file contains all the information on something, however it is gained. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 6.1-3) | |
A reaction: [picked as samples of his taxonomy, pp.70-73] I'm OK with this as long as he doesn't think the categories are sharply separated. I'm inclined to think of files as a single type, drifting in and out of different of modes. |
16368 | Files are hierarchical: proto-files, then first-order, then higher-order encyclopedic [Recanati] |
Full Idea: There is a hierarchy of files. Proto-files are the most basic; conceptual files are generated from them. First-order ones are more basic, as the higher-order encylopedic entries presuppose them. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 6.3) | |
A reaction: This hierarchy might fit into a decent account of categories, if a plausible one could be found. A good prospect for exploring categories would be to start with mental file-types, and work outwards through their relations. |
16370 | A file has a 'nucleus' through its relation to the object, and a 'periphery' of links to other files [Recanati] |
Full Idea: I take a file to have a dual structure, with a 'nucleus' of the file consisting of information derived through the relevant epistemically rewarding relation, while the 'periphery' consists of information derived through linking with other files. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 8.3) | |
A reaction: This sounds strikingly like essentialism to me, though what constitutes the essence is different from the usual explanatory basics. The link, though, is in the causal connection. If we naturally 'essentialise', that will control file-formation. |
22242 | Mental files are concepts, which are either collections or (better) containers [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Mental files are entries in the mental encyclopedia, that is, concepts. Some, following Grice, say they are information collections, but I think of them as containers. Collections are determined by their elements, but containers have independent identity. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], Pref) | |
A reaction: [compressed] [Grice reference is 'Vacuous Names' (1969)] I agree with Recanati. The point is that you can invoke a file by a label, even when you don't know what the content is. |
22243 | The Frege case of believing a thing is both F and not-F is explained by separate mental files [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Frege's Constraint says if a subject believes an object is both F and not-F (as in 'Frege cases'), then the subject thinks of that object under distinct modes of presentation. Having distinct mental files of the object is sufficient to generate this. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], Pref) | |
A reaction: [compressed] When you look at how many semantic puzzles (notably from Frege and Kripke) are solved by the existence of labelled mental files, the case for them is overwhelming. |
16381 | The content of thought is what is required to understand it (which involves hearers) [Recanati] |
Full Idea: As Evans emphasises, what matters when we want to individuate semantic content is what would count as a proper understanding of an utterance; but 'understanding' defines the task of the hearer. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 16.2) | |
A reaction: [cites Evans 1982: 92, 143n, 171] I like to place (following Aristotle) understanding at the centre of all of philosophy, so this seems to me an appealing idea. It makes misunderstandings interesting. |
16365 | Mental files are individual concepts (thought constituents) [Recanati] |
Full Idea: I want mental files (properly speaking) to serve as individual concepts, i.e. thought constituents. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 5.3) | |
A reaction: This is why the concept of mental files is so neat - it gives you a theory of reference and a theory of concepts. I love the files approach because it precisely fits my own introspective experiences. Hope I'm not odd in that way. |
16356 | There may be two types of reference in language and thought: descriptive and direct [Recanati] |
Full Idea: A widely held view, originating with Russell, says there are two types of reference (both in language and thought): descriptive reference, and direct reference. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 3.2) | |
A reaction: I would rather say is there is just one sort of reference, and as many ways of achieving it as you care to come up with. With that view, most of the problems vanish, as far as I can see. People refer. Sentences are nothing but trouble. |
16393 | In super-direct reference, the referent serves as its own vehicle of reference [Recanati] |
Full Idea: In super-direct reference, the sort of thing Russell was after, there is no mode of presentation: the referent itself serves as its own vehicle, as it were. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 18.2) | |
A reaction: To me this is a step too far, because reference is not some physical object like a chair; it is a mental or linguistic phenomenon. Chair's don't refer themselves; it is people who refer. |
16386 | Direct reference is strong Millian (just a tag) or weak Kaplanian (allowing descriptions as well) [Recanati] |
Full Idea: There are two notions of direct reference, the strong Millian notion (where the expression is like a 'tag' with no satisfaction mechanism), and the weaker Kaplanian notion (where reference is compatible with carrying a descriptive meaning). | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 17.3) | |
A reaction: I immediately favour the Millian view, which gives a minimal basis for reference, as just a 'peg' (Marcus) to hang things on. I don't take a Millian reference to be the object itself. The concept of a 'tag' or 'label' is key. Mental files have tags. |
16372 | Sense determines reference says same sense/same reference; new reference means new sense [Recanati] |
Full Idea: To say that sense determines reference is to say that the same sense cannot determine distinct referents - any distinction at the level of reference entails a corresponding distinction at the level of sense. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 10.2) | |
A reaction: Does 'the sentry at the gate' change its sense when the guard is changed? Yes. 'The sentry at the gate will stop you'. 'The sentry at the gate is my cousin'. De re/de dicto reference. So changes of de re reference seem to change the sense? |
16388 | We need sense as well as reference, but in a non-descriptive form, and mental files do that [Recanati] |
Full Idea: My view inherits from Frege 'modes of presentation'. Reference is not enough, and sense is needed. …We must make room for non-descriptive modes of presentation, and these are mental files. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 18.1) | |
A reaction: [compressed] Recanati aims to avoid the standard Kripkean criticisms of descriptivism, while being able to handle Frege's puzzles. I take Recanati's mental files theory to be the most promising approach. |
16359 | Sense is a mental file (not its contents); similar files for Cicero and Tully are two senses [Recanati] |
Full Idea: What plays the role of sense is not information in a file, but the file itself. If there are two distinct files, one for 'Cicero' and one for 'Tully', then there are two distinct (non-descriptive) senses, even if the information in both files is the same. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 3.4) | |
A reaction: This may be the best idea in Recanati's book. A sense might be a 'way of coming at the information', rather than some set of descriptions. |
16355 | Problems with descriptivism are reference by perception, by communications and by indexicals [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Three problems with Frege's idea of descriptions in the head are: reference through perception, reference through communicative chains, and reference through indexicals. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 3.1) | |
A reaction: In the end reference has to occur in the head, even if it is social or causal or whatever, so these are not problems that worry me. |
16348 | Descriptivism says we mentally relate to objects through their properties [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Descriptivism is the view that our mental relation to individual objects goes through properties of those objects. …This is so because our knowledge of objects is mediated by our knowledge of their properties. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 1.1) | |
A reaction: The implication is that if you view an object as just a bundle of properties, then you are obliged to hold a descriptive theory of reference. Hence a 'singularist' theory of reference seems to need a primitive notion of an object's identity. |
16384 | Definite descriptions reveal either a predicate (attributive use) or the file it belongs in (referential) [Recanati] |
Full Idea: A definite description may contribute either the singular predicate it encodes (attributive use) or the mental file to what that predicate belongs (referential use). | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 17.1) | |
A reaction: This nicely explains Donnellan's distinction in terms of mental files. 'Green' may refer in a shop, but isn't much use in a wood. What to make of 'He's a bit of a Bismark'? |
16352 | A rigid definite description can be attributive, not referential: 'the actual F, whoever he is….' [Recanati] |
Full Idea: A rigid use of a definite description need not be referential: it may be attributive. Thus I may say: 'The actual F, whoever he is, is G'. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 2.2) | |
A reaction: Recanati offers this as a criticism of the attempted 2-D solution to descriptivist accounts of singularity. The singularity is not strong enough, he says. |
22245 | A linguistic expression refers to what its associated mental file refers to [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Mental files determine the reference of linguistic expressions: an expression refers to what the mental file associated with it refers to (at the time of tokening). | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 5) | |
A reaction: Invites the question of how mental files manage to refer, prior to the arrival of a linguistic expression. A mental file is usually fully of descriptions, but it might be no more than a label. |
16353 | Singularity cannot be described, and it needs actual world relations [Recanati] |
Full Idea: As Peirce insisted, singularity as such cannot be described, it can only be given through actual world relations. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 2.2) | |
A reaction: [Peirce - Exact Logic, Papers 3, 1967, §419] This is the key idea for Recanati's case for basing our grasp of singular things on their relation to a mental file. |
16382 | Fregean modes of presentation can be understood as mental files [Recanati] |
Full Idea: A mental file plays the role which Fregean theory assigns to modes of presentation. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 17.1) | |
A reaction: I'm a fan of mental files, and this is a nice pointer to how the useful Fregean insights can be written in a way better grounded in brain operations. Rewriting Frege in neuroscience terms is a nice project for someone. |
16389 | If two people think 'I am tired', they think the same thing, and they think different things [Recanati] |
Full Idea: If you and I think 'I am tired', there is a sense in which we think the same thing, and another sense in which we think different things. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 18.1) | |
A reaction: This is a very nice simple account of the semantic distinctiveness of indexicals, which obviously requires a 'two-tiered framework'. He cites Kaplan and Perry as background. |
16363 | Indexicals (like mental files) determine their reference relationally, not by satisfaction [Recanati] |
Full Idea: The class of indexicals have the same property as mental files, that their reference is determined relationally rather than satisfactionally. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 5.1) | |
A reaction: Recanati is building an account of reference through mental files. This idea may be the clearest point I have yet encountered about indexicals, showing why they are of particular interest to philosophers. |
16364 | Indexical don't refer; only their tokens do [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Indexicals do not refer; only tokens of an indexical refer | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 5.1) | |
A reaction: Thus 'Thurs 23rd March 2013' refers, but 'now' doesn't, unless someone produces an utterance of it. This is why indexicals are sometimes called 'token-reflexives'. |
16351 | In 2-D semantics, reference is determined, then singularity by the truth of a predication [Recanati] |
Full Idea: In the two-dimensional framework, what characterises the singular case is the fact that truth-evaluation (of possessing of the reference-fixing property) takes place at a later stage than reference determination. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 2.1) | |
A reaction: This sounds psychologically plausible, which is a big (and unfashionable) plus for me. 1) what are we talking about? 2) what are we saying about it, 3) is it true? |
16350 | Two-D semantics is said to help descriptivism of reference deal with singular objects [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Descriptivism has trouble catching the singularity of objects, construing them as only directly about properties. …To get the truth-conditions right, it is claimed, the descriptivist only as to go two-dimensional. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 2.1) | |
A reaction: I suspect that the descriptivist only has a problem here because context is being ignored. 'That man on the beach' can quickly be made uniquely singular after a brief chat. |
16380 | Russellian propositions are better than Fregean thoughts, by being constant through communication [Recanati] |
Full Idea: The Russellian notion of a proposition is arguably a better candidate for the status of semantic content than the Fregean notion of a thought. For the proposition remains constant from one person to the next. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 16.2) | |
A reaction: A good point, though I rebel against Russellian propositions because they are too much out in the world, and propositions strike me as features of minds. We need to keep propositions separate from facts. |
22250 | There are speakers' thoughts and hearers' thoughts, but no further thought attached to the utterance [Recanati] |
Full Idea: There is the speaker's thought and the thought formed by the hearer. That is all there is. We don't need an additional entity, the thought expressed by the utterance. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 7.2) | |
A reaction: This fits my view of propositions nicely. They are the two 'thoughts'. The notion of some further abstract 'proposition' with its own mode of independent existence strikes me as ontologically absurd. |
22249 | The Naive view of communication is that hearers acquire exactly the thoughts of the speaker [Recanati] |
Full Idea: The Naive Conception of Communication rests on the idea that communication is the replication of thoughts: the thought the hearer entertains when he understands what the speaker is saying is the very thought which the speaker expressed. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 7.1) | |
A reaction: It is hard to believe that any modern thinker would believe such a view, given holistic views of language etc. |
8442 | What law would explain causation in the case of causing a table to come into existence? [Sosa] |
Full Idea: If I fasten a board onto a tree stump, causing a table to come into existence, ...what law of nature or, even, what quasi-law or law-like principle could possibly play in such a case of generation the role required by nomological accounts? | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Varieties of Causation [1980], 1) | |
A reaction: A very nice question. The nomological account is at its strongest when rocks fall off walls or magnets attract, but all sorts of other caused events seem too messy or complex or original to fit the story. |
8445 | The necessitated is not always a result or consequence of the necessitator [Sosa] |
Full Idea: The necessitated is not always a result or consequence of the necessitator. If p-and-q is a fact, then this necessitates that p, but the fact that p need not be a result or consequence of the fact that p-and-q. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Varieties of Causation [1980], p.242) | |
A reaction: This is obviously correct, and needs to be borne in mind when considering necessary causation. It is not enough to produce a piece of logic; something in the link from cause to effect must be demonstrated to be necessary. |
8444 | Where is the necessary causation in the three people being tall making everybody tall? [Sosa] |
Full Idea: It is not clear how to analyse the form of necessary causation found in the only three people in the room being tall causing everybody in the room to be tall. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Varieties of Causation [1980], 5) | |
A reaction: I would want to challenge this as a case of causation. There are no events or processes involved. It seems that a situation described in one way can also be described in another. |