Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Archimedes, Pindar and George Bealer

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7 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / b. Names as descriptive

9455	Maybe proper names have the content of fixing a thing's category [Bealer]
	Full Idea: Some say that proper names have no descriptive content, but others think that although a name does not have the right sort of descriptive content which fixes a unique referent, it has a content which fixes the sort or category to which it belongs.
	From: George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §7)
	A reaction: Presumably 'Mary', and 'Felix', and 'Rover', and 'Smallville' are cases in point. There is a well known journalist called 'Manchester', a famous man called 'Hilary', a village in Hertfordshire called 'Matching Tie'... Interesting, though.

5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 2. Descriptions / b. Definite descriptions

9454	The four leading theories of definite descriptions are Frege's, Russell's, Evans's, and Prior's [Bealer]
	Full Idea: The four leading theories of definite descriptions are Frege's, Russell's, Evans's, and Prior's, ...of which to many Frege's is the most intuitive of the four. Frege says they refer to the unique item (if it exists) which satisfies the predicate.
	From: George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §5)
	A reaction: He doesn't expound the other three, but I record this a corrective to the view that Russell has the only game in town.

6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 3. Axioms for Geometry

13007	Archimedes defined a straight line as the shortest distance between two points [Archimedes, by Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Archimedes gave a sort of definition of 'straight line' when he said it is the shortest line between two points.
	From: report of Archimedes (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Gottfried Leibniz - New Essays on Human Understanding 4.13
	A reaction: Commentators observe that this reduces the purity of the original Euclidean axioms, because it involves distance and measurement, which are absent from the purest geometry.

19. Language / D. Propositions / 1. Propositions

9453	Sentences saying the same with the same rigid designators may still express different propositions [Bealer]
	Full Idea: The propositions behind 'Cicero is emulated more than Tully' seems to differ somehow from 'Tully is emulated more than Cicero', despite the proper names being rigid designators.
	From: George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §1)
	A reaction: Interesting, because this isn't a directly propositional attitude situation like 'believes', though it depends on such things. Bealer says this is a key modern difficulty with propositions.

9452	Propositions might be reduced to functions (worlds to truth values), or ordered sets of properties and relations [Bealer]
	Full Idea: The reductionist view of propositions sees them as either extensional functions from possible worlds to truth values, or as ordered sets of properties, relations, and perhaps particulars.
	From: George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §1)
	A reaction: The usual problem of all functional accounts is 'what is it about x that enables it to have that function?' And if they are sets, where does the ordering come in? A proposition isn't just a list of items in some particular order. Both wrong.

19. Language / D. Propositions / 2. Abstract Propositions / a. Propositions as sense

9451	Modal logic and brain science have reaffirmed traditional belief in propositions [Bealer]
	Full Idea: Philosophers have been skeptical about abstract objects, and so have been skeptical about propositions,..but with the rise of modal logic and metaphysics, and cognitive science's realism about intentional states, traditional propositions are now dominant.
	From: George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §1)
	A reaction: I personally strongly favour belief in propositions as brain states, which don't need a bizarre ontological status, but are essential to explain language, reasoning and communication.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention

6017	Nomos is king [Pindar]
	Full Idea: Nomos is king.
	From: Pindar (poems [c.478 BCE], S 169), quoted by Thomas Nagel - The Philosophical Culture
	A reaction: This seems to be the earliest recorded shot in the nomos-physis wars (the debate among sophists about moral relativism). It sounds as if it carries the full relativist burden - that all that matters is what has been locally decreed.