53 ideas
| 4456 | Epistemological Ockham's Razor demands good reasons, but the ontological version says reality is simple [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Ockham's Razor has an epistemological version, which says we should not multiply existences or explanations without adequate reason, and an ontological version, which says reality is simple, and so a simpler ontology represents it more accurately. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: A nice distinction. Is it reality which is simple, or us? One shouldn't write off the ontological version. If one explanation is simpler than the others, there may be a reason in nature for that. |
| 12223 | It is a fallacy to explain the obscure with the even more obscure [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: The fallacy of 'ad obscurum per obscurius' is to explain the obscure by appeal to what is more obscure. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §3) | |
| A reaction: Not strictly a fallacy, so much as an example of inadequate explanation, along with circularity and infinite regresses. |
| 12230 | Singular terms refer if they make certain atomic statements true [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: Anyone should agree that a justification for regarding a singular term as having objectual reference is provided just as soon as one has justification for regarding as true certain atomic statements in which it functions as a singular term. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §9) | |
| A reaction: The meat of this idea is hidden in the word 'certain'. See Idea 10314 for Hale's explanation. Without that, the proposal strikes me as absurd. |
| 10631 | If 'x is heterological' iff it does not apply to itself, then 'heterological' is heterological if it isn't heterological [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: If we stipulate that 'x is heterological' iff it does not apply to itself, we speedily arrive at the contradiction that 'heterological' is itself heterological just in case it is not. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (Intro to 'The Reason's Proper Study' [2001], 3.2) |
| 10624 | The incompletability of formal arithmetic reveals that logic also cannot be completely characterized [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: The incompletability of formal arithmetic reveals, not arithmetical truths which are not truths of logic, but that logical truth likewise defies complete deductive characterization. ...Gödel's result has no specific bearing on the logicist project. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (Intro to 'The Reason's Proper Study' [2001], §2 n5) | |
| A reaction: This is the key defence against the claim that Gödel's First Theorem demolished logicism. |
| 8784 | Neo-logicism founds arithmetic on Hume's Principle along with second-order logic [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: The result of joining Hume's Principle to second-order logic is a consistent system which is a foundation for arithmetic, in the sense that all the fundamental laws of arithmetic are derivable within it as theorems. This seems a vindication of logicism. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (Logicism in the 21st Century [2007], 1) | |
| A reaction: The controversial part seems to be second-order logic, which Quine (for example) vigorously challenged. The contention against most attempts to improve Frege's logicism is that they thereby cease to be properly logical. |
| 8787 | The Julius Caesar problem asks for a criterion for the concept of a 'number' [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: The Julius Caesar problem is the problem of supplying a criterion of application for 'number', and thereby setting it up as the concept of a genuine sort of object. (Why is Julius Caesar not a number?) | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (Logicism in the 21st Century [2007], 3) | |
| A reaction: One response would be to deny that numbers are objects. Another would be to derive numbers from their application in counting objects, rather than the other way round. I suspect that the problem only real bothers platonists. Serves them right. |
| 10629 | If structures are relative, this undermines truth-value and objectivity [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: The relativization of ontology to theory in structuralism can't avoid carrying with it a relativization of truth-value, which would compromise the objectivity which structuralists wish to claim for mathematics. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (Intro to 'The Reason's Proper Study' [2001], 3.2 n26) | |
| A reaction: This is the attraction of structures which grow out of the physical world, where truth-value is presumably not in dispute. |
| 10628 | The structural view of numbers doesn't fit their usage outside arithmetical contexts [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: It is not clear how the view that natural numbers are purely intra-structural 'objects' can be squared with the widespread use of numerals outside purely arithmetical contexts. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (Intro to 'The Reason's Proper Study' [2001], 3.2 n26) | |
| A reaction: I don't understand this objection. If they refer to quantity, they are implicitly cardinal. If they name things in a sequence they are implicitly ordinal. All users of numbers have a grasp of the basic structure. |
| 8788 | Logicism is only noteworthy if logic has a privileged position in our ontology and epistemology [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: It is only if logic is metaphysically and epistemologically privileged that a reduction of mathematical theories to logical ones can be philosophically any more noteworthy than a reduction of any mathematical theory to any other. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (Logicism in the 21st Century [2007], 8) | |
| A reaction: It would be hard to demonstrate this privileged position, though intuitively there is nothing more basic in human rationality. That may be a fact about us, but it doesn't make logic basic to nature, which is where proper reduction should be heading. |
| 10622 | The neo-Fregean is more optimistic than Frege about contextual definitions of numbers [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: The neo-Fregean takes a more optimistic view than Frege of the prospects for the kind of contextual explanation of the fundamental concepts of arithmetic and analysis (cardinals and reals), which he rejected in 'Grundlagen' 60-68. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (Intro to 'The Reason's Proper Study' [2001], §1) |
| 8783 | Logicism might also be revived with a quantificational approach, or an abstraction-free approach [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: Two modern approaches to logicism are the quantificational approach of David Bostock, and the abstraction-free approach of Neil Tennant. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (Logicism in the 21st Century [2007], 1 n2) | |
| A reaction: Hale and Wright mention these as alternatives to their own view. I merely catalogue them for further examination. My immediate reaction is that Bostock sounds hopeless and Tennant sounds interesting. |
| 12225 | Neo-Fregeanism might be better with truth-makers, rather than quantifier commitment [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: A third way has been offered to 'make sense' of neo-Fregeanism: we should reject Quine's well-known criterion of ontological commitment in favour of one based on 'truth-maker theory'. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §4 n19) | |
| A reaction: [The cite Ross Cameron for this] They reject this proposal, on the grounds that truth-maker theory is not sufficient to fix the grounding truth-conditions of statements. |
| 12224 | Are neo-Fregeans 'maximalists' - that everything which can exist does exist? [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: It is claimed that neo-Fregeans are committed to 'maximalism' - that whatever can exist does. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §4) | |
| A reaction: [The cite Eklund] They observe that maximalism denies contingent non-existence (of the £20 note I haven't got). There seems to be the related problem of 'hyperinflation', that if abstract objects are generated logically, the process is unstoppable. |
| 4474 | Existence theories must match experience, possibility, logic and knowledge, and not be self-defeating [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: A theory of existence should 1) be consistent with what actually exists, 2) be consistent with what could exist, 3) not make existence impossible (e.g. in space-time), 4) not violate logic, 5) make knowing the theory possible. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: A nice bit of metaphilosophical analysis. I still doubt whether a theory of existence is possible (something has to be 'given' a priori), but this is a good place to start the attempt. |
| 12226 | The identity of Pegasus with Pegasus may be true, despite the non-existence [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: Identity is sometimes read so that 'Pegasus is Pegasus' expresses a truth, the non-existence of any winged horse notwithstanding. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §5) | |
| A reaction: This would give you ontological commitment to truth, without commitment to existence. It undercuts the use of identity statements as the basis of existence claims, which was Frege's strategy. |
| 12229 | Maybe we have abundant properties for semantics, and sparse properties for ontology [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: There is a compatibilist view which says that it is for the abundant properties to play the role of 'bedeutungen' in semantic theory, and the sparse ones to address certain metaphysical concerns. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §9) | |
| A reaction: Only a philosopher could live with the word 'property' having utterly different extensions in different areas of discourse. They similarly bifurcate words like 'object' and 'exist'. Call properties 'quasi-properties' and I might join in. |
| 18443 | A successful predicate guarantees the existence of a property - the way of being it expresses [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: The good standing of a predicate is already trivially sufficient to ensure the existence of an associated property, a (perhaps complex) way of being which the predicate serves to express. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §9) | |
| A reaction: 'Way of being' is interesting. Is 'being near Trafalgar Sq' a way of being? I take properties to be 'features', which seems to give a clearer way of demarcating them. They say they are talking about 'abundant' (rather than 'sparse') properties. |
| 4461 | Tropes are like Hume's 'impressions', conceived as real rather than as ideal [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Tropes are (says Campbell) substances (in Hume's sense), and indeed resemble his impressions conceived realistically rather than idealistically. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: An interesting link. It doesn't get rid of the problem Hume has, of saying when two impressions are the same. Are they types or tokens? Trope-theory claims they are tokens. Hume's ontology includes 'resemblance'. |
| 4462 | A colour-trope cannot be simple (as required), because it is spread in space, and so it is complex [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: A property-instance must be spread out in space, or it is not clear how a colour nature can be present, but then it has to be a complex entity, and tropes are supposed to be simple entities. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Seems a fair point. Nothing else in reality can be sharply distinguished, so why should 'simple' and 'complex'? |
| 4463 | In 'four colours were used in the decoration', colours appear to be universals, not tropes [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: If a decorator says that they used four colours to decorate a house, four tropes is not what was meant, and the statement seems to view colours as universals. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Although I am suspicious of using language to deduce ontology, you have to explain why certain statements (like this) are even possible to make. |
| 4451 | If properties are universals, what distinguishes two things which have identical properties? [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: If properties are universals, what account can be given of the individuation of two entities that have all their pure properties in common? | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Is this a big problem? Maybe only a space-time location can do it. Or, in the nice case where the universe is just two identical spheres, it may be impossible. |
| 4453 | One realism is one-over-many, which may be the model/copy view, which has the Third Man problem [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: One version of realism says that the universal does not enter into the being of its instances, and thus is a One-Over-Many. One version of this is the model/copy view, but this is not widely held, because of difficulties such as the Third Man Argument. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This presumably arises if the model is held to have the properties of the copy (self-predication), and looks like a bad theory |
| 4464 | Realists see properties as universals, which are single abstract entities which are multiply exemplifiable [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Traditional realism is the view that a property is a universal construed as a multiply exemplifiable abstract entity that is a numerically identical constituent in each of its instances. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: Put like that, it seems hard to commit oneself fully to realism. How can two red buses contain one abstract object spread out between them. Common sense says there are two 'rednesses' which resemble one another, which is a version of nominalism. |
| 4449 | Evidence for universals can be found in language, communication, natural laws, classification and ideals [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Those who believe in universals appeal to the meaningfulness of language, the lawlike nature of causation, the inter-subjectivity of thinking, our ability to classify new entities, gradation, and the need for perfect standards or paradigms. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Of these, language and communication ought to be explicable by convention, but classification and natural laws look to me like the best evidence. |
| 4450 | The traditional problem of universals centres on the "One over Many", which is the unity of natural classes [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Historically the problem of universals has mainly been about the "One over Many", which involves giving an account of the unity of natural classes. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This still strikes me as the main problem (rather than issues of language). If universals are not natural, they must be analysed as properties, which break down into causation, which is seen as a human convention. |
| 4454 | The One-In-Many view says universals have abstract existence, but exist in particulars [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Another version of realism says is One-In-Many, where the universal is not another particular, but is literally in the instances. The universal is an abstract entity, in the instances by means of a primitive non-spatiotemporal tie of predication. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like Aristotle (and is Loux's view of properties and relations). If they are abstract, why must they be confined to particulars? |
| 4468 | How could 'being even', or 'being a father', or a musical interval, exist naturally in space? [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Many properties (being even) and relations (musical intervals, being a father) are such that it is not clear what it would mean to take them as natural things existing in space. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: 'Being even' certainly seems to be a property, and it is a struggle to see how it could exist in space, unless it is a set of actual or potential brain states. |
| 4452 | Maybe universals are real, if properties themselves have properties, and relate to other properties [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Realism about universals is supported by the phenomenon of abstract reference - that is the fact that properties themselves have properties ('red is a colour'), and stand in relation to other properties ('red is more like orange than like blue'). | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: While a property may be an obviously natural feature, properties of properties seem more likely to be the produce of human perception and convention. It is a good argument, though. |
| 4467 | A naturalist and realist about universals is forced to say redness can be both moving and stationary [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: If a property is held to be at the location of the particular, then if there are two objects having the same property, and one object is stationary and the other is moving, the realist is forced to say that the universal is both moving and at rest. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: The target of this comment is D.M.Armstrong. The example nicely illustrates the problem of trying to combine science and metaphysics. It pushes you back to Platonism, but that seems wrong too… |
| 4469 | There are spatial facts about red particulars, but not about redness itself [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: When one attends to something existing in space, one attends to an instance of redness, not to redness itself (which is a colour, which resembles orange). The facts about red itself are not spatial facts, but are traditionally seen as a priori synthetic. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: This is the fact that properties can themselves have properties (and so on?), which seems to take us further and further from the natural world. |
| 4472 | Redness is independent of red things, can do without them, has its own properties, and has identity [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Four arguments for Platonism: 1) there are truths about redness (it's a colour) even if nothing red exists, 2) redness does not depend on particulars, 3) most universals are at some time not exemplified, 4) universals satisfy the criteria of existence. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: This adds up to quite a good case, particularly the point that things can be said about redness which are independent of any particular, but the relationships between concepts and the brain seems at the heart of the problem. |
| 4459 | Moderate nominalism attempts to embrace the existence of properties while avoiding universals [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Moderate nominalism attempts to embrace the existence of properties while avoiding universals. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Clearly there is going to be quite a struggle to make sense of 'exists' here (Russell tries 'subsists). Presumably each property must be a particular? |
| 4458 | Unlike Class Nominalism, Resemblance Nominalism can distinguish natural from unnatural classes [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Resemblance Nominalism is clearly superior to Class Nominalism, since the former offers a clear ground for distinguishing between natural and unnatural classes. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Important. It seems evident to me that there are natural classes, and the only ground for this claim would be either the resemblance or the identity of properties. |
| 4457 | There can be predicates with no property, and there are properties with no predicate [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Linguistic predicates are neither sufficient nor necessary for specifying a property. Predicates can be contrived which express no property, properties are far more numerous than linguistic predicates, and properties are what make predicates apply. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me conclusive, and is a crucial argument against anyone who thinks that our metaphysics can simply be inferred from our language. |
| 4471 | We should abandon the concept of a property since (unlike sets) their identity conditions are unclear [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Some argue that compared to sets, the identity conditions for properties are obscure, and so properties, including realist depictions of them, should be rejected. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: I have never thought that difficulty in precisely identifying something was a good reason for denying its existence. Consider low morale in a work force. 2nd thoughts: I like this! |
| 10626 | Objects just are what singular terms refer to [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: Objects, as distinct from entities of other types (properties, relations or, more generally, functions of different types and levels), just are what (actual or possible) singular terms refer to. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (Intro to 'The Reason's Proper Study' [2001], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: I find this view very bizarre and hard to cope with. It seems either to preposterously accept the implications of the way we speak into our ontology ('sakes'?), or preposterously bend the word 'object' away from its normal meaning. |
| 12066 | Aristotelian and Kripkean essentialism are very different theories [Witt] |
| Full Idea: The differences between Aristotelian essentialism and Kripke's essentialism are so fundamental and pervasive that it is a serious distortion of both views to think of essentialism as a single theory. | |
| From: Charlotte Witt (Substance and Essence in Aristotle [1989], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me to be very important, because there is a glib assumption that when essentialism is needed for modal logic, that we must immediately have embraced what Aristotle was saying. Aristotle was better than Kripke. |
| 12067 | An Aristotelian essence is a nonlinguistic correlate of the definition [Witt] |
| Full Idea: An Aristotelian essence is a nonlinguistic correlate of the definition of the entity in question. | |
| From: Charlotte Witt (Substance and Essence in Aristotle [1989], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This is a simple and necessity corrective to the simplistic idea that Aristotle thought that essences just were definitions. Aristotle believes in real essences, not linguistic essences. |
| 12082 | If unity is a matter of degree, then essence may also be a matter of degree [Witt] |
| Full Idea: By holding that the most unified beings have essences in an unqualified sense, while allowing that other beings have them in a qualified sense - we can think of unity as a matter of degree. | |
| From: Charlotte Witt (Substance and Essence in Aristotle [1989], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: This is Witt's somewhat unorthodox view of how we should read Aristotle. I am sympathetic, if essences are really explanatory. That means they are unstable, and would indeed be likely to come in degrees. |
| 12089 | Essences mainly explain the existence of unified substance [Witt] |
| Full Idea: The central function of essence is to explain the actual existence of a unified substance. | |
| From: Charlotte Witt (Substance and Essence in Aristotle [1989], 5 n1) | |
| A reaction: She is offering an interpretation of Aristotle. Since existence is an active and not a passive matter, the identity of the entity will include its dispositions etc., I presume. |
| 12102 | Essential properties of origin are too radically individual for an Aristotelian essence [Witt] |
| Full Idea: The radical individuality of essential properties of origin makes them unsuitable for inclusion in an Aristotelian essence. | |
| From: Charlotte Witt (Substance and Essence in Aristotle [1989], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: Nevertheless, Aristotle believes in individual essences, though these seem to be fixed by definitions, which are composed of combinations of universals. The uniqueness is of the whole definition, not of its parts. |
| 4476 | Most philosophers think that the identity of indiscernibles is false [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Most philosophers think that the identity of indiscernibles is false. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: This is as opposed to the generally accepted 'indiscernibility of identicals'. 'Discernment' is an epistemological concept, and 'identity' is an ontological concept. |
| 4460 | Abstractions are formed by the mind when it concentrates on some, but not all, the features of a thing [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: If something is 'abstract' it is got before the mind by an act of abstraction, that is, by concentrating attention on some (but not all) of what is presented. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Presumably it usually involves picking out the behavioural or causal features, and leaving out the physical features - though I suppose it works for physical properties too… |
| 4455 | It is always open to a philosopher to claim that some entity or other is unanalysable [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: It is always open to a philosopher to claim that some entity or other is unanalysable. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: For example, Davidson on truth. There is an onus to demonstrate why all attempted analyses fail. |
| 10630 | Abstracted objects are not mental creations, but depend on equivalence between given entities [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: The new kind of abstract objects are not creations of the human mind. ...The existence of such objects depends upon whether or not the relevant equivalence relation holds among the entities of the presupposed kind. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (Intro to 'The Reason's Proper Study' [2001], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: It seems odd that we no longer have any choice about what abstract objects we use, and that we can't evade them if the objects exist, and can't have them if the objects don't exist - and presumably destruction of the objects kills the concept? |
| 8786 | One first-order abstraction principle is Frege's definition of 'direction' in terms of parallel lines [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: An example of a first-order abstraction principle is Frege's definition of 'direction' in terms of parallel lines; a higher-order example (which refers to first-order predicates) defines 'equinumeral' in terms of one-to-one correlation (Hume's Principle). | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (Logicism in the 21st Century [2007], 1) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This is the way modern logicians now treat abstraction, but abstraction principles include the elusive concept of 'equivalence' of entities, which may be no more than that the same adjective ('parallel') can be applied to them. |
| 12227 | Abstractionism needs existential commitment and uniform truth-conditions [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: Abstractionism needs a face-value, existentially committed reading of the terms occurring on the left-hand sides together with sameness of truth-conditions across the biconditional. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §5) | |
| A reaction: They employ 'abstractionism' to mean their logical Fregean strategy for defining abstractions, not to mean the older psychological account. Thus the truth-conditions for being 'parallel' and for having the 'same direction' must be consistent. |
| 12228 | Equivalence abstraction refers to objects otherwise beyond our grasp [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: Abstraction principles purport to introduce fundamental means of reference to a range of objects, to which there is accordingly no presumption that we have any prior or independent means of reference. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §8) | |
| A reaction: There's the rub! They make it sound like a virtue, that we open up yet another heaven of abstract toys to play with. As fictions, they are indeed exciting new fun. As platonic discoveries they strike me as Cloud-Cuckoo Land. |
| 12231 | Reference needs truth as well as sense [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: It takes, over and above the possession of sense, the truth of relevant contexts to ensure reference. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §9) | |
| A reaction: Reference purely through sense was discredited by Kripke. The present idea challenges Kripke's baptismal realist approach. How do you 'baptise' an abstract object? But isn't reference needed prior to the establishment of truth? |
| 10627 | Many conceptual truths ('yellow is extended') are not analytic, as derived from logic and definitions [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: There are many statements which are plausibly viewed as conceptual truths (such as 'what is yellow is extended') which do not qualify as analytic under Frege's definition (as provable using only logical laws and definitions). | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (Intro to 'The Reason's Proper Study' [2001], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: Presumably this is because the early assumptions of Frege were mathematical and logical, and he was trying to get away from Kant. That yellow is extended is a truth for non-linguistic beings. |
| 12085 | Reality is directional [Witt] |
| Full Idea: Reality is directional. | |
| From: Charlotte Witt (Substance and Essence in Aristotle [1989], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: [Plucked from context! She attributes the view to Aristotle] This slogan beautifully summarises the 'scientific essentialist' view of reality, based not on so-called 'laws', but on the active powers of the stuffs of reality. |
| 4473 | 'Presentism' is the view that only the present moment exists [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: 'Presentism' is the view that only the present moment exists. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: And Greek scepticism doubted even the present, since there is no space between past and future. It is a delightfully vertigo-inducing idea. |