26 ideas
| 3123 | Science is in the business of carving nature at the joints [Segal] |
| Full Idea: Science is in the business of carving nature at the joints. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 5) |
| 3125 | Psychology studies the way rationality links desires and beliefs to causality [Segal] |
| Full Idea: A person's desires and beliefs tend to cause what they tend to rationalise. This coordination of causality and rationalisation lies at the heart of psychology. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 5.3) |
| 15375 | If terms change their designations in different states, they are functions from states to objects [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: The common feature of every designating term is that designation may change from state to state - thus it can be formalized by a function from states to objects. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], 3) | |
| A reaction: Specifying the objects sounds OK, but specifying states sounds rather tough. |
| 15376 | Intensional logic adds a second type of quantification, over intensional objects, or individual concepts [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: To first order modal logic (with quantification over objects) we can add a second kind of quantification, over intensions. An intensional object, or individual concept, will be modelled by a function from states to objects. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], 3.3) |
| 15378 | Awareness logic adds the restriction of an awareness function to epistemic logic [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: Awareness logic enriched Hintikka's epistemic models with an awareness function, mapping each state to the set of formulas we are aware of at that state. This reflects some bound on the resources we can bring to bear. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], 3.6.1) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Fagin and Halpern 1988 for this] |
| 15379 | Justication logics make explicit the reasons for mathematical truth in proofs [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: In justification logics, the logics of knowledge are extended by making reasons explicit. A logic of proof terms was created, with a semantics. In this, mathematical truths are known for explicit reasons, and these provide a measure of complexity. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], 3.6.1) |
| 11026 | Classical logic is deliberately extensional, in order to model mathematics [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: Mathematics is typically extensional throughout (we write 3+2=2+3 despite the two terms having different meanings). ..Classical first-order logic is extensional by design since it primarily evolved to model the reasoning of mathematics. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], §1) |
| 11028 | λ-abstraction disambiguates the scope of modal operators [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: λ-abstraction can be used to abstract and disambiguate a predicate. De re is [λx◊P(x)](f) - f has the possible-P property - and de dicto is ◊[λxP(x)](f) - possibly f has the P-property. Also applies to □. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], §3.3) | |
| A reaction: Compare the Barcan formula. Originated with Church in the 1930s, and Carnap 1947, but revived by Stalnaker and Thomason 1968. Because it refers to the predicate, it has a role in intensional versions of logic, especially modal logic. |
| 3105 | Is 'Hesperus = Phosphorus' metaphysically necessary, but not logically or epistemologically necessary? [Segal] |
| Full Idea: It is metaphysically necessary that Hesperus is Phosphorus, but not logically necessary, since logical deduction could not reveal its truth, and it is not epistemologically necessary, as the ancient Greeks didn't know the identity. (Natural necessity?) | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 1.6) |
| 3106 | If claims of metaphysical necessity are based on conceivability, we should be cautious [Segal] |
| Full Idea: Since conceivability is the chief method of assessing the claims of metaphysical necessity, I think such claims are incautious. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 1.6) |
| 15377 | Definite descriptions pick out different objects in different possible worlds [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: Definite descriptions pick out different objects in different possible worlds quite naturally. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: A definite description can pick out the same object in another possible world, or a very similar one, or an object which has almost nothing in common with the others. |
| 3113 | The success and virtue of an explanation do not guarantee its truth [Segal] |
| Full Idea: The success and virtue of an explanation do not guarantee its truth. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.2) |
| 3112 | Folk psychology is ridiculously dualist in its assumptions [Segal] |
| Full Idea: Commonsense psychology is a powerful explanatory theory, and largely correct, but it seems to be profoundly dualist, and treats minds as immaterial spirits which can transmigrate and exist disembodied. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: Fans of folk psychology tend to focus on central normal experience, but folk psychology also seems to range from quirky to barking mad. A 'premonition' is a widely accepted mental event. |
| 3108 | If 'water' has narrow content, it refers to both H2O and XYZ [Segal] |
| Full Idea: My view is that the concepts of both the Earth person and the Twin Earth person refer to BOTH forms of diamonds or water (H2O and XYZ). | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 1.7) | |
| A reaction: Fair enough, though that seems to imply that my current concepts may actually refer to all sorts of items of which I am currently unaware. But that may be so. |
| 3110 | Humans are made of H2O, so 'twins' aren't actually feasible [Segal] |
| Full Idea: Humans are largely made of H2O, so there could be no twin on Twin Earth, and (as Kuhn noted) nothing with a significantly different structure from H2O could be macroscopically very like water (but topaz and citrine will do). | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: A small point, but one that appeals to essentialists like me (see under Natural Theory/Laws of Nature). We can't learn much metaphysics from impossible examples. |
| 3124 | Externalists can't assume old words refer to modern natural kinds [Segal] |
| Full Idea: The question of what a pre-scientific term extends over is extremely difficult for a Putnam-style externalist to answer. …There seems no good reason to assume that they extend over natural kinds ('whale', 'cat', 'water'). | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: The assumption seems to be that they used to extend over descriptions, and now they extend over essences, or expert references. This can't be right. They have never changed, but now contain fewer errors. |
| 3117 | Concepts can survive a big change in extension [Segal] |
| Full Idea: We need to think of concepts as organic entities that can persist through changes of extension. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: This would be 'organic' in the sense of modifying and growing. This is exactly right, and the interesting problem becomes the extreme cases, where an individual stretches a concept a long way. |
| 3104 | Must we relate to some diamonds to understand them? [Segal] |
| Full Idea: Is a relationship with diamonds necessary for having a concept of diamonds? | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: Probably not, given that I have a concept of kryptonite, and that I can invent my own concepts. Suppose I was brought up to believe that diamonds are a myth? |
| 3103 | Maybe content involves relations to a language community [Segal] |
| Full Idea: It has been argued (e.g. by Tyler Burge) that certain relations to other language users are determinants of content. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: Burge's idea (with Wittgenstein behind him) strikes me as plausible (more plausible than water and elms determining the content). Our concepts actually shift during conversations. |
| 3111 | Externalism can't explain concepts that have no reference [Segal] |
| Full Idea: Empty terms and concepts provide the largest problem for the externalist thesis of the world dependence of concepts. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: A speculative concept could then become a reality (e.g. an invention). The solution seems to be to say that there is an internal and an external component to most concepts. |
| 3109 | If content is external, so are beliefs and desires [Segal] |
| Full Idea: If we accept Putnam's externalist conclusion about the meaning of a word, it is a short step to a similar conclusion about the contents of the twins' beliefs, desires and so on. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: This is the key step which has launched a whole new externalist view of the nature of the mind. It is one thing to say that I don't quite know what my words mean, another that I don't know my own beliefs. |
| 3116 | Maybe experts fix content, not ordinary users [Segal] |
| Full Idea: Putnam and Burge claim that there could be two words that a misinformed subject uses to express different concepts, but that express just one concept of the experts. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: This pushes the concept outside the mind of the user, which leaves an ontological problem of what concepts are made of, how you individuate them, and where they are located. |
| 3121 | If content is narrow, my perfect twin shares my concepts [Segal] |
| Full Idea: To say that contents of my belief are narrow is to say that they are intrinsic to me, hence that any perfect twin of mine would have beliefs with the same contents. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 5) | |
| A reaction: I personally find this more congenial than externalism. If my twin and I studied chemistry, we would reach identical conclusions about water, as long as we remained perfect twins. |
| 3118 | If thoughts ARE causal, we can't explain how they cause things [Segal] |
| Full Idea: If we identify a psychological property with its causal role then we lose the obvious explanation of why the event has the causal role that it has. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: This pinpoints very nicely one of the biggest errors in modern philosophy. There are good naturalistic reasons to reduce everything to causal role, but there is a deeper layer. Essences! |
| 3119 | Even 'mass' cannot be defined in causal terms [Segal] |
| Full Idea: We can't define mass in terms of its causal powers because massive objects do different things in different physical systems. …What an object (or concept) with a given property does depends on what it interacts with. | |
| From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: This leaves an epistemological problem, that we believe in mass, but can only get at it within a particular gravitational or inertial system. Don't give up on ontology at this point. |
| 1513 | The Egyptians were the first to say the soul is immortal and reincarnated [Herodotus] |
| Full Idea: The Egyptians were the first to claim that the soul of a human being is immortal, and that each time the body dies the soul enters another creature just as it is being born. | |
| From: Herodotus (The Histories [c.435 BCE], 2.123.2) |