3 ideas
21650 | No language is semantically referential; it all occurs at the level of thought or utterance [Pietroski, by Hofweber] |
Full Idea: For Paul Pietroski no expression in natural language is semantically referential. ....Reference to objects occurs not at the level of semantics, but at the level of thought or utterance. | |
From: report of Paul M. Pietroski (Events and Semantic Architecture [2004]) by Thomas Hofweber - Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics 07.2 | |
A reaction: Love this. It has always struck me that reference is what speakers do. Try taking any supposedly referential description and sticking 'so-called' in front of it. That seems to leave you with the reference even though you have denied the description. |
1515 | Pythagoreans believe it is absurd to seek for goodness anywhere except with the gods [Iamblichus] |
Full Idea: The thinking behind Pythagorean philosophy is that people behave in an absurd fashion if they try to find any source for the good other than the gods. | |
From: Iamblichus (Life of Pythagoras [c.290], 137) |
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) |