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9455
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Maybe proper names have the content of fixing a thing's category [Bealer]
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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.
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From:
George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §7)
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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.
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9454
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The four leading theories of definite descriptions are Frege's, Russell's, Evans's, and Prior's [Bealer]
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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.
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From:
George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §5)
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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.
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9072
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Defining concepts by abstractions will collect together far too many attributes from entities [Barnes,J]
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Full Idea:
If we create abstractions by collection of attributes common to groups of entities, we will collect far too many attributes, and wrongly put them into the definition (such as 'having hairless palms' when identifying 'men').
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From:
Jonathan Barnes (Commentary on 'Posterior Analytics [1993], n to 97b7)
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A reaction:
[compressed] Defining 'man' is a hugely complex business (see Idea 1763!), unlike defining 'hair' or 'red'. Some attributes will strike perceivers immediately, but absence of an attribute is not actually 'perceived' at all.
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9452
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Propositions might be reduced to functions (worlds to truth values), or ordered sets of properties and relations [Bealer]
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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.
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From:
George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §1)
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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.
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9451
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Modal logic and brain science have reaffirmed traditional belief in propositions [Bealer]
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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.
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From:
George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §1)
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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.
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