57 ideas
| 22285 | Impredicative definitions are circular, but fine for picking out, rather than creating something [Potter] |
| Full Idea: The circularity in a definition where the property being defined is used in the definition is now known as 'impredicativity'. ...Some cases ('the tallest man in the room') are unproblematic, as they pick him out, and don't conjure him into existence. | |
| From: Michael Potter (The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 [2020], 07 'Impred') | |
| A reaction: [part summary] |
| 22301 | The Identity Theory says a proposition is true if it coincides with what makes it true [Potter] |
| Full Idea: The Identity Theory of truth says a proposition is true just in case it coincides with what makes it true. | |
| From: Michael Potter (The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 [2020], 23 'Abs') | |
| A reaction: The obvious question is how 'there are trees in the wood' can somehow 'coincide with' or 'be identical to' the situation outside my window. The theory is sort of right, but we will never define the relationship, which is no better than 'corresponds'. |
| 4901 | Truth has to be correspondence to facts, and a match between relations of ideas and relations in the world [Perry] |
| Full Idea: I think knowledge and truth are a matter of correspondence to facts, despite all the energy spent showing the naïveté of this view. The connections of our ideas in our heads correspond to relations in the outside world. | |
| From: John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §8.1) | |
| A reaction: Yes. Modern books offer the difficulties of defining 'correspondence', and finding an independent account of 'facts', as conclusive objections, but I say a brain is a truth machine, and it had better be useful. Indefinability doesn't nullify concepts. |
| 22324 | It has been unfortunate that externalism about truth is equated with correspondence [Potter] |
| Full Idea: There has been an unfortunate tendency in the secondary literature to equate externalism about truth with the correspondence theory. | |
| From: Michael Potter (The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 [2020], 65 'Truth') | |
| A reaction: Quite helpful to distinguish internalist from externalist theories of truth. It is certainly the case that robust externalist views of truth have unfortunately been discredited merely because the correspondence account is inadequate. |
| 10702 | Set theory's three roles: taming the infinite, subject-matter of mathematics, and modes of reasoning [Potter] |
| Full Idea: Set theory has three roles: as a means of taming the infinite, as a supplier of the subject-matter of mathematics, and as a source of its modes of reasoning. | |
| From: Michael Potter (Set Theory and Its Philosophy [2004], Intro 1) | |
| A reaction: These all seem to be connected with mathematics, but there is also ontological interest in set theory. Potter emphasises that his second role does not entail a commitment to sets 'being' numbers. |
| 10713 | Usually the only reason given for accepting the empty set is convenience [Potter] |
| Full Idea: It is rare to find any direct reason given for believing that the empty set exists, except for variants of Dedekind's argument from convenience. | |
| From: Michael Potter (Set Theory and Its Philosophy [2004], 04.3) |
| 13044 | Infinity: There is at least one limit level [Potter] |
| Full Idea: Axiom of Infinity: There is at least one limit level. | |
| From: Michael Potter (Set Theory and Its Philosophy [2004], 04.9) | |
| A reaction: A 'limit ordinal' is one which has successors, but no predecessors. The axiom just says there is at least one infinity. |
| 10708 | Nowadays we derive our conception of collections from the dependence between them [Potter] |
| Full Idea: It is only quite recently that the idea has emerged of deriving our conception of collections from a relation of dependence between them. | |
| From: Michael Potter (Set Theory and Its Philosophy [2004], 03.2) | |
| A reaction: This is the 'iterative' view of sets, which he traces back to Gödel's 'What is Cantor's Continuum Problem?' |
| 13546 | The 'limitation of size' principles say whether properties collectivise depends on the number of objects [Potter] |
| Full Idea: We group under the heading 'limitation of size' those principles which classify properties as collectivizing or not according to how many objects there are with the property. | |
| From: Michael Potter (Set Theory and Its Philosophy [2004], 13.5) | |
| A reaction: The idea was floated by Cantor, toyed with by Russell (1906), and advocated by von Neumann. The thought is simply that paradoxes start to appear when sets become enormous. |
| 10707 | Mereology elides the distinction between the cards in a pack and the suits [Potter] |
| Full Idea: Mereology tends to elide the distinction between the cards in a pack and the suits. | |
| From: Michael Potter (Set Theory and Its Philosophy [2004], 02.1) | |
| A reaction: The example is a favourite of Frege's. Potter is giving a reason why mathematicians opted for set theory. I'm not clear, though, why a pack cannot have either 4 parts or 52 parts. Parts can 'fall under a concept' (such as 'legs'). I'm puzzled. |
| 10704 | We can formalize second-order formation rules, but not inference rules [Potter] |
| Full Idea: In second-order logic only the formation rules are completely formalizable, not the inference rules. | |
| From: Michael Potter (Set Theory and Its Philosophy [2004], 01.2) | |
| A reaction: He cites Gödel's First Incompleteness theorem for this. |
| 22279 | Frege's sign |--- meant judgements, but the modern |- turnstile means inference, with intecedents [Potter] |
| Full Idea: Natural deduction systems generally depend on conditional proof, but for Frege everything is asserted unconditionally. The modern turnstile |- is allowed to have antecedents, and hence to represent inference rather than Frege's judgement sign |---. | |
| From: Michael Potter (The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 [2020], 03 'Axioms') | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Shockingly, Frege's approach seems more psychological than the modern approach. I would say that the whole point of logic is that it has to be conditional, because the truth of the antecedents is irrelevant. |
| 22291 | Deductivism can't explain how the world supports unconditional conclusions [Potter] |
| Full Idea: Deductivism is a good account of large parts of mathematics, but stumbles where mathematics is directly applicable to the world. It fails to explain how we detach the antecedent so as to arrive at unconditional conclusions. | |
| From: Michael Potter (The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 [2020], 12 'Deduc') | |
| A reaction: I suppose the reply would be that we have designed deductive structures which fit our understanding of reality - so it is all deductive, but selected pragmatically. |
| 10703 | Supposing axioms (rather than accepting them) give truths, but they are conditional [Potter] |
| Full Idea: A 'supposition' axiomatic theory is as concerned with truth as a 'realist' one (with undefined terms), but the truths are conditional. Satisfying the axioms is satisfying the theorem. This is if-thenism, or implicationism, or eliminative structuralism. | |
| From: Michael Potter (Set Theory and Its Philosophy [2004], 01.1) | |
| A reaction: Aha! I had failed to make the connection between if-thenism and eliminative structuralism (of which I am rather fond). I think I am an if-thenist (not about all truth, but about provable truth). |
| 22295 | Modern logical truths are true under all interpretations of the non-logical words [Potter] |
| Full Idea: In the modern definition, a 'logical truth' is true under every interpretation of the non-logical words it contains. | |
| From: Michael Potter (The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 [2020], 19 'Frege's') | |
| A reaction: What if the non-logical words are nonsense, or are used inconsistently ('good'), or ambiguously ('bank'), or vaguely ('bald'), or with unsure reference ('the greatest philosopher' becomes 'Bentham')? What qualifies as an 'interpretation'? |
| 10712 | If set theory didn't found mathematics, it is still needed to count infinite sets [Potter] |
| Full Idea: Even if set theory's role as a foundation for mathematics turned out to be wholly illusory, it would earn its keep through the calculus it provides for counting infinite sets. | |
| From: Michael Potter (Set Theory and Its Philosophy [2004], 03.8) |
| 17882 | It is remarkable that all natural number arithmetic derives from just the Peano Axioms [Potter] |
| Full Idea: It is a remarkable fact that all the arithmetical properties of the natural numbers can be derived from such a small number of assumptions (as the Peano Axioms). | |
| From: Michael Potter (Set Theory and Its Philosophy [2004], 05.2) | |
| A reaction: If one were to defend essentialism about arithmetic, this would be grist to their mill. I'm just saying. |
| 22310 | The formalist defence against Gödel is to reject his metalinguistic concept of truth [Potter] |
| Full Idea: Gödel's theorem does not refute formalism outright, because the committed formalist need not recognise the metalinguistic notion of truth to which the theorem appeals. | |
| From: Michael Potter (The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 [2020], 45 'Log') | |
| A reaction: The theorem was prior to Tarski's account of truth. Potter says Gödel avoided explicit mention of truth because of this problem. In general Gödel showed that there are truths outside the formal system (which is all provable). |
| 22298 | Why is fictional arithmetic applicable to the real world? [Potter] |
| Full Idea: Fictionalists struggle to explain why arithmetic is applicable to the real world in a way that other stories are not. | |
| From: Michael Potter (The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 [2020], 21 'Math') | |
| A reaction: We know why some novels are realistic and others just the opposite. If a novel aimed to 'model' the real world it would be even closer to it. Fictionalists must explain why some fictions are useful. |
| 16062 | A necessary relation between fact-levels seems to be a further irreducible fact [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| Full Idea: It seems unavoidable that the facts about logically necessary relations between levels of facts are themselves logically distinct further facts, irreducible to the microphysical facts. | |
| From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], C) | |
| A reaction: I'm beginning to think that rejecting every theory of reality that is proposed by carefully exposing some infinite regress hidden in it is a rather lazy way to do philosophy. Almost as bad as rejecting anything if it can't be defined. |
| 16061 | If some facts 'logically supervene' on some others, they just redescribe them, adding nothing [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| Full Idea: Logical supervenience, restricted to individuals, seems to imply strong reduction. It is said that where the B-facts logically supervene on the A-facts, the B-facts simply re-describe what the A-facts describe, and the B-facts come along 'for free'. | |
| From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], C) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be taking 'logically' to mean 'analytically'. Presumably an entailment is logically supervenient on its premisses, and may therefore be very revealing, even if some people think such things are analytic. |
| 22287 | If 'concrete' is the negative of 'abstract', that means desires and hallucinations are concrete [Potter] |
| Full Idea: The word 'concrete' is often used as the negative of 'abstract', with the slightly odd consequence that desires and hallucinations are thereby classified as concrete. | |
| From: Michael Potter (The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 [2020], 12 'Numb') | |
| A reaction: There is also the even more baffling usage of 'abstract' for the most highly generalised mathematics, leaving lower levels as 'concrete'. I favour the use of 'generalised' wherever possible, rather than 'abstract'. |
| 16060 | Nonreductive materialism says upper 'levels' depend on lower, but don't 'reduce' [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| Full Idea: The root intuition behind nonreductive materialism is that reality is composed of ontologically distinct layers or levels. The upper levels depend on the physical without reducing to it. | |
| From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], B) | |
| A reaction: A nice clear statement of a view which I take to be false. This relationship is the sort of thing that drives people fishing for an account of it to use the word 'supervenience', which just says two things seem to hang out together. Fluffy materialism. |
| 16064 | The hallmark of physicalism is that each causal power has a base causal power under it [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| Full Idea: Jessica Wilson (1999) says what makes physicalist accounts different from emergentism etc. is that each individual causal power associated with a supervenient property is numerically identical with a causal power associated with its base property. | |
| From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], n 11) | |
| A reaction: Hence the key thought in so-called (serious, rather than self-evident) 'emergentism' is so-called 'downward causation', which I take to be an idle daydream. |
| 13043 | A relation is a set consisting entirely of ordered pairs [Potter] |
| Full Idea: A set is called a 'relation' if every element of it is an ordered pair. | |
| From: Michael Potter (Set Theory and Its Philosophy [2004], 04.7) | |
| A reaction: This is the modern extensional view of relations. For 'to the left of', you just list all the things that are to the left, with the things they are to the left of. But just listing the ordered pairs won't necessarily reveal how they are related. |
| 22284 | 'Greater than', which is the ancestral of 'successor', strictly orders the natural numbers [Potter] |
| Full Idea: From the successor function we can deduce its ancestral, the 'greater than' relation, which is a strict total ordering of the natural numbers. (Frege did not mention this, but Dedekind worked it out, when expounding definition by recursion). | |
| From: Michael Potter (The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 [2020], 07 'Def') | |
| A reaction: [compressed] |
| 13042 | If dependence is well-founded, with no infinite backward chains, this implies substances [Potter] |
| Full Idea: The argument that the relation of dependence is well-founded ...is a version of the classical arguments for substance. ..Any conceptual scheme which genuinely represents a world cannot contain infinite backward chains of meaning. | |
| From: Michael Potter (Set Theory and Its Philosophy [2004], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: Thus the iterative conception of set may imply a notion of substance, and Barwise's radical attempt to ditch the Axiom of Foundation (Idea 13039) was a radical attempt to get rid of 'substances'. Potter cites Wittgenstein as a fan of substances here. |
| 13041 | Collections have fixed members, but fusions can be carved in innumerable ways [Potter] |
| Full Idea: A collection has a determinate number of members, whereas a fusion may be carved up into parts in various equally valid (although perhaps not equally interesting) ways. | |
| From: Michael Potter (Set Theory and Its Philosophy [2004], 02.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to sum up both the attraction and the weakness of mereology. If you doubt the natural identity of so-called 'objects', then maybe classical mereology is the way to go. |
| 4885 | Identity is a very weak relation, which doesn't require interdefinability, or shared properties [Perry] |
| Full Idea: The truth of "a=b" doesn't require much of 'a' and 'b' other than that there is a single thing to which they both refer. They needn't be interdefinable, or have supervenient properties. In this sense, identity is a very weak relation. | |
| From: John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §1.2) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. This is seeing the epistemological aspects of identity. Ontologically, identity must invoke Leibniz's Law, and is the ultimately powerful 'relation'. A given student, and the cause of a crop circle, may APPEAR to be quite different. |
| 12155 | Statements of 'relative identity' are really statements of resemblance [Perry] |
| Full Idea: Statements of 'relative' identity are not identity statements at all, but what I would prefer to call 'statements of resemblance' or 'common property staztements'. | |
| From: John Perry (The Same F [1970], n12) | |
| A reaction: This seems like a neat way to sweep the problem from our sight. There remains a nervous metaphysical problem, though, because something seems to be identical when we spot a resemblance. Even two shades of red have something identical in them. |
| 10709 | Priority is a modality, arising from collections and members [Potter] |
| Full Idea: We must conclude that priority is a modality distinct from that of time or necessity, a modality arising in some way out of the manner in which a collection is constituted from its members. | |
| From: Michael Potter (Set Theory and Its Philosophy [2004], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: He is referring to the 'iterative' view of sets, and cites Aristotle 'Metaphysics' 1019a1-4 as background. |
| 22281 | A material conditional cannot capture counterfactual reasoning [Potter] |
| Full Idea: What the material conditional most significantly fails to capture is counterfactual reasoning. | |
| From: Michael Potter (The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 [2020], 04 'Sem') | |
| A reaction: The point is that counterfactuals say 'if P were the case (which it isn't), then Q'. But that means P is false, and in the material conditional everything follows from a falsehood. A reinterpretation of the conditional might embrace counterfactuals. |
| 4899 | Possible worlds thinking has clarified the logic of modality, but is problematic in epistemology [Perry] |
| Full Idea: Using possible worlds to model truth-conditions of statements has led to considerable clarity about the logic of modality. Attempts to use the system for epistemic purposes, however, have been plagued by problems. | |
| From: John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §8.1) | |
| A reaction: Presumably what lurks behind this is a distinction between what is logically or naturally possible, and what appears to be possible from the perspective of a conscious mind. Is there a possible world in which I can fly? |
| 4898 | Possible worlds are indices for a language, or concrete realities, or abstract possibilities [Perry] |
| Full Idea: Possible worlds can be thought of as indices for models of the language in question, or as concrete realities (David Lewis), or as abstract ways the world might be (Robert Stalnaker), or in various other ways. | |
| From: John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §8.1) | |
| A reaction: I strongly favour the Stalnaker route here. Reducing great metaphysics to mere language I find abhorrent, and I suspect that Lewis was trapped by his commitment to strong empiricism. We must embrace abstractions into our ontology. |
| 12149 | Indexicals are a problem for beliefs being just subject-proposition relations [Perry] |
| Full Idea: The essential indexical is a problem for the view that belief is a relation between subjects and propositions conceived as bearers of truth and falsity. | |
| From: John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979], 'Intro') | |
| A reaction: My immediate reaction would be that it depends on how you conceive of 'propositions'. If they are objective, you have a problem. I take them to be subjective events in brains, and the indexical meaning to be evident within the proposition. |
| 22327 | Knowledge from a drunken schoolteacher is from a reliable and unreliable process [Potter] |
| Full Idea: Knowledge might result from a reliable and an unreliable process. ...Is something knowledge if you were told it by a drunken schoolteacher? | |
| From: Michael Potter (The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 [2020], 66 'Rel') | |
| A reaction: Nice example. The listener must decide which process to rely on. But how do you decide that, if not by assessing the likely truth of what you are being told? It could be a bad teacher who is inspired by drink. |
| 4887 | We try to cause other things to occur by causing mental events to occur [Perry] |
| Full Idea: We try to cause other things to occur by causing mental events to occur. | |
| From: John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §2.4) | |
| A reaction: A small and obvious, but important, point. Mental causation isn't just thoughts leading to physical happenings. Here Perry means that events can be designed to cause thoughts, such as a threatening letter. Not much room for epiphenomenalism here. |
| 4884 | Brain states must be in my head, and yet the pain seems to be in my hand [Perry] |
| Full Idea: The brain state will involve certain parts of the brain, whereas my feeling of pain seems to be located in my hand insofar as it has a bodily location. | |
| From: John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §1.2) | |
| A reaction: This seems important to me. The brain is a ventriloquist. Perry implies that pain is quasi-disembodied, but it isn't, it is just experienced as IN the hand. Perhaps it is in the hand? Cutting the nerves loses contact with the pain. |
| 4888 | It seems plausible that many animals have experiences without knowing about them [Perry] |
| Full Idea: It seems quite plausible to me that many animals have experiences without knowing about them. | |
| From: John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §3.1) | |
| A reaction: I agree, which makes us acknowledge levels of consciousness, which probably applies to human experience as well. The simplest idea is to distinguish between experiences which involve concepts, and those which don't. Animals sometimes appear surprised. |
| 4891 | If epiphenomenalism just says mental events are effects but not causes, it is consistent with physicalism [Perry] |
| Full Idea: Epiphenomenalism is usually considered to be a form of dualism, but if we define it as the doctrine that conscious events are effects but not causes, it appears to be consistent with physicalism. | |
| From: John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §4.2) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. The theory was invented to put mind outside physics, and make the closure of physics possible. However, being capable of causing things seems to be a necessary condition for physical objects. An effect in one domain is a cause in another. |
| 4900 | Prior to Kripke, the mind-brain identity theory usually claimed that the identity was contingent [Perry] |
| Full Idea: Advocates of the mind-body identity theory typically claimed that identity between particular mental states and brain states was contingent, until Kripke argued persuasively that identity is always necessary. | |
| From: John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §8.1) | |
| A reaction: Kripke wanted to argue against the identity theory, but what he seems to have done is reformulate it into a much more powerful version (involving necessary identity). |
| 4892 | If physicalists stick with identity (not supervenience), Martian pain will not be like ours [Perry] |
| Full Idea: The physicalist should not retreat to causal supervenience but should stick with identity. This means we will have to accept that a Martian and I (when in pain) are not in the same phenomenal state. | |
| From: John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §4.3) | |
| A reaction: We naturally presume that frogs feel pain as we do, but many different phenomenal states could lead to the same behavioural end. Only an unpleasant feeling is required. A foul smell would do. Frogs could function with inverted qualia, too. |
| 22273 | Traditionally there are twelve categories of judgement, in groups of three [Potter] |
| Full Idea: The traditional categorisation of judgements (until at least 1800) was as universal, particular or singular; as affirmative, negative or infinite; as categorical, hypothetical or disjunctive; or as problematic, assertoric or apodictic. | |
| From: Michael Potter (The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 [2020], 02 'Trans') | |
| A reaction: Arranging these things in neat groups of three seems to originate with the stoics. Making distinctions like this is very much the job of a philosopher, but arranging them in neat equinumerous groups is intellectual tyranny. |
| 16391 | Indexical thoughts are about themselves, and ascribe properties to themselves [Perry, by Recanati] |
| Full Idea: Perry's newer token-reflexive framework says indexical thoughts have token-reflexive content, that is, thoughts that are about themselves and ascribe properties to themselves. They relate not to the subject, but to the occurrence of a thought. | |
| From: report of John Perry (Reference and Reflexivity [2001]) by François Recanati - Mental Files 18.1 | |
| A reaction: [There seem to be four indexical theories: this one, Recanati's, the earlier Kaplan-Perry one, and Lewis's] Is Perry thinking of second-level thoughts? 'I'm bored' has the content 'boredom' plus 'felt in here'? How does 'I'm bored' refer to 'I'm bored'? |
| 4889 | Although we may classify ideas by content, we individuate them differently, as their content can change [Perry] |
| Full Idea: Although we classify ideas by content for many purposes, we do not individuate them by content. The content of an idea can change. | |
| From: John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §3.2) | |
| A reaction: As the compiler of this database, I find this very appealing. The mind works exactly like a database. I have a 'file' (Perry's word) marked "London", the content of which undergoes continual change. I am a database management system. |
| 4896 | The intension of an expression is a function from possible worlds to an appropriate extension [Perry] |
| Full Idea: In possible-worlds semantics, expressions have intensions, which are functions from possible worlds to appropriate extensions (names to individuals, n-place predicates to n-tuples, and sentences to truth values, built from parts). | |
| From: John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §8.1) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. Perry distinguishes 'referential' (or 'subject matter') content, which is prior to the link to extensions - a link which creates 'reflexive' content. He is keen that they should not become confused. True knowledge is 'situated'. |
| 22290 | The phrase 'the concept "horse"' can't refer to a concept, because it is saturated [Potter] |
| Full Idea: Frege's mirroring principle (that the structure of thoughts mirrors that of language) has the uncomfortable consequence that since the phrase 'the concept "horse"' is saturated, it cannot refer to something unsaturated, which includes concepts. | |
| From: Michael Potter (The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 [2020], 16 'Conc') |
| 22283 | Compositionality should rely on the parsing tree, which may contain more than sentence components [Potter] |
| Full Idea: Compositionality is best seen as saying the semantic value of a string is explained by the strings lower down its parsing tree. It is unimportant whether a string is always parsed in terms of its own substrings. | |
| From: Michael Potter (The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 [2020], 05 'Sem') | |
| A reaction: That is, the analysis must explain the meaning, but the analysis can contain more than the actual ingredients of the sentence (which would be too strict). |
| 22282 | 'Direct compositonality' says the components wholly explain a sentence meaning [Potter] |
| Full Idea: Some authors urge the strong notion of 'direct compositionality', which requires that the content of a sentence be explained in terms of the contents of the component parts of that very sentence. | |
| From: Michael Potter (The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 [2020], 05 'Sem') | |
| A reaction: The alternative is that meaning is fully explained by an analysis, but that may contain more than the actual components of the sentence. |
| 22296 | Compositionality is more welcome in logic than in linguistics (which is more contextual) [Potter] |
| Full Idea: The principle of compositionality is more popular among philosophers of logic than of language, because the subtle context-sensitivity or ordinary language makes providing a compositional semantics for it a daunting challenge. | |
| From: Michael Potter (The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 [2020], 21 'Lang') | |
| A reaction: Logicians love breaking complex entities down into simple atomic parts. Linguistics tries to pin down something much more elusive. |
| 12151 | If we replace 'I' in sentences about me, they are different beliefs and explanations of behaviour [Perry] |
| Full Idea: If I leave a trail of sugar, and realise 'that I am making a mess', ...when we replace the word 'I' with other designations of me, we no longer have an explanation of my behaviour, or an attribution of the same belief, so it is an 'essential indexical'. | |
| From: John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979], 'Intro') | |
| A reaction: [compressed] A famous observation of Perry's, which leads him to challenge traditional accounts of belief and of propositions. I don't think I see a problem, if we have a thoroughly non-linguistic account of essentially unambiguous propositions. |
| 18412 | Indexicals individuate certain belief states, helping in explanation and prediction [Perry] |
| Full Idea: We use sentences with indexicals or relativized propositions to individuate belief states, for the purposes of classifying believers in ways useful for explanation and prediction. | |
| From: John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979], 'Obvious') | |
| A reaction: He goes on to apparently connect this with some sort of moral integrity involved in 'owning up' to the fact that the person in question is you (who has spilled the sugar etc.). |
| 4897 | A proposition is a set of possible worlds for which its intension delivers truth [Perry] |
| Full Idea: The proposition expressed by a sentence can be thought of as a set of possible worlds, the worlds for which its intension delivers truth. | |
| From: John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §8.1) | |
| A reaction: It has always struck me as important to hang on to the concept of a 'proposition' (over and above sentences). This idea gives a metaphysics for the concept, and the 'language of thought' offers appropriate brain structures. A neat picture. |
| 12150 | Indexicals reveal big problems with the traditional idea of a proposition [Perry] |
| Full Idea: The problem of the essential indexical reveals that something is badly wrong with the traditional doctrine of propositions. | |
| From: John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979], 'Prob') | |
| A reaction: See the reaction to 12149. The traditional view of propositions, or at least Russell's view, seems to be that they are same as facts, which strikes me as daft. I take propositions to be brain events, probably expressed in mentalese. |
| 4890 | A sharp analytic/synthetic line can rarely be drawn, but some concepts are central to thought [Perry] |
| Full Idea: Although there is seldom a sharp analytic/synthetic distinction to be drawn in the case of our concepts, there are clearly things that are more and less central. | |
| From: John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §3.2) | |
| A reaction: Most Americans seem enslaved to Quine on this one, so it is nice to see the obvious being stated for once. Human thought is an organic offshoot of the natural world. To think it is all arbitrary and changeable is human arrogance. |
| 15203 | Tense is essential for thought and action [Perry, by Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: Tense plays a crucial role in thought and action. | |
| From: report of John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979]) by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 3 a | |
| A reaction: This is important, because much of our metaphysics is dominated by a detached 'scientific' description of reality, which is given a rather passive character. If processes take centre stage, which they should, then our own processes are part of it. |
| 15204 | Actual tensed sentences cannot be tenseless, because they can cite their own context [Perry, by Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: In the new tenseless theory, no tensed token sentence can be equivalent to a tenseless token, because the former, unlike the latter, draws attention to the context in which it is tokened. | |
| From: report of John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979]) by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 3 a | |
| A reaction: So the problem about indexicals was worrying fans of the tenseless B-series view of time (and so it should). I'm inclined to translate sentences containing indexicals into their actual propositions, which tend to avoid them. 'Time/person of utterance'. |