61 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. |
18996 | A statement S is 'partly true' if it has some wholly true parts [Yablo] |
Full Idea: A statement S is 'partly true' insofar as it has wholly true parts: wholly true implications whose subject matter is included in that of S. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Aboutness [2014], 01.6) | |
A reaction: He suggests that if we have rival theories, we agree that it is one or the other. And 'we may have pork for dinner, or human flesh' is partly true. |
19006 | An 'enthymeme' is an argument with an indispensable unstated assumption [Yablo] |
Full Idea: An 'enthymeme' is a deductive argument with an unstated assumption that must be true for the premises to lead to the conclusion. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Aboutness [2014], 11.1) |
8859 | The main modal logics disagree over three key formulae [Yablo] |
Full Idea: Lewis's different systems of modal logic differed about such formulae as □P implies □□P; ◊□P implies □P; and ◊S implies □◊S | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §06) | |
A reaction: Yablo's point is that the various version don't seem to make much difference to our practices in logic, mathematics and science. The problem, says Yablo, is deciding exactly what you mean by 'necessarily' and 'possibly'. |
18999 | y is only a proper part of x if there is a z which 'makes up the difference' between them [Yablo] |
Full Idea: The principle of Supplementation says that y is properly part of x, only if a z exists that 'makes up the difference' between them. [note: that is, z is disjoint from y and sums with y to form x] | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Aboutness [2014], 03.2) |
19001 | 'Pegasus doesn't exist' is false without Pegasus, yet the absence of Pegasus is its truthmaker [Yablo] |
Full Idea: 'Pegasus does not exist' has a paradoxical, self-undermining flavour. On the one hand, the empty name makes it untrue. But now, why is the name empty? Because Pegasus does not exist. 'Pegasus does not exist' is untrue because Pegasus does not exist. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Aboutness [2014], 05.7 n20) | |
A reaction: Beautiful! This is Yablo's reward for continuing to ask 'why?' after everyone else has stopped in bewilderment at the tricky phenomenon. |
9138 | An infinite series of sentences asserting falsehood produces the paradox without self-reference [Yablo, by Sorensen] |
Full Idea: Banning self-reference is too narrow to avoid the liar paradox. With 1) all the subsequent sentences are false, 2) all the subsequent sentences are false, 3) all the subsequent... the paradox still arises. Self-reference is a special case of this. | |
From: report of Stephen Yablo (Paradox without Self-Reference [1993]) by Roy Sorensen - Vagueness and Contradiction 11.1 | |
A reaction: [Idea 9137 pointed out that the ban was too narrow. Sorensen p.168 explains why this one is paradoxical] This is a nice example of progress in philosophy, since the Greeks would have been thrilled with this idea (unless they knew it, but it was lost). |
8865 | If 'the number of Democrats is on the rise', does that mean that 50 million is on the rise? [Yablo] |
Full Idea: If someone says 'the number of Democrats is on the rise', he or she wants to focus on Democrats, not numbers. If the number is 50 million, is 50 million really on the rise? | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §14) | |
A reaction: This is a very nice warning from Yablo, against easy platonism, or any sort of platonism at all. We routinely say that numbers are 'increasing', but the real meaning needs entangling. Here it refers to people joining a party. |
19002 | A nominalist can assert statements about mathematical objects, as being partly true [Yablo] |
Full Idea: If I am a nominalist non-Platonist, I think it is false that 'there are primes over 10', but I want to be able to say it like everyone else. I argue that this because the statement has a part that I do believe, a part that remains interestingly true. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Aboutness [2014], 05.8) | |
A reaction: This is obviously a key motivation for Yablo's book, as it reinforces his fictional view of abstract objects, but aims to capture the phenomena, by investigating what such sentences are 'about'. Admirable. |
8863 | We must treat numbers as existing in order to express ourselves about the arrangement of planets [Yablo] |
Full Idea: It is only by making as if to countenance numbers that one can give expression in English to a fact having nothing to do with numbers, a fact about stars and planets and how they are numerically proportioned. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §13) | |
A reaction: To avoid the phrase 'numerically proportioned', he might have alluded to the 'pattern' of the stars and planets. I'm not sure which -ism this is, but it seems to me a good approach. The application is likely to precede the theory. |
10580 | Mathematics is both necessary and a priori because it really consists of logical truths [Yablo] |
Full Idea: Mathematics seems necessary because the real contents of mathematical statements are logical truths, which are necessary, and it seems a priori because logical truths really are a priori. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Abstract Objects: a Case Study [2002], 10) | |
A reaction: Yablo says his logicism has a Kantian strain, because numbers and sets 'inscribed on our spectacles', but he takes a different view (in the present Idea) from Kant about where the necessity resides. Personally I am tempted by an a posteriori necessity. |
8862 | Platonic objects are really created as existential metaphors [Yablo] |
Full Idea: The means by which platonic objects are simulated is existential metaphor. Numbers are conjured up as metaphorical measures of cardinality. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §12) | |
A reaction: 'Fictional' might be a better word than 'metaphorical', since the latter usually implies some sort of comparison. |
10579 | Putting numbers in quantifiable position (rather than many quantifiers) makes expression easier [Yablo] |
Full Idea: Saying 'the number of Fs is 5', instead of using five quantifiers, puts the numeral in quantifiable position, which brings expressive advantages. 'There are more sheep in the field than cows' is an infinite disjunction, expressible in finite compass. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Abstract Objects: a Case Study [2002], 08) | |
A reaction: See Hofweber with similar thoughts. This idea I take to be a key one in explaining many metaphysical confusions. The human mind just has a strong tendency to objectify properties, relations, qualities, categories etc. - for expression and for reasoning. |
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. |
10577 | Concrete objects have few essential properties, but properties of abstractions are mostly essential [Yablo] |
Full Idea: Objects like me have a few essential properties, and numerous accidental ones. Abstract objects are a different story. The intrinsic properties of the empty set are mostly essential. The relations of numbers are also mostly essential. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Abstract Objects: a Case Study [2002], 01) |
10578 | We are thought to know concreta a posteriori, and many abstracta a priori [Yablo] |
Full Idea: Our knowledge of concreta is a posteriori, but our knowledge of numbers, at least, has often been considered a priori. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Abstract Objects: a Case Study [2002], 02) |
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. |
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. |
19489 | For me, fictions are internally true, without a significant internal or external truth-value [Yablo] |
Full Idea: A 'myth' or fiction for me is a true internal statement (a statement endorsed by the rules) whose external truth value is as may be, the point being that that truth value is from an internal standpoint quite irrelevant. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake? [1998], IX) | |
A reaction: This contrasts with Carnap, for whom talk of 'ghosts' is false in an internal thing-framework. Yablo seems here to say a statement can be true while having no truth value. Presumably he is relaxing the internal rules. |
19490 | Make-believe can help us to reason about facts and scientific procedures [Yablo] |
Full Idea: Make-believe games can make it easier to reason about facts, to systematize them, to visualize them, to spot connections with other facts, and to evaluate potential lines of research. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake? [1998], XI) | |
A reaction: This is the key pragmatic defence of the fictionalist view of abstract objects. Fictions are devices to help us think better. I think a lot of ontology turns out that way. |
19491 | 'The clouds are angry' can only mean '...if one were attributing emotions to clouds' [Yablo] |
Full Idea: It is an open question whether the clouds that we call 'angry' are literally F, for any F other than 'such that it would be natural and proper to regard them as angry if one were going to attribute emotions to clouds'. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake? [1998], XII) | |
A reaction: His point is that it is TRUE, in those circumstances, that the clouds are angry. Thus fictions are a valid and useful part of ordinary sensible course, giving real information. I like it. |
8864 | We quantify over events, worlds, etc. in order to make logical possibilities clearer [Yablo] |
Full Idea: It is not that the contents of sentences are inexpressible without quantifying over events, worlds, etc. (they aren't). But the logical relations become much more tractable if we represent them quantificationally. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §13) | |
A reaction: Yablo is explaining why we find ourselves committed to abstract objects. It is essentially, as I am beginning to suspect, a conspiracy of logicians. What on earth is 'the empty set' when it is at home? What's it made of? |
19494 | Fictionalism allows that simulated beliefs may be tracking real facts [Yablo] |
Full Idea: The fictionalist offers the option that your simulated beliefs and assertions may be tracking a realm of genuine facts, or a realm of what you take to be facts. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Go Figure: a Path through Fictionalism [2001], 13) | |
A reaction: This means that fictionalism does not have to be an error theory. That is, we aren't mistakenly believing something that we actually made up. Instead we are sensibly believing something we know to be not literally true. Love it. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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? |
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. |
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. |
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? |
8858 | Philosophers keep finding unexpected objects, like models, worlds, functions, numbers, events, sets, properties [Yablo] |
Full Idea: There's a tradition in philosophy of finding 'unexpected objects' in truth-conditions, such as countermodels, possible worlds, functions, numbers, events, sets and properties. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §02) | |
A reaction: This is a very nice perspective on the whole matter of abstract objects. If we find ourselves reluctantly committed to the existence of something which is ontologically peculiar, we should go back to the philosophical drawing-board. |
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! |
14381 | A statue is essentially the statue, but its lump is not essentially a statue, so statue isn't lump [Yablo, by Rocca] |
Full Idea: Yablo proposes the argument that Statue A is essentially a statue, and Lump 1 is not essentially a statue, so Statue A is not identical with Lump 1. | |
From: report of Stephen Yablo (Identity, Essence and Indiscernibility [1987]) by Michael della Rocca - Essentialists and Essentialism I | |
A reaction: Della Rocca and Yablo unashamedly elide necessary properties with essential properties, so this argument doesn't bother me too much. It concerns the statue and the clay having different modal properties. |
18998 | Parthood lacks the restriction of kind which most relations have [Yablo] |
Full Idea: Most relations obtain only between certain kinds of thing. To learn that x is a part of y, however, tells you nothing about x and y taken individually. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Aboutness [2014], 03.2) | |
A reaction: Too sweeping. To be a part of crowd you have to be a person. To be part of the sea you have to be wet. It might depend on whether composition is unrestricted. |
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. |
19493 | Governing possible worlds theory is the fiction that if something is possible, it happens in a world [Yablo] |
Full Idea: The governing fiction of possible worlds theory says that whenever something is possible, there is a world where it happens. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Go Figure: a Path through Fictionalism [2001], 05) | |
A reaction: This sounds like the only sensible attitude to possible worlds I can think of. |
19004 | Gettier says you don't know if you are confused about how it is true [Yablo] |
Full Idea: We know from Gettier that if you are right to regard Q as true, but you are sufficiently confused about HOW it is true - about how things stand with respect to its subject matter - then you don't know that Q. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Aboutness [2014], 07.4) | |
A reaction: I'm inclined to approach Gettier by focusing on the propositions being expressed, where his cases tend to focus on the literal wording of the sentences. What did the utterer mean by the sentences - not what did they appear to say. |
19007 | A theory need not be true to be good; it should just be true about its physical aspects [Yablo] |
Full Idea: A physical theory need not be true to be good, Field has argued, and I agree. All we ask of it truth-wise is that its physical implications should be true, or, in my version, that it should be true about the physical. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Aboutness [2014], 12.5) | |
A reaction: Yablo is, of course, writing a book here about the concept of 'about'. This seems persuasive. The internal terminology of the theory isn't committed to anything - it is only at its physical periphery (Quine) that the ontology matters. |
18993 | If sentences point to different evidence, they must have different subject-matter [Yablo] |
Full Idea: 'All crows are black' cannot say quite the same as 'All non-black things are non-crows', for the two are confirmed by different evidence. Subject matter looks to be the distinguishing feature. One is about crows, the other not. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Aboutness [2014], Intro) | |
A reaction: You might reply that they are confirmed by the same evidence (but only in its unobtainable totality). The point, I think, is that the sentences invite you to start your search in different places. |
19003 | Most people say nonblack nonravens do confirm 'all ravens are black', but only a tiny bit [Yablo] |
Full Idea: The standard response to the raven paradox is to say that a nonblack nonraven does confirm that all ravens are black. But it confirms it just the teeniest little bit - not as much as a black raven does. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Aboutness [2014], 06.5) | |
A reaction: It depends on the proportion between the relevant items. How do you confirm 'all the large animals in this zoo are mammals'? Check for size every animal which is obviously not a mammal? |
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. |
10805 | A sentence should be recarved to reveal its content or implication relations [Yablo] |
Full Idea: A sentence invites recarving iff it will then do better justice to the internal structure of its content and/or its implication relations. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Carving Content at the Joints [2002], §11) | |
A reaction: This invites human intervention in a logical process (by choosing which recarvings to do, instead of allowing all equivalences to generate them). He seems to think we should abstract in order to reveal logical form. |
18992 | Sentence-meaning is the truth-conditions - plus factors responsible for them [Yablo] |
Full Idea: A sentence's meaning is to do with its truth-value in various possible scenarios, AND the factors responsible for that truth-value. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Aboutness [2014], Intro) | |
A reaction: The thesis of his book, which I welcome. I'm increasingly struck by the way in which much modern philosophy settles for a theory being complete, when actually further explanation is possible. Exhibit A is functional explanations. Why that function? |
18994 | The content of an assertion can be quite different from compositional content [Yablo] |
Full Idea: Assertive content - what a sentence is heard as saying - can be at quite a distance from compositional content. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Aboutness [2014], Intro) | |
A reaction: This is the obvious reason why semantics cannot be entirely compositional, since there is nearly always a contextual component which then has to be added. In the case of irony, the compositional content is entirely reversed. |
18997 | Truth-conditions as subject-matter has problems of relevance, short cut, and reversal [Yablo] |
Full Idea: If the subject-matter of S is how it is true, we get three unfortunate results: S has truth-value in worlds where its subject-matter draws a blank; learning what S is about tells you its truth-value; negating S changes what it's about. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Aboutness [2014], 02.8) | |
A reaction: Together these make fairly devastating objections to the truth-conditions (in possible worlds) theory of meaning. The first-objection concerns when S is false |
19005 | Not-A is too strong to just erase an improper assertion, because it actually reverses A [Yablo] |
Full Idea: The idea that negation is, or can be, a cancellation device raises an interesting question. What does one do to wipe the slate clean after an improper assertion? Not-A is too strong; it reverses our stand on A rather than nullifying it. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Aboutness [2014], 09.8) | |
A reaction: [He is discussing a remark of Strawson 1952] It seems that 'not' has two meanings or uses: a weak use of 'nullifying' an assertion, and a strong use of 'reversing' an assertion. One could do both: 'that's not right; in fact, it's just the opposite'. |
8861 | Hardly a word in the language is devoid of metaphorical potential [Yablo] |
Full Idea: There is hardly a word in the language - be it an adverb, preposition, conjunction, or what have you - that is devoid of metaphorical potential. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §12) | |
A reaction: Yablo goes on to claim that metaphor is at the heart of all of our abstract thinking. 'Dead metaphors' (like the "mouth" of a river) sink totally into literal language. I think Yablo is on the right lines. |
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. |