42 ideas
| 6887 | Linguistic philosophy approaches problems by attending to actual linguistic usage [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Linguistic philosophy gives careful attention to actual linguistic usage as a method of dealing with problems of philosophy, resulting in either their solution or dissolution. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.318) | |
| A reaction: This approach is now deeply discredited and unfashionable, and, I think (on the whole), rightly so. Philosophy should aim a little higher in (say) epistemology than merely describing how people use words like 'know' and 'believe' and 'justify'. |
| 6881 | Analytic philosophy studies the unimportant, and sharpens tools instead of using them [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Critics of analytic philosophers accuse them of excessive attention to relatively unimportant matters, and of being more interested in sharpening tools than in using them. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.111) | |
| A reaction: The last part is a nice comment. Both criticisms seem to me to contain some justice, but recently things have improved (notably in the new attention paid by analytical philosophy to metaphysics). In morality analytic philosophy seems superior. |
| 5439 | The 'hermeneutic circle' says parts and wholes are interdependent, and so cannot be interpreted [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: The 'hermeneutic circle' consists in the fact that an interpretation of part of a text requires a prior understanding of the whole, and the interpretation of the whole requires a prior understanding of its parts. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.247) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a benign circle, solved the way Aristotle solves the good man/good action circle. You make a start somewhere, like a child learning to speak, and work your way into the circle. Not really a problem. |
| 9959 | 'Real' definitions give the essential properties of things under a concept [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: A 'real definition' (as opposed to a linguistic one) is a statement which gives the essential properties of the things to which a given concept applies. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], 'definition') | |
| A reaction: This is often seen as old-fashioned, Aristotelian, and impossible to achieve, but I like it and aspire to it. One can hardly be precise about which properties are 'essential' to something, but there are clear cases. Your 'gold' had better not be brass. |
| 9961 | 'Contextual definitions' replace whole statements, not just expressions [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Usually in a definition the definiens (definition) can replace the definiendum (expression defined), but in a 'contextual definition' only the whole statement containing the definiens can replace the whole statement containing the definiendum. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], 'definition') | |
| A reaction: These definitions are crucial to Frege's enterprise in the 'Grundlagen'. Logicians always want to achieve definition with a single neat operation, but in ordinary language we talk around a definition, giving a variety of possibilities (as in teaching). |
| 9958 | Recursive definition defines each instance from a previous instance [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: An example of a recursive definition is 'y is an ancestor of x' is defined as 'y is a parent of x, or y is a parent of an ancestor of x'. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], 'definition') | |
| A reaction: From this example I guess that 'ancestor' means 'friend'. Or have I misunderstood? I think we need to define 'grand-parent' as well, and then offer the definition of 'ancestor' with the words 'and so on...'. Essentially, it is mathematical induction. |
| 9960 | A stipulative definition lays down that an expression is to have a certain meaning [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: A stipulative definition lays down that a given linguistic expression is to have a certain meaning; this is why they cannot be said to be correct or incorrect. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], 'definition') | |
| A reaction: These are uncontroversial when they are explicitly made in writing by a single person. The tricky case is where they are implicitly made in conversation by a community. After a century or two these look like facts, their origin having been lost. |
| 9957 | Ostensive definitions point to an object which an expression denotes [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Ostensive definitions explain what an expression means by pointing to an object, action, event, etc. denoted by the expression. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], 'definition') | |
| A reaction: These will need some context. If I define 'red' simply by pointing to a red square, you might conclude that 'red' means square. If I point to five varied red objects, you have to do the work of spotting the common ingredient. I can't mention 'colour'. |
| 6219 | The fallacy of composition is the assumption that what is true of the parts is true of the whole [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: The fallacy of composition is an inference relying on the invalid principle that whatever is true of every part is also true of the whole; thus, we cannot assume that because the members of a committee are rational, that the committee as a whole is. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.102) | |
| A reaction: This is a very common and very significant fallacy, which is perpetrated by major philosophers like Aristotle (Idea 31), unlike most of the other informal fallacies. |
| 6888 | Fuzzy logic is based on the notion that there can be membership of a set to some degree [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Fuzzy logic is based upon fuzzy set-theory, in which the simple notion of membership of a set is replaced by a notion of membership to some degree. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.214) | |
| A reaction: The idea that something could be to some degree a 'heap of sand' sounds plausible, but Williamson and Sorensen claim that the vagueness is all in us (i.e. it is epistemological), and not in the world. This will scupper fuzzy logic. |
| 6877 | Entailment is logical requirement; it may be not(p and not-q), but that has problems [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Entailment is the modern word saying that p logically follows from q. Its simplest definition is that you cannot have both p and not-q, but this has the problem that if p is impossible it will entail every possible proposition, which seems unacceptable. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.169) | |
| A reaction: The word 'entail' was introduced by G.E. Moore in 1920, in preference to 'imply'. It seems clear that we need terms for (say) active implication (q must be true if p is true) and passive implication (p must be false if q is false). |
| 6880 | Strict implication says false propositions imply everything, and everything implies true propositions [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Strict implication [not(p and not-q)] carries the paradoxes that a false proposition (p) implies any proposition (q), and a true proposition (q) is materially implied by any proposition (p). | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.270) | |
| A reaction: This seems to show that we have two drastically different notions of implication; one (the logician's) is boring and is defined by a truth table; the other (the ordinary interesting one) says if you have one truth you can deduce a second. |
| 6879 | 'Material implication' is defined as 'not(p and not-q)', but seems to imply a connection between p and q [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: 'Material implication' is a term introduced by Russell which is defined as 'the conjunction of p and not-q is false', but carries a strong implication that p implies q, and so there must be some kind of connection between them, which is misleading. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.270) | |
| A reaction: Mautner says statements of the form 'if p then q' are better called 'conditionals' than 'material implications'. Clearly there is a need for more precise terminology here, as the underlying concepts seem simple enough. |
| 6878 | A person who 'infers' draws the conclusion, but a person who 'implies' leaves it to the audience [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: 'Implying' is different from 'inferring', because a person who infers draws the conclusion, but a person who implies leaves it to the audience to draw the conclusion. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.279) | |
| A reaction: I had always taken it just that the speaker does the implying and the audience does the inferring. Of course a speaker may not know what he or she is implying, but an audience must be aware of what it is inferring. |
| 6889 | Vagueness seems to be inconsistent with the view that every proposition is true or false [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Vagueness is of great philosophical interest because it seems to be inconsistent with the view that every proposition is true or false. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.585) | |
| A reaction: This would explain why Williamson and Sorensen are keen to argue that vagueness is an epistemological (rather than ontological) problem. In ordinary English we are happy to say that p is 'sort of true' or 'fairly true'. |
| 7760 | Russell only uses descriptions attributively, and Strawson only referentially [Donnellan, by Lycan] |
| Full Idea: Donnellan objects that Russell's theory of definite descriptions overlooks the referential use (Russell writes as if all descriptions are used attributively), and that Strawson assumes they are all used referentially, to draw attention to things. | |
| From: report of Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966]) by William Lycan - Philosophy of Language Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: This seems like a nice little success for analytical philosophy - clarifying a horrible mess by making a simple distinction that leaves everyone happy. |
| 5811 | A definite description can have a non-referential use [Donnellan] |
| Full Idea: A definite description may also be used non-referentially, even as it occurs in one and the same sentence. | |
| From: Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966], §I) | |
| A reaction: Donnellan says we have to know about the particular occasion on which the description is used, as in itself it will not achieve reference. "Will the last person out switch off the lights" achieves its reference at the end of each day. |
| 5812 | Definite descriptions are 'attributive' if they say something about x, and 'referential' if they pick x out [Donnellan] |
| Full Idea: A speaker who uses a definite description 'attributively' in an assertion states something about whoever or whatever is the so-and-so; a speaker who uses it 'referentially' enables his audience to pick out whom or what he is talking about. | |
| From: Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966], §III) | |
| A reaction: "Smith's murderer is insane" exemplifies the first use before he is caught, and the second use afterwards. The gist is that reference is not a purely linguistic activity, but is closer to pointing at something. This seems right. |
| 5814 | 'The x is F' only presumes that x exists; it does not actually entail the existence [Donnellan] |
| Full Idea: For Russell there is a logical entailment: 'the x is F' entails 'there exists one and only one x'. Whether or not this is true of the attributive use of definite descriptions, it does not seem true of the referential use. The existence is a presumption. | |
| From: Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966], §VI) | |
| A reaction: Can we say 'x does not exist, but x is F'? Strictly, that sounds to me more like a contradiction than a surprising rejection of a presumption. However, 'Father Xmas does not exist, but he has a red coat'. |
| 6890 | Quantifiers turn an open sentence into one to which a truth-value can be assigned [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: In formal logic, quantifiers are operators that turn an open sentence into a sentence to which a truth-value can be assigned. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.464) | |
| A reaction: The standard quantifiers are 'all' and 'at least one'. The controversy is whether quantifiers actually assert existence, or whether (as McGinn says) they merely specify the subject matter of the sentence. I prefer the latter. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 6882 | Counterfactuals presuppose a belief (or a fact) that the condition is false [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: A conditional is called counterfactual because its use seems to presuppose that the user believes its antecedent to be false. Some insist that the antecedent must actually be false. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.114) | |
| A reaction: I am inclined to favour the stricter second version. "If I am on Earth then I have weight" hardly sounds counterfactual. However, in "If there is a God then I will be saved" it is not clear whether it is counterfactual, so it had better be included. |
| 6886 | Counterfactuals are not true, they are merely valid [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: One view of counterfactuals says they are not true, but are merely valid. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.114) | |
| A reaction: This makes counterfactuals a branch of logic rather than of metaphysics. I find the metaphysical view more exciting as they are part of speculation and are beyond the capacity of computers (which I suspect they are). |
| 6885 | Counterfactuals are true if in every world close to actual where p is the case, q is also the case [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Another view of counterfactuals (Lewis, Pollock, Stalnaker) is that they are true if at every possible world at which it is the case that p, and which is otherwise as similar as possible to the actual world, it is also the case that q. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.114) | |
| A reaction: This seems a good way if putting if, like Lewis, you actually believe in the reality of possible worlds, because then you are saying a counterfactual is made true by a set of facts. Otherwise it is not clear what the truth-maker is here. |
| 6884 | Counterfactuals say 'If it had been, or were, p, then it would be q' [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: A counterfactual conditional (or 'counterfactual') is a proposition or sentence of the form 'If it had been the case that p, then it would have been the case that q', or 'If it were the case that p, then it would be the case that q'. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.114) | |
| A reaction: The first statement refers to the past, but the second (a subjunctive) refers to any situation at any time. We know more about inferences that we could have made in the past than we do about what is inferable at absolutely any time. |
| 6883 | Maybe counterfactuals are only true if they contain valid inference from premisses [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: One view of counterfactuals (Chisholm, Goodman, Rescher) is that they are only true if there is a valid logical inference from p and some other propositions of certain kinds (controversial) to q. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.115) | |
| A reaction: The aspiration that counterfactual claims should reduce to pure logic sounds a bit hopeful to me. Logic is precise, but assertions about how things would be is speculative and imaginative. |
| 5449 | Essentialism is often identified with belief in 'de re' necessary truths [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Many writers identify essentialism with the belief in 'de re' necessary truths | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.179) | |
| A reaction: I like essentialism, but I cautious about this. If I accept that I have an essential personal identity as I write this, but that it could change over time, the same principle might apply to other natural essences. |
| 6898 | Fallibilism is the view that all knowledge-claims are provisional [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Fallibilism is the view, proposed by Peirce, and found in Reichenbach, Popper, Quine etc that all knowledge-claims are provisional and in principle revisable, or that the possibility of error is ever-present. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.194) | |
| A reaction: I think of this as footnote to all thought which reads "Note 1: but you never quite know". Personally I would call myself a fallibilist, and am surprise at anyone who doesn't. The point is that this does not negate 'knowledge'. I am fairly sure 2+3=5. |
| 6452 | 'Sense-data' arrived in 1910, but it denotes ideas in Locke, Berkeley and Hume [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: The term 'sense-data' gained currency around 1910, through writings of Moore and Russell, but it seems to denote at least some of the things referred to as 'ideas of sense' (Locke), or 'ideas' and 'sensible qualities' (Berkeley), or 'impressions' (Hume). | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.518) | |
| A reaction: See also Hobbes in Idea 2356 for an even earlier version. It looks as if the concept of sense-data is almost unavoidable for empiricists, and yet most modern empiricists have rejected them. You still have to give an account of perceptual illusions. |
| 4783 | Observing lots of green x can confirm 'all x are green' or 'all x are grue', where 'grue' is arbitrary [Mautner, by PG] |
| Full Idea: Observing green emeralds can confirm 'all emeralds are green' or 'all emeralds are grue', where 'grue' is an arbitrary predicate meaning 'green until t and then blue'. Thus predictions are arbitrary, depending on how the property is described. | |
| From: report of Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.225) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: This increasingly strikes me as the sort of sceptical nonsense that is concocted by philosophers who are enthralled to language instead of reality. It does draw attention to an expectation of stability in induction, both in language and in nature. |
| 4782 | 'All x are y' is equivalent to 'all non-y are non-x', so observing paper is white confirms 'ravens are black' [Mautner, by PG] |
| Full Idea: If observing a white sheet of paper confirms that 'all non-black things are non-ravens', and that is logically equivalent to 'all ravens are black' (which it is), then the latter proposition is confirmed by irrelevant observations. | |
| From: report of Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.105) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me more significant than the 'grue' paradox. If some observations can be totally irrelevant (except to God?), then some observations are much more relevant than others, so relevance is a crucial aspect of induction. |
| 10435 | A definite description 'the F' is referential if the speaker could thereby be referring to something not-F [Donnellan, by Sainsbury] |
| Full Idea: Donnellan argued that we could recognize a referential use of a definite description 'the F' by the fact that the speaker could thereby refer to something which is not F. | |
| From: report of Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966]) by Mark Sainsbury - The Essence of Reference 18.5 | |
| A reaction: If the expression employed achieved reference whether the speaker wanted it to or not, it would certainly look as if the expression was inherently referring. |
| 10451 | Donnellan is unclear whether the referential-attributive distinction is semantic or pragmatic [Bach on Donnellan] |
| Full Idea: Donnellan seems to be unsure whether to regard his referential-attributive distinction as indicating a semantic ambiguity or merely a pragmatic one. | |
| From: comment on Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966]) by Kent Bach - What Does It Take to Refer? 22.2 L1 | |
| A reaction: I vote for pragmatic. In a single brief conversation a definite description could start as attributive and end as referential, but it seems unlikely that its semantics changed in mid-paragraph. |
| 5813 | A description can successfully refer, even if its application to the subject is not believed [Donnellan] |
| Full Idea: If I think the king is a usurper, "Is the king in his counting house?" succeeds in referring to the right man, even though I do not believe that he fits the description. | |
| From: Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966], §IV) | |
| A reaction: This seems undeniable. If I point at someone, I can refer successfully with almost any description. "Oy! Adolf! Get me a drink!" Reference is an essential aspect of language, and it is not entirely linguistic. |
| 5815 | Whether a definite description is referential or attributive depends on the speaker's intention [Donnellan] |
| Full Idea: Whether or not a definite description is used referentially or attributively is a function of the speaker's intentions in a particular case. | |
| From: Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966], §VII) | |
| A reaction: Donnellan's distinction, and his claim here, seem to me right. However words on a notice could refer on one occasion, and just describe on another. "Anyone entering this cage is mad". |
| 6899 | The references of indexicals ('there', 'now', 'I') depend on the circumstances of utterance [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Indexicals are expressions whose references depend on the circumstances of utterance, such as 'here', 'now', 'last month' 'I', 'you'. It was introduced by Peirce; Reichenbach called them 'token-reflexive', Russell 'ego-centric particulars'. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.272) | |
| A reaction: Peirce's terminology seems best. They obviously create great problems for any theory of reference which is rather theoretical and linguistic, such as by the use of descriptions. You can't understand 'Look at that!' without practical awareness. |
| 6896 | Double effect is the distinction between what is foreseen and what is intended [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine of double effect is that there is a moral distinction between what is foreseen by an agent as a likely result of an action, and what is intended. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.150) | |
| A reaction: Abortion for a pregnancy threatening the mother's life. What always intrigues me is the effects which you didn't foresee because you couldn't be bothered to think about them. How much obligation do you have to try to foresee events? |
| 6897 | Double effect acts need goodness, unintended evil, good not caused by evil, and outweighing [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: It is suggested the double effect act requires 1) the act is good, 2) the bad effect is not intended, and is avoided if possible, 3) the bad effect doesn't cause the good result, 4) the good must outweigh the bad side effect. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.151) | |
| A reaction: It is suggested that these won't work for permissibility of an action, but they might be appropriate for blameworthiness. Personally I am rather impressed by the four-part framework here, whatever nitpicking objections others may have found. |
| 5452 | 'Essentialism' is opposed to existentialism, and claims there is a human nature [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: In philosophical anthropology, the view that there is a human nature or essence is called 'essentialism'. It became current in 1946 as a contrast to Sartre's existentialist view. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.179) | |
| A reaction: Being a fan of Aristotle, I incline towards the older view, but you cannot get away from the fact that the human brain has similarities to a Universal Turing Machine, and diverse cultures produce very different individuals. |