25 ideas
| 13966 | Analytic philosophy loved the necessary a priori analytic, linguistic modality, and rigour [Soames] |
| Full Idea: The golden age of analytic philosophy (mid 20th c) was when necessary, a priori and analytic were one, all possibility was linguistic possibility, and the linguistic turn gave philosophy a respectable subject matter (language), and precision and rigour. | |
| From: Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.166) | |
| A reaction: Gently sarcastic, because Soames is part of the team who have put a bomb under this view, and quite right too. Personally I think the biggest enemy in all of this lot is not 'language' but 'rigour'. A will-o-the-wisp philosophers dream of. |
| 13974 | If philosophy is analysis of meaning, available to all competent speakers, what's left for philosophers? [Soames] |
| Full Idea: If all of philosophy is the analysis of meaning, and meaning is fundamentally transparent to competent speakers, there is little room for philosophically significant explanations and theories, since they will be necessary or a priori, or both. | |
| From: Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.186) | |
| A reaction: He cites the later Wittgenstein as having fallen into this trap. I suppose any area of life can have its specialists, but I take Shakespeare to be a greater master of English than any philosopher I have ever read. |
| 15163 | The interest of quantified modal logic is its metaphysical necessity and essentialism [Soames] |
| Full Idea: The chief philosophical interest in quantified modal logic lies with metaphysical necessity, essentialism, and the nontrivial modal de re. | |
| From: Scott Soames (Philosophy of Language [2010], 3.1) |
| 15158 | Indefinite descriptions are quantificational in subject position, but not in predicate position [Soames] |
| Full Idea: The indefinite description in 'A man will meet you' is naturally treated as quantificational, but an occurrence in predicative position, in 'Jones is not a philosopher', doesn't have a natural quantificational counterpart. | |
| From: Scott Soames (Philosophy of Language [2010], 1.23) |
| 15157 | Recognising the definite description 'the man' as a quantifier phrase, not a singular term, is a real insight [Soames] |
| Full Idea: Recognising the definite description 'the man' as a quantifier phrase, rather than a singular term, is a real insight. | |
| From: Scott Soames (Philosophy of Language [2010], 1.22) | |
| A reaction: 'Would the man who threw the stone come forward' seems like a different usage from 'would the man in the black hat come forward'. |
| 15156 | The universal and existential quantifiers were chosen to suit mathematics [Soames] |
| Full Idea: Since Frege and Russell were mainly interested in formalizing mathematics, the only quantifiers they needed were the universal and existential one. | |
| From: Scott Soames (Philosophy of Language [2010], 1.22) |
| 13969 | Kripkean essential properties and relations are necessary, in all genuinely possible worlds [Soames] |
| Full Idea: By (Kripkean) 'essential' properties and relations I mean simply properties and relations that hold necessarily of objects (in all genuinely possible world-states in which the objects exist). | |
| From: Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.168 n5) | |
| A reaction: This is the standard modern view of essences which I find so unsatisfactory. Kit Fine has helped to take us back to the proper Aristotelian view, where 'necessary' and 'essential' actually have different meanings. Note the inclusion of relations. |
| 15162 | We understand metaphysical necessity intuitively, from ordinary life [Soames] |
| Full Idea: Our understanding of metaphysical necessity is intuitive - drawn from our ordinary thought and talk. | |
| From: Scott Soames (Philosophy of Language [2010], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: This, of course, is a good reason for analytic philosophers to dislike metaphysical necessity. |
| 15161 | There are more metaphysically than logically necessary truths [Soames] |
| Full Idea: The set of metaphysically necessary truths is larger than the set of logically necessary truths. | |
| From: Scott Soames (Philosophy of Language [2010], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: Likewise, the set of logically possible truths is much larger than the set of metaphysically possible truths. If a truth is logically necessary, it will clearly be metaphysically necessary. Er, unless it is necessitated by daft logic... |
| 13973 | A key achievement of Kripke is showing that important modalities are not linguistic in source [Soames] |
| Full Idea: None of Kripke's many achievements is more important than his breaking the spell of the linguistic as the source of philosophically important modalities. | |
| From: Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.186) | |
| A reaction: Put like that, Kripke may have had the single most important thought of modern times. I take good philosophy to be exactly the same as good scientific theorising, in that it all arises out of the nature of reality (and I include logic in that). |
| 13968 | Kripkean possible worlds are abstract maximal states in which the real world could have been [Soames] |
| Full Idea: For the Kripkean possible states of the world are not alternate concrete universes, but abstract objects. Metaphysically possible world-states are maximally complete ways the real concrete universe could have been. | |
| From: Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.167) | |
| A reaction: This is probably clearer about the Kripkean view than Kripke ever is, but then that is part of Soames's mission. It sounds like the right way to conceive possible worlds. At least there is some commitment there, rather than instrumentalism about them. |
| 19000 | Read 'all ravens are black' as about ravens, not as about an implication [Belnap] |
| Full Idea: 'All ravens are black' might profitably be read as saying not that being a raven 'implies' being black, but rather something more like 'Consider the ravens: each one is black'. | |
| From: Nuel D. Belnap (Conditional Assertion and Restricted Quantification [1970], p.7), quoted by Stephen Yablo - Aboutness 04.5 | |
| A reaction: Belnap is more interested in the logic than in the paradox of confirmation, since he evidently thinks that universal generalisations should not be read as implications. I like Belnap's suggestion. |
| 17897 | Analytic explanation is wholes in terms of parts; synthetic is parts in terms of wholes or contexts [Belnap] |
| Full Idea: Throughout the whole texture of philosophy we distinguish two modes of explanation: the analytic mode, which tends to explain wholes in terms of parts, and the synthetic mode, which explains parts in terms of the wholes or contexts in which they occur. | |
| From: Nuel D. Belnap (Tonk, Plonk and Plink [1962], p.132) | |
| A reaction: The analytic would be bottom-up, and the synthetic would be top-down. I'm inclined to combine them, and say explanation begins with a model, which can then be sliced in either direction, though the bottom looks more interesting. |
| 15152 | To study meaning, study truth conditions, on the basis of syntax, and representation by the parts [Soames] |
| Full Idea: The systematic study of meaning requires a framework for specifying the truth conditions of sentences on the basis of their syntactic structure, and the representational contents of their parts. | |
| From: Scott Soames (Philosophy of Language [2010], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Soames presents this as common sense, on the first page of his book, and it is hard to disagree. Representation will shade off into studying the workings of the mind. Fodor seems a good person to start with. |
| 15153 | Tarski's account of truth-conditions is too weak to determine meanings [Soames] |
| Full Idea: The truth conditions provided by Tarski's theories (based on references of subsentential constituents) are too weak to determine meanings, because they lacked context-sensitivity and various forms of intensionality. | |
| From: Scott Soames (Philosophy of Language [2010], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. This suggests that stronger modern axiomatic theories of truth might give a sufficient basis for a truth conditions theory of meaning. Soames says possible worlds semantics was an attempt to improve things. |
| 13965 | Semantics as theory of meaning and semantics as truth-based logical consequence are very different [Soames] |
| Full Idea: There are two senses of 'semantic' - as theory of meaning or as truth-based theory of logical consequence, and they are very different. | |
| From: Scott Soames (Why Propositions Aren't Truth-Supporting Circumstance [2008], p.78) | |
| A reaction: This subtle point is significant in considering the role of logic in philosophy. The logicians' semantics (based on logical consequence) is in danger of ousting the broader and more elusive notion of meaning in natural language. |
| 13964 | Semantic content is a proposition made of sentence constituents (not some set of circumstances) [Soames] |
| Full Idea: The semantic content of a sentence is not the set of circumstances supporting its truth. It is rather the semantic content of a structured proposition the constituents of which are the semantic contents of the constituents of the sentence. | |
| From: Scott Soames (Why Propositions Aren't Truth-Supporting Circumstance [2008], p.74) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure I get this, but while I like the truth-conditions view, I am suspicious of any proposal that the semantic content of something is some actual physical ingredients of the world. Meanings aren't sticks and stones. |
| 13972 | Two-dimensionalism reinstates descriptivism, and reconnects necessity and apriority to analyticity [Soames] |
| Full Idea: Two-dimensionalism is a fundamentally anti-Kripkean attempt to reinstate descriptivism about names and natural kind terms, to reconnect necessity and apriority to analyticity, and return philosophy to analytic paradigms of its golden age. | |
| From: Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.183) | |
| A reaction: I presume this is right, and it is so frustrating that you need Soames to spell it out, when Chalmers is much more low-key. Philosophers hate telling you what their real game is. Why is that? |
| 15154 | We should use cognitive states to explain representational propositions, not vice versa [Soames] |
| Full Idea: Instead of explaining the representationality of sentences and cognitive states in terms of propositions, we must explain the representationality of propositions in terms of the representationality of the relevant cognitive states. | |
| From: Scott Soames (Philosophy of Language [2010], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Music to my ears. I am bewildered by this Russellian notion of a 'proposition' as some abstract entity floating around in the world waiting to be expressed. The vaguer word 'facts' (and false facts?) will cover that. It's Frege's fault. |
| 20400 | Intentions either succeed or fail, so external evidence for them is always irrelevant [Wimsatt/Beardsley, by Davies,S] |
| Full Idea: Wimsatt and Beardsley claimed that either the intention succeeded, so one does not need to look outside the work for its meaning, or the intention failed, so external evidence does not help. | |
| From: report of W Wimsatt/W Beardsley (The Intentional Fallacy [1946]) by Stephen Davies - The Philosophy of Art (2nd ed) 5.3 | |
| A reaction: Actually, the external evidence may tell you much more clearly and accurately what the intention was than the work itself does. The best example may be the title of the work, which is presumably outside the work. |
| 7266 | The author's intentions are irrelevant to the judgement of a work's success [Wimsatt/Beardsley] |
| Full Idea: The design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work of literary art. | |
| From: W Wimsatt/W Beardsley (The Intentional Fallacy [1946], §I) | |
| A reaction: This famous proposal may have been misunderstood. Note that it is a comment about judging the work, not about understanding it. The idea allows for a work being much more successful than the author's humble intentions (e.g. Pepys). |
| 7267 | Poetry, unlike messages, can be successful without communicating intentions [Wimsatt/Beardsley] |
| Full Idea: Poetry differs from practical messages, which are successful if and only if we correctly infer the intention. | |
| From: W Wimsatt/W Beardsley (The Intentional Fallacy [1946], §I) | |
| A reaction: I am not convinced by this claim. It is plausible that a work does much more than it intends (Astaire said he danced "to make a buck"), but it is rather odd to rate very highly a work of which you have missed the point. |
| 7268 | The thoughts of a poem should be imputed to the dramatic speaker, and hardly at all to the poet [Wimsatt/Beardsley] |
| Full Idea: We ought to impute the thoughts and attitudes of the poem immediately to the dramatic speaker, and if to the author at all, only by an act of biographical inference. | |
| From: W Wimsatt/W Beardsley (The Intentional Fallacy [1946], §I) | |
| A reaction: Wrong. If in Browning's "My Last Duchess" (say), we only inferred the mind of the speaker (and his Duchess), and took no interest in Browning's view of things, we would miss the point. We might end up respecting the Duke, which would be daft. |
| 7269 | The intentional fallacy is a romantic one [Wimsatt/Beardsley] |
| Full Idea: The intentional fallacy is a romantic one. | |
| From: W Wimsatt/W Beardsley (The Intentional Fallacy [1946], §II) | |
| A reaction: Wrong. Even with those most famous of anonymous artists, the architects and carvers of medieval cathedrals, without some discernment of the purpose you won't get it. The Taj Mahal is a love letter, not a potential ice cream parlour. |
| 7271 | Biography can reveal meanings and dramatic character, as well as possible intentions [Wimsatt/Beardsley] |
| Full Idea: The use of biographical evidence need not involve intentionalism, because while it may be evidence of what the author intended, it may also be evidence of the meaning of his words and the dramatic character of his utterance. | |
| From: W Wimsatt/W Beardsley (The Intentional Fallacy [1946], §IV) | |
| A reaction: I am very keen to penetrate the author's intentions, but I have always be doubtful about the use of biography as a means to achieve this. Most of the effort to infer intentions must come from a study of the work itself, not introductions, letters etc. |