50 ideas
14018 | Is Sufficient Reason self-refuting (no reason to accept it!), or is it a legitimate explanatory tool? [Bourne] |
14008 | The redundancy theory conflates metalinguistic bivalence with object-language excluded middle [Bourne] |
10482 | The logic of ZF is classical first-order predicate logic with identity [Boolos] |
10492 | A few axioms of set theory 'force themselves on us', but most of them don't [Boolos] |
18192 | Do the Replacement Axioms exceed the iterative conception of sets? [Boolos, by Maddy] |
7785 | The use of plurals doesn't commit us to sets; there do not exist individuals and collections [Boolos] |
10485 | Naïve sets are inconsistent: there is no set for things that do not belong to themselves [Boolos] |
10484 | The iterative conception says sets are formed at stages; some are 'earlier', and must be formed first [Boolos] |
13547 | Limitation of Size is weak (Fs only collect is something the same size does) or strong (fewer Fs than objects) [Boolos, by Potter] |
10699 | Does a bowl of Cheerios contain all its sets and subsets? [Boolos] |
14249 | Boolos reinterprets second-order logic as plural logic [Boolos, by Oliver/Smiley] |
10225 | Monadic second-order logic might be understood in terms of plural quantifiers [Boolos, by Shapiro] |
10830 | Second-order logic metatheory is set-theoretic, and second-order validity has set-theoretic problems [Boolos] |
10736 | Boolos showed how plural quantifiers can interpret monadic second-order logic [Boolos, by Linnebo] |
10780 | Any sentence of monadic second-order logic can be translated into plural first-order logic [Boolos, by Linnebo] |
10829 | A sentence can't be a truth of logic if it asserts the existence of certain sets [Boolos] |
10697 | Identity is clearly a logical concept, and greatly enhances predicate calculus [Boolos] |
10832 | '∀x x=x' only means 'everything is identical to itself' if the range of 'everything' is fixed [Boolos] |
13671 | Second-order quantifiers are just like plural quantifiers in ordinary language, with no extra ontology [Boolos, by Shapiro] |
10267 | We should understand second-order existential quantifiers as plural quantifiers [Boolos, by Shapiro] |
10698 | Plural forms have no more ontological commitment than to first-order objects [Boolos] |
7806 | Boolos invented plural quantification [Boolos, by Benardete,JA] |
10834 | Weak completeness: if it is valid, it is provable. Strong: it is provable from a set of sentences [Boolos] |
13841 | Why should compactness be definitive of logic? [Boolos, by Hacking] |
10491 | Infinite natural numbers is as obvious as infinite sentences in English [Boolos] |
10483 | Mathematics and science do not require very high orders of infinity [Boolos] |
10833 | Many concepts can only be expressed by second-order logic [Boolos] |
8921 | Structuralism is now common, studying relations, with no regard for what the objects might be [Hellman] |
8698 | Modal structuralism says mathematics studies possible structures, which may or may not be actualised [Hellman, by Friend] |
9557 | Statements of pure mathematics are elliptical for a sort of modal conditional [Hellman, by Chihara] |
10263 | Modal structuralism can only judge possibility by 'possible' models [Shapiro on Hellman] |
8922 | Maybe mathematical objects only have structural roles, and no intrinsic nature [Hellman] |
10490 | Mathematics isn't surprising, given that we experience many objects as abstract [Boolos] |
10700 | First- and second-order quantifiers are two ways of referring to the same things [Boolos] |
14010 | All relations between spatio-temporal objects are either spatio-temporal, or causal [Bourne] |
14009 | It is a necessary condition for the existence of relations that both of the relata exist [Bourne] |
10488 | It is lunacy to think we only see ink-marks, and not word-types [Boolos] |
10487 | I am a fan of abstract objects, and confident of their existence [Boolos] |
10489 | We deal with abstract objects all the time: software, poems, mistakes, triangles.. [Boolos] |
8693 | An 'abstraction principle' says two things are identical if they are 'equivalent' in some respect [Boolos] |
14016 | The idea of simultaneity in Special Relativity is full of verificationist assumptions [Bourne] |
14019 | Relativity denies simultaneity, so it needs past, present and future (unlike Presentism) [Bourne] |
14013 | Special Relativity allows an absolute past, future, elsewhere and simultaneity [Bourne] |
14015 | No-Futurists believe in past and present, but not future, and say the world grows as facts increase [Bourne] |
14007 | How can presentists talk of 'earlier than', and distinguish past from future? [Bourne] |
14011 | Presentism seems to deny causation, because the cause and the effect can never coexist [Bourne] |
14017 | Since presentists treat the presentness of events as basic, simultaneity should be define by that means [Bourne] |
14003 | Time is tensed or tenseless; the latter says all times and objects are real, and there is no passage of time [Bourne] |
14005 | B-series objects relate to each other; A-series objects relate to the present [Bourne] |
14006 | Time flows, past is fixed, future is open, future is feared but not past, we remember past, we plan future [Bourne] |