Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim, Nathan Salmon and Scott Soames

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53 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 5. Modern Philosophy / c. Modern philosophy mid-period
13966 Analytic philosophy loved the necessary a priori analytic, linguistic modality, and rigour [Soames]
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 5. Linguistic Analysis
13974 If philosophy is analysis of meaning, available to all competent speakers, what's left for philosophers? [Soames]
2. Reason / D. Definition / 11. Ostensive Definition
18889 Ostensive definitions needn't involve pointing, but must refer to something specific [Salmon,N]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 1. Modal Logic
15163 The interest of quantified modal logic is its metaphysical necessity and essentialism [Soames]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 2. Tools of Modal Logic / b. Terminology of ML
14684 A world is 'accessible' to another iff the first is possible according to the second [Salmon,N]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 3. Modal Logic Systems / d. System T
14669 For metaphysics, T may be the only correct system of modal logic [Salmon,N]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 3. Modal Logic Systems / f. System B
14667 System B has not been justified as fallacy-free for reasoning on what might have been [Salmon,N]
14668 In B it seems logically possible to have both p true and p is necessarily possibly false [Salmon,N]
14692 System B implies that possibly-being-realized is an essential property of the world [Salmon,N]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 3. Modal Logic Systems / g. System S4
14671 What is necessary is not always necessarily necessary, so S4 is fallacious [Salmon,N]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 3. Modal Logic Systems / h. System S5
14627 S4, and therefore S5, are invalid for metaphysical modality [Salmon,N, by Williamson]
14686 S5 modal logic ignores accessibility altogether [Salmon,N]
14691 S5 believers say that-things-might-have-been-that-way is essential to ways things might have been [Salmon,N]
14693 The unsatisfactory counterpart-theory allows the retention of S5 [Salmon,N]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 4. Alethic Modal Logic
14670 Metaphysical (alethic) modal logic concerns simple necessity and possibility (not physical, epistemic..) [Salmon,N]
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 2. Descriptions / a. Descriptions
15158 Indefinite descriptions are quantificational in subject position, but not in predicate position [Soames]
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 2. Descriptions / c. Theory of definite descriptions
15157 Recognising the definite description 'the man' as a quantifier phrase, not a singular term, is a real insight [Soames]
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 7. Unorthodox Quantification
15156 The universal and existential quantifiers were chosen to suit mathematics [Soames]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / g. Degrees of vagueness
14742 It can't be indeterminate whether x and y are identical; if x,y is indeterminate, then it isn't x,x [Salmon,N]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties
13969 Kripkean essential properties and relations are necessary, in all genuinely possible worlds [Soames]
18888 Essentialism says some properties must be possessed, if a thing is to exist [Salmon,N]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
14678 Any property is attached to anything in some possible world, so I am a radical anti-essentialist [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 3. Types of Necessity
14680 Logical possibility contains metaphysical possibility, which contains nomological possibility [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 5. Metaphysical Necessity
14690 In the S5 account, nested modalities may be unseen, but they are still there [Salmon,N]
15162 We understand metaphysical necessity intuitively, from ordinary life [Soames]
14677 Metaphysical necessity is said to be unrestricted necessity, true in every world whatsoever [Salmon,N]
14679 Bizarre identities are logically but not metaphysically possible, so metaphysical modality is restricted [Salmon,N]
14688 Without impossible worlds, the unrestricted modality that is metaphysical has S5 logic [Salmon,N]
15161 There are more metaphysically than logically necessary truths [Soames]
14685 Metaphysical necessity is NOT truth in all (unrestricted) worlds; necessity comes first, and is restricted [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 6. Logical Necessity
14681 Logical necessity is free of constraints, and may accommodate all of S5 logic [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 7. Natural Necessity
14676 Nomological necessity is expressed with intransitive relations in modal semantics [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 3. Necessity by Convention
13973 A key achievement of Kripke is showing that important modalities are not linguistic in source [Soames]
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 5. Modality from Actuality
14689 Necessity and possibility are not just necessity and possibility according to the actual world [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / b. Impossible worlds
14674 Impossible worlds are also ways for things to be [Salmon,N]
14682 Denial of impossible worlds involves two different confusions [Salmon,N]
14687 Without impossible worlds, how things might have been is the only way for things to be [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / e. Against possible worlds
14683 Possible worlds rely on what might have been, so they can' be used to define or analyse modality [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 2. Nature of Possible Worlds / a. Nature of possible worlds
14672 Possible worlds are maximal abstract ways that things might have been [Salmon,N]
13968 Kripkean possible worlds are abstract maximal states in which the real world could have been [Soames]
14675 Possible worlds just have to be 'maximal', but they don't have to be consistent [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 2. Nature of Possible Worlds / c. Worlds as propositions
14673 You can't define worlds as sets of propositions, and then define propositions using worlds [Salmon,N]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction
20653 Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 4. Meaning as Truth-Conditions
15152 To study meaning, study truth conditions, on the basis of syntax, and representation by the parts [Soames]
15153 Tarski's account of truth-conditions is too weak to determine meanings [Soames]
19. Language / B. Reference / 1. Reference theories
18886 Frege's 'sense' solves four tricky puzzles [Salmon,N]
19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / a. Direct reference
18887 The perfect case of direct reference is a variable which has been assigned a value [Salmon,N]
18885 Kripke and Putnam made false claims that direct reference implies essentialism [Salmon,N]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 2. Semantics
13965 Semantics as theory of meaning and semantics as truth-based logical consequence are very different [Soames]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 6. Truth-Conditions Semantics
13964 Semantic content is a proposition made of sentence constituents (not some set of circumstances) [Soames]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 10. Two-Dimensional Semantics
13972 Two-dimensionalism reinstates descriptivism, and reconnects necessity and apriority to analyticity [Soames]
19. Language / D. Propositions / 4. Mental Propositions
15154 We should use cognitive states to explain representational propositions, not vice versa [Soames]
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 5. Reference to Natural Kinds
18891 Nothing in the direct theory of reference blocks anti-essentialism; water structure might have been different [Salmon,N]