Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Hermarchus, Rudolph Carnap and Richard Cartwright

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40 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 1. Philosophy
Philosophers working like teams of scientists is absurd, yet isolation is hard [Cartwright,R]
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 2. Possibility of Metaphysics
No possible evidence could decide the reality of numbers, so it is a pseudo-question [Carnap]
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 7. Against Metaphysics
Metaphysics uses empty words, or just produces pseudo-statements [Carnap]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence
A false proposition isn't truer because it is part of a coherent system [Cartwright,R]
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 5. Truth Bearers
Are the truth-bearers sentences, utterances, ideas, beliefs, judgements, propositions or statements? [Cartwright,R]
Logicians take sentences to be truth-bearers for rigour, rather than for philosophical reasons [Cartwright,R]
5. Theory of Logic / B. Logical Consequence / 1. Logical Consequence
Carnap defined consequence by contradiction, but this is unintuitive and changes with substitution [Tarski on Carnap]
5. Theory of Logic / C. Ontology of Logic / 4. Logic by Convention
Each person is free to build their own logic, just by specifying a syntax [Carnap]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 6. Logicism / a. Early logicism
Questions about numbers are answered by analysis, and are analytic, and hence logically true [Carnap]
Logical positivists incorporated geometry into logicism, saying axioms are just definitions [Carnap, by Shapiro]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 4. Abstract Existence
Internal questions about abstractions are trivial, and external ones deeply problematic [Carnap, by Szabó]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 1. Ontologies
Existence questions are 'internal' (within a framework) or 'external' (concerning the whole framework) [Carnap]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 3. Reality
To be 'real' is to be an element of a system, so we cannot ask reality questions about the system itself [Carnap]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / a. Ontological commitment
A linguistic framework involves commitment to entities, so only commitment to the framework is in question [Carnap]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 11. Properties as Sets
While no two classes coincide in membership, there are distinct but coextensive attributes [Cartwright,R]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 6. Nihilism about Objects
We only accept 'things' within a language with formation, testing and acceptance rules [Carnap]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / a. Scattered objects
Clearly a pipe can survive being taken apart [Cartwright,R]
Bodies don't becomes scattered by losing small or minor parts [Cartwright,R]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties
Essentialism says some of a thing's properties are necessary, and could not be absent [Cartwright,R]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 14. Knowledge of Essences
The difficulty in essentialism is deciding the grounds for rating an attribute as essential [Cartwright,R]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
Essentialism is said to be unintelligible, because relative, if necessary truths are all analytic [Cartwright,R]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 3. Relative Identity
An act of ostension doesn't seem to need a 'sort' of thing, even of a very broad kind [Cartwright,R]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 4. Type Identity
A token isn't a unique occurrence, as the case of a word or a number shows [Cartwright,R]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / c. Truth-function conditionals
In the truth-functional account a burnt-up match was soluble because it never entered water [Carnap]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 1. Empiricism
Empiricists tend to reject abstract entities, and to feel sympathy with nominalism [Carnap]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 3. Pragmatism
New linguistic claims about entities are not true or false, but just expedient, fruitful or successful [Carnap]
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 1. Scientific Theory
Carnap tried to define all scientific predicates in terms of primitive relations, using type theory [Carnap, by Button]
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 3. Instrumentalism
All linguistic forms in science are merely judged by their efficiency as instruments [Carnap]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / b. Aims of explanation
Good explications are exact, fruitful, simple and similar to the explicandum [Carnap, by Salmon]
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 4. Structure of Concepts / g. Conceptual atomism
All concepts can be derived from a few basics, making possible one science of everything [Carnap, by Brody]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 1. Meaning
For any statement, there is no one meaning which any sentence asserting it must have [Cartwright,R]
People don't assert the meaning of the words they utter [Cartwright,R]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 8. Possible Worlds Semantics
The intension of a sentence is the set of all possible worlds in which it is true [Carnap, by Kaplan]
19. Language / D. Propositions / 1. Propositions
We can pull apart assertion from utterance, and the action, the event and the subject-matter for each [Cartwright,R]
'It's raining' makes a different assertion on different occasions, but its meaning remains the same [Cartwright,R]
19. Language / D. Propositions / 4. Mental Propositions
We can attribute 'true' and 'false' to whatever it was that was said [Cartwright,R]
To assert that p, it is neither necessary nor sufficient to utter some particular words [Cartwright,R]
19. Language / F. Communication / 2. Assertion
Assertions, unlike sentence meanings, can be accurate, probable, exaggerated, false.... [Cartwright,R]
19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / a. Translation
All translation loses some content (but language does not create reality) [Carnap]
25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 6. Animal Rights
Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice [Hermarchus, by Sedley]