47 ideas
13966 | Analytic philosophy loved the necessary a priori analytic, linguistic modality, and rigour [Soames] |
13974 | If philosophy is analysis of meaning, available to all competent speakers, what's left for philosophers? [Soames] |
1403 | A rational donkey would starve to death between two totally identical piles of hay [Buridan, by PG] |
15163 | The interest of quantified modal logic is its metaphysical necessity and essentialism [Soames] |
10455 | Free logic at least allows empty names, but struggles to express non-existence [Bach] |
10454 | In first-order we can't just assert existence, and it is very hard to deny something's existence [Bach] |
10453 | In logic constants play the role of proper names [Bach] |
10452 | Proper names can be non-referential - even predicate as well as attributive uses [Bach] |
10456 | Millian names struggle with existence, empty names, identities and attitude ascription [Bach] |
15158 | Indefinite descriptions are quantificational in subject position, but not in predicate position [Soames] |
10440 | An object can be described without being referred to [Bach] |
10444 | Definite descriptions can be used to refer, but are not semantically referential [Bach] |
15157 | Recognising the definite description 'the man' as a quantifier phrase, not a singular term, is a real insight [Soames] |
15156 | The universal and existential quantifiers were chosen to suit mathematics [Soames] |
16678 | Without magnitude a thing would retain its parts, but they would have no location [Buridan] |
13969 | Kripkean essential properties and relations are necessary, in all genuinely possible worlds [Soames] |
16793 | A thing is (less properly) the same over time if each part is succeeded by another [Buridan] |
15161 | There are more metaphysically than logically necessary truths [Soames] |
15162 | We understand metaphysical necessity intuitively, from ordinary life [Soames] |
13973 | A key achievement of Kripke is showing that important modalities are not linguistic in source [Soames] |
13968 | Kripkean possible worlds are abstract maximal states in which the real world could have been [Soames] |
16726 | Why can't we deduce secondary qualities from primary ones, if they cause them? [Buridan] |
12900 | How could 'S knows he has hands' not have a fixed content? [Bach] |
12901 | If contextualism is right, knowledge sentences are baffling out of their context [Bach] |
12902 | Sceptics aren't changing the meaning of 'know', but claiming knowing is tougher than we think [Bach] |
16577 | Induction is not demonstration, because not all of the instances can be observed [Buridan] |
16576 | Science is based on induction, for general truths about fire, rhubarb and magnets [Buridan] |
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] |
10447 | We can refer to fictional entities if they are abstract objects [Bach] |
10443 | You 'allude to', not 'refer to', an individual if you keep their identity vague [Bach] |
10446 | Fictional reference is different inside and outside the fiction [Bach] |
10439 | What refers: indefinite or definite or demonstrative descriptions, names, indexicals, demonstratives? [Bach] |
10441 | If we can refer to things which change, we can't be obliged to single out their properties [Bach] |
10442 | We can think of an individual without have a uniquely characterizing description [Bach] |
10445 | It can't be real reference if it could refer to some other thing that satisfies the description [Bach] |
10457 | Since most expressions can be used non-referentially, none of them are inherently referential [Bach] |
10463 | Just alluding to or describing an object is not the same as referring to it [Bach] |
10459 | Context does not create reference; it is just something speakers can exploit [Bach] |
10460 | 'That duck' may not refer to the most obvious one in the group [Bach] |
10461 | What a pronoun like 'he' refers back to is usually a matter of speaker's intentions [Bach] |
10462 | Information comes from knowing who is speaking, not just from interpretation of the utterance [Bach] |
13965 | Semantics as theory of meaning and semantics as truth-based logical consequence are very different [Soames] |
13964 | Semantic content is a proposition made of sentence constituents (not some set of circumstances) [Soames] |
13972 | Two-dimensionalism reinstates descriptivism, and reconnects necessity and apriority to analyticity [Soames] |
15154 | We should use cognitive states to explain representational propositions, not vice versa [Soames] |
10458 | People slide from contextual variability all the way to contextual determination [Bach] |