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Full Idea
We are tempted to ask of second-order quantifiers 'what are you quantifying over?', or 'when you say "for some F" then what is the F?', but these questions already presuppose that the quantifiers are first-order.
Gist of Idea
If you ask what F the second-order quantifier quantifies over, you treat it as first-order
Source
Kit Fine (Replies on 'Limits of Abstraction' [2005])
Book Ref
-: 'Philosophical Studies' [-], p.379
10705 | Putting a predicate letter in a quantifier is to make it the name of an entity [Quine] |
9186 | First-order logic concerns objects; second-order adds properties, kinds, relations and functions [Dummett] |
13671 | Second-order quantifiers are just like plural quantifiers in ordinary language, with no extra ontology [Boolos, by Shapiro] |
10569 | If you ask what F the second-order quantifier quantifies over, you treat it as first-order [Fine,K] |
10290 | Second-order variables also range over properties, sets, relations or functions [Shapiro] |
10175 | Three types of variable in second-order logic, for objects, functions, and predicates/sets [Reck/Price] |
10978 | In second-order logic the higher-order variables range over all the properties of the objects [Read] |
5740 | Second-order logic needs second-order variables and quantification into predicate position [Melia] |
13453 | Perhaps second-order quantifications cover concepts of objects, rather than plain objects [Rayo/Uzquiano] |
18761 | Second-order variables need to range over more than collections of first-order objects [McGee] |
18763 | Basic variables in second-order logic are taken to range over subsets of the individuals [Anderson,CA] |