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Single Idea 10796

[filed under theme 9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 3. Objects in Thought ]

Full Idea

If objects are thoughts, aren't we back to psychologism?

Clarification

'Psychologism' is the view that ideas are entirely within individual minds

Gist of Idea

If objects are thoughts, aren't we back to psychologism?

Source

Ruth Barcan Marcus (Nominalism and Substitutional Quantifiers [1978], p.166)

Book Ref

'Philosophy of Logic: an anthology', ed/tr. Jacquette,Dale [Blackwell 2002], p.166

A Reaction

Personally I don't think that would be the end of the world, but Fregeans go into paroxyms at the mention of 'psychology', because they fear that it destroys objectivity. That may be because they haven't understood thought properly.

The 13 ideas from 'Nominalism and Substitutional Quantifiers'

10785 Maybe a substitutional semantics for quantification lends itself to nominalism [Marcus (Barcan)]
10786 Anything which refers tends to be called a 'name', even if it isn't a noun [Marcus (Barcan)]
10788 Nominalists see proper names as a main vehicle of reference [Marcus (Barcan)]
10787 Is being just referent of the verb 'to be'? [Marcus (Barcan)]
10789 Nominalists say predication is relations between individuals, or deny that it refers [Marcus (Barcan)]
10790 Quantifiers are needed to refer to infinitely many objects [Marcus (Barcan)]
10791 Substitutional semantics has no domain of objects, but place-markers for substitutions [Marcus (Barcan)]
10796 If objects are thoughts, aren't we back to psychologism? [Marcus (Barcan)]
10795 Substitutional language has no ontology, and is just a way of speaking [Marcus (Barcan)]
10794 The nominalist is tied by standard semantics to first-order, denying higher-order abstracta [Marcus (Barcan)]
10798 A true universal sentence might be substitutionally refuted, by an unnamed denumerable object [Marcus (Barcan)]
10797 Substitutivity won't fix identity, because expressions may be substitutable, but not refer at all [Marcus (Barcan)]
10799 Nominalists should quantify existentially at first-order, and substitutionally when higher [Marcus (Barcan)]