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Full Idea
We need to straddle both of Carnap's internal and external views. It is only by standing outside of reality that we are able to occupy a standpoint from which the constitution of reality can be adequately described.
Gist of Idea
For ontology we need, not internal or external views, but a view from outside reality
Source
Kit Fine (The Question of Ontology [2009], p.174)
Book Ref
'Metametaphysics', ed/tr. Chalmers/Manley/Wasserman [OUP 2009], p.174
A Reaction
See Idea 4840! I thoroughly approve of this idea, which almost amounts to a Credo for the modern metaphysician. Since we can think outside our room, or our country, or our era, or our solar system, I think we can do what Fine is demanding.
Related Ideas
Idea 4840 Reason perceives things under a certain form of eternity [Spinoza]
Idea 13933 Existence questions are 'internal' (within a framework) or 'external' (concerning the whole framework) [Carnap]
12211 | It is plausible that x^2 = -1 had no solutions before complex numbers were 'introduced' [Fine,K] |
12209 | The indispensability argument shows that nature is non-numerical, not the denial of numbers [Fine,K] |
12212 | Just as we introduced complex numbers, so we introduced sums and temporal parts [Fine,K] |
12214 | 'Exists' is a predicate, not a quantifier; 'electrons exist' is like 'electrons spin' [Fine,K] |
12213 | Ontological claims are often universal, and not a matter of existential quantification [Fine,K] |
12215 | The existence of numbers is not a matter of identities, but of constituents of the world [Fine,K] |
12216 | Real objects are those which figure in the facts that constitute reality [Fine,K] |
12218 | Being real and being fundamental are separate; Thales's water might be real and divisible [Fine,K] |
12217 | For ontology we need, not internal or external views, but a view from outside reality [Fine,K] |