more from this thinker     |     more from this text

Single Idea 14099

[filed under theme 19. Language / E. Analyticity / 1. Analytic Propositions ]

Full Idea

It sounds right to say that Fred's being a bachelor consists in (reduces to) being an unmarried male, but slightly off to say that Fred's being an unmarried male consists in (or reduces to) being a bachelor. There is a corresponding explanatory asymmetry.

Gist of Idea

'Bachelor' consists in or reduces to 'unmarried' male, but not the other way around

Source

Gideon Rosen (Metaphysical Dependence [2010], 10)

Book Ref

'Modality', ed/tr. Hale,B/Hoffman,A [OUP 2010], p.124

A Reaction

This emerging understanding of the asymmetry of the idea shows that we are not just dealing with a simple semantic identity. Our concepts are richer than our language. He adds that a ball could be blue in virtue of being cerulean.

The 20 ideas with the same theme [propositions that just seem to be about words]:

8734 Non-subject/predicate tautologies won't fit Kant's definition of analyticity [Shapiro on Kant]
7314 How can bachelor 'contain' unmarried man? Are all analytic truths in subject-predicate form? [Miller,A on Kant]
20291 If the predicate is contained in the subject of a judgement, it is analytic; otherwise synthetic [Kant]
20292 Analytic judgements clarify, by analysing the subject into its component predicates [Kant]
16926 Analytic judgements say clearly what was in the concept of the subject [Kant]
16927 Analytic judgement rests on contradiction, since the predicate cannot be denied of the subject [Kant]
9370 A statement is analytic if substitution of synonyms can make it a logical truth [Frege, by Boghossian]
8743 Frege considered analyticity to be an epistemic concept [Frege, by Shapiro]
7725 'P or not-p' seems to be analytic, but does not fit Kant's account, lacking clear subject or predicate [Frege, by Weiner]
13345 Sentences are 'analytical' if every sequence of objects models them [Tarski]
9371 Analytic statements are either logical truths (all reinterpretations) or they depend on synonymy [Quine]
20294 'Married' does not 'contain' its symmetry, nor 'bigger than' its transitivity [Rey]
20293 Analytic judgements can't be explained by contradiction, since that is what is assumed [Rey]
20297 Analytic statements are undeniable (because of meaning), rather than unrevisable [Rey]
20301 The meaning properties of a term are those which explain how the term is typically used [Rey]
20302 An intrinsic language faculty may fix what is meaningful (as well as grammatical) [Rey]
20303 Research throws doubts on the claimed intuitions which support analyticity [Rey]
14099 'Bachelor' consists in or reduces to 'unmarried' male, but not the other way around [Rosen]
14488 Analyticity is revealed through redundancy, as in 'He bought a house and a building' [Thomasson]
17725 'Analytic' can be conceptual, or by meaning, or predicate inclusion, or definition... [Jenkins]