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Single Idea 14305
[filed under theme 10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / c. Truth-function conditionals
]
Full Idea
If a wooden match was completely burned up yesterday, and never placed in water at any time, is it not the case, therefore, that the match is soluble (in the truth-functional view). This follows just from the antecedent being false.
Gist of Idea
In the truth-functional account a burnt-up match was soluble because it never entered water
Source
Rudolph Carnap (Testability and Meaning [1937], I.440), quoted by Stephen Mumford - Dispositions
Book Ref
Mumford,Stephen: 'Dispositions' [OUP 1998], p.46
A Reaction
This, along with Edgington's nice example of the conditional command (Idea ) seems conclusive against the truth-functional account. The only defence possible is some sort of pragmatic account about implicature.
Related Idea
Idea 14290
Doctor:'If patient still alive, change dressing'; Nurse:'Either dead patient, or change dressing'; kills patient! [Edgington]
The
20 ideas
from Rudolph Carnap
16252
|
Metaphysics uses empty words, or just produces pseudo-statements
[Carnap]
|
8748
|
Logical positivists incorporated geometry into logicism, saying axioms are just definitions
[Carnap, by Shapiro]
|
8960
|
Internal questions about abstractions are trivial, and external ones deeply problematic
[Carnap, by Szabó]
|
13932
|
Empiricists tend to reject abstract entities, and to feel sympathy with nominalism
[Carnap]
|
13933
|
Existence questions are 'internal' (within a framework) or 'external' (concerning the whole framework)
[Carnap]
|
13934
|
To be 'real' is to be an element of a system, so we cannot ask reality questions about the system itself
[Carnap]
|
13936
|
Questions about numbers are answered by analysis, and are analytic, and hence logically true
[Carnap]
|
13935
|
We only accept 'things' within a language with formation, testing and acceptance rules
[Carnap]
|
13937
|
New linguistic claims about entities are not true or false, but just expedient, fruitful or successful
[Carnap]
|
13938
|
A linguistic framework involves commitment to entities, so only commitment to the framework is in question
[Carnap]
|
13939
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No possible evidence could decide the reality of numbers, so it is a pseudo-question
[Carnap]
|
13940
|
All linguistic forms in science are merely judged by their efficiency as instruments
[Carnap]
|
13048
|
Good explications are exact, fruitful, simple and similar to the explicandum
[Carnap, by Salmon]
|
12131
|
All concepts can be derived from a few basics, making possible one science of everything
[Carnap, by Brody]
|
18699
|
Carnap tried to define all scientific predicates in terms of primitive relations, using type theory
[Carnap, by Button]
|
13251
|
Each person is free to build their own logic, just by specifying a syntax
[Carnap]
|
13342
|
Carnap defined consequence by contradiction, but this is unintuitive and changes with substitution
[Tarski on Carnap]
|
11968
|
The intension of a sentence is the set of all possible worlds in which it is true
[Carnap, by Kaplan]
|
14305
|
In the truth-functional account a burnt-up match was soluble because it never entered water
[Carnap]
|
18285
|
All translation loses some content (but language does not create reality)
[Carnap]
|