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Single Idea 22433

[filed under theme 4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 6. Temporal Logic ]

Full Idea

It would be hard to exaggerate the importance of recognising the timelessness of quantification over temporal entities.

Gist of Idea

It is important that the quantification over temporal entities is timeless

Source

Willard Quine (Mr Strawson on Logical Theory [1953], IV)

Book Ref

Quine,Willard: 'Ways of Paradox and other essays' [Harvard 1976], p.147


A Reaction

'Some moments in this cricket match were crucial'. The domain is not timeless, but consists of moments in this match. Can you say the quantifier is timeless but its domain is not? Only in the sense that 'very' is a timeless word, I think.


The 10 ideas from 'Mr Strawson on Logical Theory'

Quine holds time to be 'space-like': past objects are as real as spatially remote ones [Quine, by Sider]
If we understand a statement, we know the circumstances of its truth [Quine]
Normally conditionals have no truth value; it is the consequent which has a conditional truth value [Quine]
Good algorithms and theories need many occurrences of just a few elements [Quine]
It is important that the quantification over temporal entities is timeless [Quine]
Logical languages are rooted in ordinary language, and that connection must be kept [Quine]
Reduction to logical forms first simplifies idioms and grammar, then finds a single reading of it [Quine]
The logician's '→' does not mean the English if-then [Quine]
Philosophy is largely concerned with finding the minimum that science could get by with [Quine]
Logicians don't paraphrase logic into language, because they think in the symbolic language [Quine]