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Single Idea 6310
[filed under theme 1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 6. Metaphysics as Conceptual
]
Full Idea
No enquiry is possible without some conceptual scheme, so we may as well retain and use the best one we know.
Gist of Idea
Enquiry needs a conceptual scheme, so we should retain the best available
Source
Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §01)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Word and Object' [MIT 1969], p.4
A Reaction
This remark leads to Davidson's splendid paper 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme'. Quine's remark raises the question of how we know which conceptual scheme is 'best'.
The
29 ideas
from 'Word and Object'
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6891
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Quine's naturalistic and empirical view is based entirely on first-order logic and set theory
[Quine, by Mautner]
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4630
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Two theories can be internally consistent and match all the facts, yet be inconsistent with one another
[Quine, by Baggini /Fosl]
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3131
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Quine expresses the instrumental version of eliminativism
[Quine, by Rey]
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3988
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Indeterminacy of translation also implies indeterminacy in interpreting people's mental states
[Dennett on Quine]
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6310
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Enquiry needs a conceptual scheme, so we should retain the best available
[Quine]
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6311
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The firmer the links between sentences and stimuli, the less translations can diverge
[Quine]
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6312
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We can never precisely pin down how to translate the native word 'Gavagai'
[Quine]
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6313
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Stimulus synonymy of 'Gavagai' and 'Rabbit' does not even guarantee they are coextensive
[Quine]
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6314
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Weird translations are always possible, but they improve if we impose our own logic on them
[Quine]
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6317
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Dispositions to speech behaviour, and actual speech, are never enough to fix any one translation
[Quine]
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6315
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We should be suspicious of a translation which implies that a people have very strange beliefs
[Quine]
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12798
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Plurals can in principle be paraphrased away altogether
[Quine]
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16462
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The quest for ultimate categories is the quest for a simple clear pattern of notation
[Quine]
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8464
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Physical objects in space-time are just events or processes, no matter how disconnected
[Quine]
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8482
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Mathematicians must be rational but not two-legged, cyclists the opposite. So a mathematical cyclist?
[Quine]
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12136
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Cyclist are not actually essentially two-legged
[Brody on Quine]
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8504
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Quine aims to deal with properties by the use of eternal open sentences, or classes
[Quine, by Devitt]
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15720
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What stays the same in assessing a counterfactual antecedent depends on context
[Quine]
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15725
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Normal conditionals have a truth-value gap when the antecedent is false.
[Quine]
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15724
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Counterfactuals have no place in a strict account of science
[Quine]
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15722
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Conditionals are pointless if the truth value of the antecedent is known
[Quine]
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15719
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We feign belief in counterfactual antecedents, and assess how convincing the consequent is
[Quine]
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15721
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Counterfactuals are plausible when dispositions are involved, as they imply structures
[Quine]
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15723
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Either dispositions rest on structures, or we keep saying 'all things being equal'
[Quine]
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15490
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Explain unmanifested dispositions as structural similarities to objects which have manifested them
[Quine, by Martin,CB]
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17594
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We can paraphrase 'x=y' as a sequence of the form 'if Fx then Fy'
[Quine]
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7924
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The notion of a physical object is by far the most useful one for science
[Quine]
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17905
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Any progression will do nicely for numbers; they can all then be used to measure multiplicity
[Quine]
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9556
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Nearly all of mathematics has to quantify over abstract objects
[Quine]
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