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Single Idea 6995

[filed under theme 19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 3. Predicates ]

Full Idea

Successful predication supervenes on nature.

Clarification

'Supervenes' means dependent and inseparable

Gist of Idea

Successful predication supervenes on nature

Source

Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.5)

Book Ref

Jackson,Frank: 'From Metaphysics to Ethics' [OUP 2000], p.118

A Reaction

A nice slogan, but it is in danger of being a tautology. If I say x and y 'are my favourites/are interesting', is that 'successful' predication? Is 'Juliet is the sun' unsuccessful?

The 27 ideas from 'From Metaphysics to Ethics'

6979 Serious metaphysics cares about entailment between sentences [Jackson]
7005 Something can only have a place in a preferred account of things if it is entailed by the account [Jackson]
6977 Egocentric or de se content seems to be irreducibly so [Jackson]
6975 Possible worlds could be concrete, abstract, universals, sentences, or properties [Jackson]
6976 In physicalism, the psychological depends on the physical, not the other way around [Jackson]
6982 Long arithmetic calculations show the a priori can be fallible [Jackson]
6980 Conceptual analysis studies whether one story is made true by another story [Jackson]
6983 Intuitions about possibilities are basic to conceptual analysis [Jackson]
6984 Smooth reductions preserve high-level laws in the lower level [Jackson]
6991 We examine objects to determine colour; we do not introspect [Jackson]
6987 We should not multiply senses of necessity beyond necessity [Jackson]
6986 Is the dependence of the psychological on the physical a priori or a posteriori? [Jackson]
6990 Keep distinct the essential properties of water, and application conditions for the word 'water' [Jackson]
6985 Analysis is finding necessary and sufficient conditions by studying possible cases [Jackson]
6989 I can understand "He has a beard", without identifying 'he', and hence the truth conditions [Jackson]
6988 Mathematical sentences are a problem in a possible-worlds framework [Jackson]
6993 Redness is a property, but only as a presentation to normal humans [Jackson]
6992 If different states can fulfil the same role, the converse must also be possible [Jackson]
6995 Successful predication supervenes on nature [Jackson]
6998 Folk morality does not clearly distinguish between doing and allowing [Jackson]
6997 Moral functionalism says moral terms get their meaning from their role in folk morality [Jackson]
7000 Which are prior - thin concepts like right, good, ought; or thick concepts like kindness, equity etc.? [Jackson]
6999 It is hard to justify the huge difference in our judgements of abortion and infanticide [Jackson]
6996 Folk psychology covers input, internal role, and output [Jackson]
6994 Truth supervenes on being [Jackson]
6978 Baldness is just hair distribution, but the former is indeterminate, unlike the latter [Jackson]
14707 Conceptual analysis is needed to establish that metaphysical reductions respect original meanings [Jackson, by Schroeter]