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Single Idea 9184

[filed under theme 1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 4. Conceptual Analysis ]

Full Idea

We have no prior reason to suppose that philosophically significant concepts have interesting analyses into necessary and sufficient conditions.

Gist of Idea

We can't presume that all interesting concepts can be analysed

Source

Timothy Williamson (Review of Bob Hale's 'Abstract Objects' [1988])

Book Ref

-: 'Mind' [-], p.487

A Reaction

We might think that they are either analysable or primitive, and that failure of analysis invites us to take a concept as primitive. But maybe God can analyse it and we can't.

The 96 ideas from Timothy Williamson

6858 Formal logic struck me as exactly the language I wanted to think in [Williamson]
6859 Analytic philosophy has much higher standards of thinking than continental philosophy [Williamson]
6860 How can one discriminate yellow from red, but not the colours in between? [Williamson]
6861 What sort of logic is needed for vague concepts, and what sort of concept of truth? [Williamson]
6862 Fuzzy logic uses a continuum of truth, but it implies contradictions [Williamson]
6863 Close to conceptual boundaries judgement is too unreliable to give knowledge [Williamson]
19512 Don't analyse knowledge; use knowledge to analyse other concepts in epistemology [Williamson, by DeRose]
4760 Belief aims at knowledge (rather than truth), and mere believing is a kind of botched knowing [Williamson]
19526 Surely I am acquainted with physical objects, not with appearances? [Williamson]
19527 We don't acquire evidence and then derive some knowledge, because evidence IS knowledge [Williamson]
19528 Knowledge is prior to believing, just as doing is prior to trying to do [Williamson]
19529 Belief explains justification, and knowledge explains belief, so knowledge explains justification [Williamson]
19530 A neutral state of experience, between error and knowledge, is not basic; the successful state is basic [Williamson]
19531 Internalism about mind is an obsolete view, and knowledge-first epistemology develops externalism [Williamson]
19534 How does inferentialism distinguish the patterns of inference that are essential to meaning? [Williamson]
19535 Internalist inferentialism has trouble explaining how meaning and reference relate [Williamson]
19533 Inferentialist semantics relies on internal inference relations, not on external references [Williamson]
19532 Truth-conditional referential semantics is externalist, referring to worldly items [Williamson]
19536 Knowledge-first says your total evidence IS your knowledge [Williamson]
15130 If a property is possible, there is something which can have it [Williamson]
14531 Rather than define counterfactuals using necessity, maybe necessity is a special case of counterfactuals [Williamson, by Hale/Hoffmann,A]
14625 Necessity is counterfactually implied by its negation; possibility does not counterfactually imply its negation [Williamson]
14623 Strict conditionals imply counterfactual conditionals: □(A⊃B)⊃(A□→B) [Williamson]
14624 Counterfactual conditionals transmit possibility: (A□→B)⊃(◊A⊃◊B) [Williamson]
14626 In S5 matters of possibility and necessity are non-contingent [Williamson]
14628 Imagination is important, in evaluating possibility and necessity, via counterfactuals [Williamson]
18925 If talking donkeys are possible, something exists which could be a talking donkey [Williamson, by Cameron]
19216 Propositions (such as 'that dog is barking') only exist if their items exist [Williamson]
16536 Williamson can't base metaphysical necessity on the psychology of causal counterfactuals [Lowe on Williamson]
9592 Intuition is neither powerful nor vacuous, but reveals linguistic or conceptual competence [Williamson]
9593 Progress in philosophy is incremental, not an immature seeking after drama [Williamson]
9594 Correspondence to the facts is a bad account of analytic truth [Williamson]
9595 You might know that the word 'gob' meant 'mouth', but not be competent to use it [Williamson]
9596 We scorn imagination as a test of possibility, forgetting its role in counterfactuals [Williamson]
9597 There are 'armchair' truths which are not a priori, because experience was involved [Williamson]
9598 Modal thinking isn't a special intuition; it is part of ordinary counterfactual thinking [Williamson]
9599 There cannot be vague objects, so there may be no such thing as a mountain [Williamson]
9600 If languages are intertranslatable, and cognition is innate, then cultures are all similar [Williamson]
9601 The realist/anti-realist debate is notoriously obscure and fruitless [Williamson]
9602 Common sense and classical logic are often simultaneously abandoned in debates on vagueness [Williamson]
20181 When analytic philosophers run out of arguments, they present intuitions as their evidence [Williamson]
9183 Platonism claims that some true assertions have singular terms denoting abstractions, so abstractions exist [Williamson]
9184 We can't presume that all interesting concepts can be analysed [Williamson]
15131 If metaphysical possibility is not a contingent matter, then S5 seems to suit it best [Williamson]
15133 A thing can't be the only necessary existent, because its singleton set would be as well [Williamson]
15135 If the domain of propositional quantification is constant, the Barcan formulas hold [Williamson]
15134 The truthmaker principle requires some specific named thing to make the difference [Williamson]
15136 Substitutional quantification is metaphysical neutral, and equivalent to a disjunction of instances [Williamson]
15138 Not all quantification is objectual or substitutional [Williamson]
15137 If 'fact' is a noun, can we name the fact that dogs bark 'Mary'? [Williamson]
15140 The converse Barcan formula will not allow contingent truths to have truthmakers [Williamson]
15141 Truthmaker is incompatible with modal semantics of varying domains [Williamson]
15139 Converse Barcan: could something fail to meet a condition, if everything meets that condition? [Williamson]
15142 Our ability to count objects across possibilities favours the Barcan formulas [Williamson]
18492 Not all quantification is either objectual or substitutional [Williamson]
21589 When bivalence is rejected because of vagueness, we lose classical logic [Williamson]
21591 Vagueness is epistemic. Statements are true or false, but we often don't know which [Williamson]
21590 Asking when someone is 'clearly' old is higher-order vagueness [Williamson]
21592 Supervaluation keeps classical logic, but changes the truth in classical semantics [Williamson]
21596 Vagueness undermines the stable references needed by logic [Williamson]
21599 A sorites stops when it collides with an opposite sorites [Williamson]
21600 'Blue' is not a family resemblance, because all the blues resemble in some respect [Williamson]
21601 A vague term can refer to very precise elements [Williamson]
21602 Many-valued logics don't solve vagueness; its presence at the meta-level is ignored [Williamson]
21603 You can't give a precise description of a language which is intrinsically vague [Williamson]
21604 Supervaluation assigns truth when all the facts are respected [Williamson]
21607 Supervaluation has excluded middle but not bivalence; 'A or not-A' is true, even when A is undecided [Williamson]
21606 'Bivalence' is the meta-linguistic principle that 'A' in the object language is true or false [Williamson]
21605 Excluded Middle is 'A or not A' in the object language [Williamson]
21611 Formal semantics defines validity as truth preserved in every model [Williamson]
21612 Or-elimination is 'Argument by Cases'; it shows how to derive C from 'A or B' [Williamson]
21608 Truth-functionality for compound statements fails in supervaluation [Williamson]
21609 Supervaluationism defines 'supertruth', but neglects it when defining 'valid' [Williamson]
21610 Supervaluation adds a 'definitely' operator to classical logic [Williamson]
21613 Supervaluationism cannot eliminate higher-order vagueness [Williamson]
21614 The 'nihilist' view of vagueness says that 'heap' is not a legitimate concept [Williamson]
21615 References to the 'greatest prime number' have no reference, but are meaningful [Williamson]
18038 The 't' and 'f' of formal semantics has no philosophical interest, and may not refer to true and false [Williamson]
21617 We can say propositions are bivalent, but vague utterances don't express a proposition [Williamson]
21616 Truth and falsity apply to suppositions as well as to assertions [Williamson]
21618 If the vague 'TW is thin' says nothing, what does 'TW is thin if his perfect twin is thin' say? [Williamson]
21619 If a heap has a real boundary, omniscient speakers would agree where it is [Williamson]
21620 The epistemic view says that the essence of vagueness is ignorance [Williamson]
21621 We can't infer metaphysical necessities to be a priori knowable - or indeed knowable in any way [Williamson]
21622 If there is a true borderline of which we are ignorant, this drives a wedge between meaning and use [Williamson]
21623 True and false are not symmetrical; false is more complex, involving negation [Williamson]
21624 It is known that there is a cognitive loss in identifying propositions with possible worlds [Williamson]
21625 The vagueness of 'heap' can remain even when the context is fixed [Williamson]
9120 Vagueness in a concept is its indiscriminability from other possible concepts [Williamson]
21626 Knowing you know (KK) is usually denied if the knowledge concept is missing, or not considered [Williamson]
21627 We have inexact knowledge when we include margins of error [Williamson]
21630 If fuzzy edges are fine, then why not fuzzy temporal, modal or mereological boundaries? [Williamson]
21629 Equally fuzzy objects can be identical, so fuzziness doesn't entail vagueness [Williamson]
21632 A river is not just event; it needs actual and counterfactual boundaries [Williamson]
21633 Nominalists suspect that properties etc are our projections, and could have been different [Williamson]
21631 To know, believe, hope or fear, one must grasp the thought, but not when you fail to do them [Williamson]