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Single Idea 15015

[filed under theme 2. Reason / D. Definition / 13. Against Definition ]

Full Idea

Arguably, 'there is absolutely no space between two objects in contact' is false, but definitional of 'contact'. ...We need a word for true definitional sentences. I propose: 'analytic'.

Gist of Idea

It seems possible for a correct definition to be factually incorrect, as in defining 'contact'

Source

Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 09.8)

Book Ref

Sider,Theodore: 'Writing the Book of the World' [OUP 2011], p.192

The 124 ideas from Theodore Sider

14752 Artists 'create' statues because they are essentially statues, and so lack identity with the lump of clay [Sider]
14721 Metaphysical enquiry can survive if its conclusions are tentative [Sider]
14722 Between presentism and eternalism is the 'growing block' view - the past is real, the future is not [Sider]
14723 Talk using tenses can be eliminated, by reducing it to indexical connections for an utterance [Sider]
14725 Maybe motion is a dynamical quantity intrinsic to a thing at a particular time [Sider]
14724 Presentists must deny truths about multiple times [Sider]
14194 Proper ontology should only use categorical (actual) properties, not hypothetical ones [Sider]
14727 Three-dimensionalists assert 'enduring', being wholly present at each moment, and deny 'temporal parts' [Sider]
14726 Four-dimensionalists assert 'temporal parts', 'perduring', and being spread out over time [Sider]
14728 4D says intrinsic change is difference between successive parts [Sider]
14729 4D says each spatiotemporal object must have a temporal part at every moment at which it exists [Sider]
14730 Temporal parts exist, but are not prior building blocks for objects [Sider]
14731 Temporal parts are instantaneous [Sider]
14734 The B-series involves eternalism, and the reduction of tense [Sider]
14735 Space is 3D and lacks a direction; time seems connected to causation [Sider]
14736 The B-theory is adequate, except that it omits to say which time is present [Sider]
14740 If Tib is all of Tibbles bar her tail, when Tibbles loses her tail, two different things become one [Sider]
14741 The ship undergoes 'asymmetric' fission, where one candidate is seen as stronger [Sider]
14743 The stage view of objects is best for dealing with coincident entities [Sider]
14747 'Composition as identity' says that an object just is the objects which compose it [Sider]
14745 If sortal terms fix the kind and the persistence conditions, we need to know what kinds there are [Sider]
14754 If you say Leibniz's Law doesn't apply to 'timebound' properties, you are no longer discussing identity [Sider]
14756 For Presentists there must always be a temporal vantage point for any description [Sider]
14757 Mereological essentialism says an object's parts are necessary for its existence [Sider]
14758 How can an instantaneous stage believe anything, if beliefs take time? [Sider]
14760 Four-dimensionalism sees things and processes as belonging in the same category [Sider]
14762 Four-dimensionalism says temporal parts are caused (through laws of motion) by previous temporal parts [Sider]
14763 Counterparts rest on similarity, so there are many such relations in different contexts [Sider]
14738 Some might say that its inconsistency with time travel is a reason to favour three-dimensionalism [Sider]
13680 Maybe logical consequence is a primitive notion [Sider]
13679 Maybe logical consequence is more a matter of provability than of truth-preservation [Sider]
13678 The most popular account of logical consequence is the semantic or model-theoretic one [Sider]
13682 Maybe logical consequence is impossibility of the premises being true and the consequent false [Sider]
13683 A relation is a feature of multiple objects taken together [Sider]
13724 In model theory, first define truth, then validity as truth in all models, and consequence as truth-preservation [Sider]
13684 The semantical notion of a logical truth is validity, being true in all interpretations [Sider]
13685 Natural deduction helpfully allows reasoning with assumptions [Sider]
13686 We can build proofs just from conclusions, rather than from plain formulae [Sider]
13687 No assumptions in axiomatic proofs, so no conditional proof or reductio [Sider]
13688 Good axioms should be indisputable logical truths [Sider]
13689 'Theorems' are formulas provable from no premises at all [Sider]
13691 Induction has a 'base case', then an 'inductive hypothesis', and then the 'inductive step' [Sider]
13690 Proof by induction 'on the length of the formula' deconstructs a formula into its accepted atoms [Sider]
13692 A 'precisification' of a trivalent interpretation reduces it to a bivalent interpretation [Sider]
13693 A 'supervaluation' assigns further Ts and Fs, if they have been assigned in every precisification [Sider]
13695 Supervaluational logic is classical, except when it adds the 'Definitely' operator [Sider]
13694 We can 'sharpen' vague terms, and then define truth as true-on-all-sharpenings [Sider]
13697 Valuations in PC assign truth values to formulas relative to variable assignments [Sider]
13696 When a variable is 'free' of the quantifier, the result seems incapable of truth or falsity [Sider]
13698 In a complete logic you can avoid axiomatic proofs, by using models to show consequences [Sider]
13699 Compactness surprisingly says that no contradictions can emerge when the set goes infinite [Sider]
13700 A 'total' function must always produce an output for a given domain [Sider]
13701 A single second-order sentence validates all of arithmetic - but this can't be proved axiomatically [Sider]
13702 The identity of indiscernibles is necessarily true, if being a member of some set counts as a property [Sider]
13703 λ can treat 'is cold and hungry' as a single predicate [Sider]
13705 Truth tables assume truth functionality, and are just pictures of truth functions [Sider]
13704 It is hard to say which are the logical truths in modal logic, especially for iterated modal operators [Sider]
13706 Intuitively, deontic accessibility seems not to be reflexive, but to be serial [Sider]
13707 Maybe metaphysical accessibility is intransitive, if a world in which I am a frog is impossible [Sider]
13708 S5 is the strongest system, since it has the most valid formulas, because it is easy to be S5-valid [Sider]
13709 Logical truths must be necessary if anything is [Sider]
13710 In D we add that 'what is necessary is possible'; then tautologies are possible, and contradictions not necessary [Sider]
13711 System B introduces iterated modalities [Sider]
13712 Epistemic accessibility is reflexive, and allows positive and negative introspection (KK and K¬K) [Sider]
13714 We can treat modal worlds as different times [Sider]
13715 You can employ intuitionist logic without intuitionism about mathematics [Sider]
13716 'If B hadn't shot L someone else would have' if false; 'If B didn't shoot L, someone else did' is true [Sider]
13717 Transworld identity is not a problem in de dicto sentences, which needn't identify an individual [Sider]
13719 Barcan Formula problem: there might have been a ghost, despite nothing existing which could be a ghost [Sider]
13720 Converse Barcan Formula: □∀αφ→∀α□φ [Sider]
13718 The Barcan Formula ∀x□Fx→□∀xFx may be a defect in modal logic [Sider]
13721 'Strong' necessity in all possible worlds; 'weak' necessity in the worlds where the relevant objects exist [Sider]
13723 System B is needed to prove the Barcan Formula [Sider]
13722 A 'theorem' is an axiom, or the last line of a legitimate proof [Sider]
9218 Maybe what distinguishes philosophy from science is its pursuit of necessary truths [Sider]
14977 Metaphysics is not about what exists or is true or essential; it is about the structure of reality [Sider]
14978 A property is intrinsic if an object alone in the world can instantiate it [Sider]
14980 There is a real issue over what is the 'correct' logic [Sider]
14981 Philosophical concepts are rarely defined, and are not understood by means of definitions [Sider]
14982 If I used Ramsey sentences to eliminate fundamentality from my theory, that would be a real loss [Sider]
14984 Which should be primitive in mereology - part, or overlap? [Sider]
14983 Accept the ontology of your best theory - and also that it carves nature at the joints [Sider]
14985 The notion of law doesn't seem to enhance physical theories [Sider]
14986 Conceptual analysts trust particular intuitions much more than general ones [Sider]
14987 Many of the key theories of modern physics do not appear to be 'laws' [Sider]
14988 A theory which doesn't fit nature is unexplanatory, even if it is true [Sider]
14990 Bayes produces weird results if the prior probabilities are bizarre [Sider]
14989 Problem predicates in induction don't reflect the structure of nature [Sider]
14991 Space has real betweenness and congruence structure (though it is not the Euclidean concepts) [Sider]
14992 We don't care about plain truth, but truth in joint-carving terms [Sider]
14994 Extreme doubts about metaphysics also threaten to undermine the science of unobservables [Sider]
14995 Predicates can be 'sparse' if there is a universal, or if there is a natural property or relation [Sider]
14997 Two applications of 'grue' do not guarantee a similarity between two things [Sider]
14999 Prior to conventions, not all green things were green? [Sider]
14998 Conventions are contingent and analytic truths are necessary, so that isn't their explanation [Sider]
15001 'Tonk' is supposed to follow the elimination and introduction rules, but it can't be so interpreted [Sider]
15000 'It is raining' and 'it is not raining' can't be legislated, so we can't legislate 'p or ¬p' [Sider]
15004 'Gunk' is an object in which proper parts all endlessly have further proper parts [Sider]
15005 Explanations must cite generalisations [Sider]
15003 It seems unlikely that the way we speak will give insights into the universe [Sider]
15008 Is fundamentality in whole propositions (and holistic), or in concepts (and atomic)? [Sider]
15009 We must distinguish 'concrete' from 'abstract' and necessary states of affairs. [Sider]
15010 Your metaphysics is 'cheating' if your ontology won't support the beliefs you accept [Sider]
15012 Orthodox truthmaker theories make entities fundamental, but that is poor for explanation [Sider]
15011 If the ultimate explanation is a list of entities, no laws, patterns or mechanisms can be cited [Sider]
15013 Tables and chairs have fundamental existence, but not fundamental natures [Sider]
15017 Supervenience is a modal connection [Sider]
15014 Unlike things, stuff obeys unrestricted composition and mereological essentialism [Sider]
15015 It seems possible for a correct definition to be factually incorrect, as in defining 'contact' [Sider]
15016 Analyticity has lost its traditional role, which relied on truth by convention [Sider]
15019 Define logical constants by role in proofs, or as fixed in meaning, or as topic-neutral [Sider]
15020 Classical logic is good for mathematics and science, but less good for natural language [Sider]
15021 The central question in the philosophy of time is: How alike are time and space? [Sider]
15024 The spotlight theorists accepts eternal time, but with a spotlight of the present moving across it [Sider]
15023 The Barcan schema implies if X might have fathered something, there is something X might have fathered [Sider]
15025 The world does not contain necessity and possibility - merely how things are [Sider]
15028 Conventionalism doesn't seem to apply to examples of the necessary a posteriori [Sider]
15027 If truths are necessary 'by convention', that seems to make them contingent [Sider]
15026 Essence (even if nonmodal) is not fundamental in metaphysics [Sider]
15033 Humeans says mathematics and logic are necessary because that is how our concept of necessity works [Sider]
15030 Humeans say that we decide what is necessary [Sider]
15029 Modal accounts of logical consequence are simple necessity, or essential use of logical words [Sider]
15031 Modal terms in English are entirely contextual, with no modality outside the language [Sider]
15018 Intentionality is too superficial to appear in the catalogue of ultimate physics [Sider]