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Single Idea 7001

[filed under theme 1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 5. Linguistic Analysis ]

Full Idea

If you start with language and try to work your way outwards, you will never get outside language.

Gist of Idea

If you begin philosophy with language, you find yourself trapped in it

Source

John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Pref)

Book Ref

Heil,John: 'From an Ontological Point of View' [OUP 2005], p.-9

A Reaction

This voices my pessimism about the linguistic approach to philosophy (and I don't just mean analysis of ordinary language), though I wonder if the career of (say) John Searle is a counterexample.

The 54 ideas from 'From an Ontological Point of View'

7001 If you begin philosophy with language, you find yourself trapped in it [Heil]
7004 The view that truth making is entailment is misguided and misleading [Heil]
7003 There are levels of organisation, complexity, description and explanation, but not of reality [Heil]
7007 I think of properties as simultaneously dispositional and qualitative [Heil]
7009 Similarity among modes will explain everthing universals were for [Heil]
7008 Trope theorists usually see objects as 'bundles' of tropes [Heil]
7011 Qualia are not extra appendages, but intrinsic ingredients of material states and processes [Heil]
7010 Dispositionality provides the grounding for intentionality [Heil]
7002 If propositions are states of affairs or sets of possible worlds, these lack truth values [Heil]
7012 If a car is a higher-level entity, distinct from its parts, how could it ever do anything? [Heil]
7013 The Picture Theory claims we can read reality from our ways of speaking about it [Heil]
7015 A predicate applies truly if it picks out a real property of objects [Heil]
7018 Objects are substances, which are objects considered as the bearer of properties [Heil]
7017 The reductionist programme dispenses with levels of reality [Heil]
7016 The standard view is that causal sequences are backed by laws, and between particular events [Heil]
7019 Maybe there is only one substance, space-time or a quantum field [Heil]
7020 Concepts don't carve up the world, which has endless overlooked or ignored divisions [Heil]
7021 If the world is theory-dependent, the theories themselves can't be theory-dependent [Heil]
7023 Powers or dispositions are usually seen as caused by lower-level qualities [Heil]
7025 Are a property's dispositions built in, or contingently added? [Heil]
7026 Science is sometimes said to classify powers, neglecting qualities [Heil]
7027 Functionalists say objects can be the same in disposition but differ in quality [Heil]
7028 If properties were qualities without dispositions, they would be undetectable [Heil]
7029 Can we distinguish the way a property is from the property? [Heil]
7030 Properties don't possess ways they are, because that just is the property [Heil]
7032 Objects join sets because of properties; the property is not bestowed by set membership [Heil]
7034 Universals explain one-over-many relations, and similar qualities, and similar behaviour [Heil]
7036 The real natural properties are sparse, but there are many complex properties [Heil]
7035 God does not create the world, and then add the classes [Heil]
7037 Parsimony does not imply the world is simple, but that our theories should try to be [Heil]
7038 A theory with few fundamental principles might still posit a lot of entities [Heil]
7039 How could you tell if the universals were missing from a world of instances? [Heil]
7044 Secondary qualities are just primary qualities considered in the light of their effect on us [Heil]
7045 Realism says some of our concepts 'cut nature at the joints' [Heil]
7041 Similar objects have similar properties; properties are directly similar [Heil]
7042 A theory of universals says similarity is identity of parts; for modes, similarity is primitive [Heil]
7043 Multiple realisability is actually one predicate applying to a diverse range of properties [Heil]
7046 Rather than 'substance' I use 'objects', which have properties [Heil]
7047 Statues and bronze lumps have discernible differences, so can't be identical [Heil]
7048 Do we reduce statues to bronze, or eliminate statues, or allow statues and bronze? [Heil]
7051 Objects only have secondary qualities because they have primary qualities [Heil]
7052 Colours aren't surface properties, because of radiant sources and the colour of the sky [Heil]
7053 Treating colour as light radiation has the implausible result that tomatoes are not red [Heil]
7054 Intentionality now has internalist (intrinsic to thinkers) and externalist (environment or community) views [Heil]
7057 Intentionality is based in dispositions, which are intrinsic to agents, suggesting internalism [Heil]
7058 Externalism is causal-historical, or social, or biological [Heil]
7060 One form of explanation is by decomposition [Heil]
7059 The 'explanatory gap' is used to say consciousness is inexplicable, at least with current concepts [Heil]
7061 Philosophers' zombies aim to show consciousness is over and above the physical world [Heil]
7062 Functionalism cannot explain consciousness just by functional organisation [Heil]
7063 Zombies are based on the idea that consciousness relates contingently to the physical [Heil]
7064 Functionalists deny zombies, since identity of functional state means identity of mental state [Heil]
7066 If the world is just texts or social constructs, what are texts and social constructs? [Heil]
7065 Anti-realists who reduce reality to language must explain the existence of language [Heil]