Ideas of Richard Cartwright, by Theme

[American, fl. 1975, Professor at MIT.]

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1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 1. Philosophy
Philosophers working like teams of scientists is absurd, yet isolation is hard
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence
A false proposition isn't truer because it is part of a coherent system
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 5. Truth Bearers
Are the truth-bearers sentences, utterances, ideas, beliefs, judgements, propositions or statements?
Logicians take sentences to be truth-bearers for rigour, rather than for philosophical reasons
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 11. Properties as Sets
While no two classes coincide in membership, there are distinct but coextensive attributes
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / a. Scattered objects
Clearly a pipe can survive being taken apart
Bodies don't becomes scattered by losing small or minor parts
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties
Essentialism says some of a thing's properties are necessary, and could not be absent
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 14. Knowledge of Essences
The difficulty in essentialism is deciding the grounds for rating an attribute as essential
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
Essentialism is said to be unintelligible, because relative, if necessary truths are all analytic
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 3. Relative Identity
An act of ostension doesn't seem to need a 'sort' of thing, even of a very broad kind
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 4. Type Identity
A token isn't a unique occurrence, as the case of a word or a number shows
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 1. Meaning
For any statement, there is no one meaning which any sentence asserting it must have
People don't assert the meaning of the words they utter
19. Language / D. Propositions / 1. Propositions
We can pull apart assertion from utterance, and the action, the event and the subject-matter for each
'It's raining' makes a different assertion on different occasions, but its meaning remains the same
19. Language / D. Propositions / 4. Mental Propositions
We can attribute 'true' and 'false' to whatever it was that was said
To assert that p, it is neither necessary nor sufficient to utter some particular words
19. Language / F. Communication / 2. Assertion
Assertions, unlike sentence meanings, can be accurate, probable, exaggerated, false....