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12219 | Whether a modal claim is true depends on how the object is described |
Full Idea: Quine says if ∃x□(x>7) makes sense, then for which object x is the condition rendered true? Specify it as '9' and it is apparently rendered true, specify it as 'the number of planets' and it is apparently rendered false. | |||
From: report of Willard Quine (Three Grades of Modal Involvement [1953]) by Kit Fine - Quine on Quantifying In p.105 | |||
A reaction: This is normally characterised as Quine saying that only de dicto involvement is possible, and not de re involvement. Or that that all essences are nominal, and cannot be real. |
10922 | Objects are the values of variables, so a referentially opaque context cannot be quantified into |
Full Idea: The objects of a theory are not properly describable as the things named by the singular terms; they are the values, rather, of the variables of quantification. ..So a referentially opaque context is one that cannot properly be quantified into. | |||
From: Willard Quine (Three Grades of Modal Involvement [1953], p.174) | |||
A reaction: The point being that you cannot accurately pick out the objects in the domain |
10923 | Aristotelian essentialism says a thing has some necessary and some non-necessary properties |
Full Idea: What Aristotelian essentialism says is that you can have open sentences Fx and Gx, such that ∃x(nec Fx.Gx.Źnec Gx). For example, ∃x(nec(x>5). there are just x planets. Źnec(there are just x planets)). | |||
From: Willard Quine (Three Grades of Modal Involvement [1953], p.176) | |||
A reaction: This is a denial of 'maximal essentialism', that all of a things properties might be essential. Quine is thus denying necessity, except under a description. He may be equivocating over the reference of 'there are just 9 planets'. |
10921 | Necessity can attach to statement-names, to statements, and to open sentences |
Full Idea: Three degrees necessity in logic or semantics: first and least is attaching a semantical predicate to the names of statements (as Nec '9>5'); second and more drastic attaches to statements themselves; third and gravest attaches to open sentences. | |||
From: Willard Quine (Three Grades of Modal Involvement [1953], p.158) |
10924 | Necessity is in the way in which we say things, and not things themselves |
Full Idea: Necessity resides in the way in which we say things, and not in the things we talk about. | |||
From: Willard Quine (Three Grades of Modal Involvement [1953], p.176) | |||
A reaction: This is a culminating idea of Quine's thoroughgoing empiricism, as filtered through logical positivism. I would hardly dare to accuse Quine of a use/mention confusion (his own bęte noir), but one seems to me to be lurking here. |