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Single Idea 10023

[from 'Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic' by Harold Hodes, in 7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 7. Fictionalism ]

Full Idea

Talk about mirror images is a sort of fictional discourse. Statements 'about' such fictions are not made true or false by our whims; rather they 'encode' facts about the things reflected in mirrors.

Gist of Idea

Talk of mirror images is 'encoded fictions' about real facts

Source

Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984], p.146)

Book Reference

-: 'Journal of Philosophy' [-], p.146


A Reaction

Hodes's proposal for how we should view abstract objects (c.f. Frege and Dummett on 'the equator'). The facts involved are concrete, but Hodes is offering 'encoding fictionalism' as a linguistic account of such abstractions. He applies it to numbers.