Combining Texts

Ideas for 'On the Philosophy of Logic', 'Necessity, Essence and Individuation' and 'Philebus'

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3 ideas

10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 3. A Posteriori Necessary
The necessary a posteriori is statements either of identity or of essence [Sidelle]
     Full Idea: The necessary a posteriori crudely divides into two groups - (synthetic) identity statements (between rigid designators), and statements of essential properties. The latter is either statements of property identity, or of the essences of natural kinds.
     From: Alan Sidelle (Necessity, Essence and Individuation [1989], Ch.2)
     A reaction: He cites Kripke's examples (Hesperus,Cicero,Truman,water,gold), and divides them into the two groups. Helpful.
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / a. Conceivable as possible
Empiricism explores necessities and concept-limits by imagining negations of truths [Sidelle]
     Full Idea: In the traditional empiricist picture, we go about modal enquiry by trying to see whether we can imagine a situation in which it would be correct to assert the negation of a proposed necessary truth. Thus we can find out the limits of our concepts.
     From: Alan Sidelle (Necessity, Essence and Individuation [1989], Ch.1)
Contradictoriness limits what is possible and what is imaginable [Sidelle]
     Full Idea: Contradictoriness is the boundary both of what is possible and also of what is imaginable.
     From: Alan Sidelle (Necessity, Essence and Individuation [1989], Ch.4)
     A reaction: Of course we may see contradictions where there are none, and fail to grasp real hidden contradictions, so the two do not coincide in the practice. I think I would say it is 'a' boundary, not 'the' boundary.