display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
| 13866 | A concept is only a sortal if it gives genuine identity [Wright,C] |
| Full Idea: Before we can conclude that φ expresses a sortal concept, we need to ensure that 'is the same φ as' generates statements of genuine identity rather than of some other equivalence relation. | |
| From: Crispin Wright (Frege's Concept of Numbers as Objects [1983], 1.i) |
| 13865 | 'Sortal' concepts show kinds, use indefinite articles, and require grasping identities [Wright,C] |
| Full Idea: A concept is 'sortal' if it exemplifies a kind of object. ..In English predication of a sortal concept needs an indefinite article ('an' elm). ..What really constitutes the distinction is that it involves grasping identity for things which fall under it. | |
| From: Crispin Wright (Frege's Concept of Numbers as Objects [1983], 1.i) | |
| A reaction: This is a key notion, which underlies the claims of 'sortal essentialism' (see David Wiggins). |
| 13890 | Entities fall under a sortal concept if they can be used to explain identity statements concerning them [Wright,C] |
| Full Idea: 'Tree' is not a sortal concept under which directions fall since we cannot adequately explain the truth-conditions of any identity statement involving a pair of tree-denoting singular terms by appealing to facts to do with parallelism between lines. | |
| From: Crispin Wright (Frege's Concept of Numbers as Objects [1983], 3.xiv) | |
| A reaction: The idea seems to be that these two fall under 'hedgehog', because that is a respect in which they are identical. I like to notion of explanation as a part of this. |
| 13898 | If we can establish directions from lines and parallelism, we were already committed to directions [Wright,C] |
| Full Idea: The fact that it seems possible to establish a sortal notion of direction by reference to lines and parallelism, discloses tacit commitments to directions in statements about parallelism...There is incoherence in the idea that a line might lack direction. | |
| From: Crispin Wright (Frege's Concept of Numbers as Objects [1983], 4.xviii) | |
| A reaction: This seems like a slippery slope into a very extravagant platonism about concepts. Are concepts like direction as much a part of the natural world as rivers are? What other undiscovered concepts await us? |