Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Exigency to Exist in Essences', 'Trees, Terms and Truth' and 'Abstraction Reconsidered'

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2 ideas

18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 8. Abstractionism Critique
The abstractionist cannot explain 'some' and 'not' [Geach]
     Full Idea: The abstractionist cannot give a logically coherent account of the features that are supposed to be reached by discriminative attention, corresponding to the words 'some' and 'not'.
     From: Peter Geach (Abstraction Reconsidered [1983], p.167)
     A reaction: I understand 'some' in terms of mereology, because that connects to experience, and 'not' I take to derive more from psychological experience than from the physical world, building on thwarted expectation, which even animals experience.
Only a judgement can distinguish 'striking' from 'being struck' [Geach]
     Full Idea: To understand the verb 'to strike' we must see that 'striking' and 'being struck' are different, but necessarily go together in event and thought; only in the context of a judgment can they be distinguished, when we think of both together.
     From: Peter Geach (Abstraction Reconsidered [1983], p.168)
     A reaction: Geach seems to have a strange notion that judgements are pure events which can precede all experience, and are the only ways we can come to understand experience. He needs to start from animals (or 'brutes', as he still calls them!).