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3 ideas
16876 | We need definitions to cram retrievable sense into a signed receptacle [Frege] |
Full Idea: If we need such signs, we also need definitions so that we can cram this sense into the receptacle and also take it out again. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.209) | |
A reaction: Has anyone noticed that Frege is the originator of the idea of the mental file? Has anyone noticed the role that definition plays in his account? |
16875 | We use signs to mark receptacles for complex senses [Frege] |
Full Idea: We often need to use a sign with which we associate a very complex sense. Such a sign seems a receptacle for the sense, so that we can carry it with us, while being always aware that we can open this receptacle should we need what it contains. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.209) | |
A reaction: This exactly the concept of a mental file, which I enthusiastically endorse. Frege even talks of 'opening the receptacle'. For Frege a definition (which he has been discussing) is the assigment of a label (the 'definiendum') to the file (the 'definiens'). |
5374 | Berkeley probably used 'idea' to mean both the act of apprehension and the thing apprehended [Russell on Berkeley] |
Full Idea: Berkeley seems to have confused the colour of the thing apprehended with the act of apprehension; probably either of these would have been called an 'idea' be Berkeley. | |
From: comment on George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713]) by Bertrand Russell - Problems of Philosophy | |
A reaction: If we are saying that Berkeley's error was entirely verbal, there is a chicken-and-egg problem. He was an idealist, so he wouldn't have thought that there were two separate concepts behind the word 'idea'. Russell merely asserts that there are. |