Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Actualism and Possible Worlds', 'Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge' and 'Goodbye Descartes'

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5 ideas

19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 1. Syntax

8073	How do we parse 'time flies like an arrow' and 'fruit flies like an apple'? [Devlin]
	Full Idea: How do people identify subject and verb in the sentences "time flies like an arrow" and "fruit flies like an apple"?
	From: Keith Devlin (Goodbye Descartes [1997], Ch. 1)
	A reaction: A nice illustration of the fact that even if we have an innate syntax mechanism, it won't work without some semantics, and some experience of the environmental context of utterances.

19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 8. Possible Worlds Semantics

16469	Plantinga has domains of sets of essences, variables denoting essences, and predicates as functions [Plantinga, by Stalnaker]
	Full Idea: The domains in Plantinga's interpretation of Kripke's semantics are sets of essences, and the values of variables are essences. The values of predicates have to be functions from possible worlds to essences.
	From: report of Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 4.4
	A reaction: I begin to think this is quite nice, as long as one doesn't take the commitment to the essences too seriously. For 'essence' read 'minimal identity'? But I take essences to be more than minimal, so use identities (which Kripke does?).

16470	Plantinga's essences have their own properties - so will have essences, giving a hierarchy [Stalnaker on Plantinga]
	Full Idea: For Plantinga, essences are entities in their own right and will have properties different from what instantiates them. Hence he will need individual essences of individual essences, distinct from the essences. I see no way to avoid a hierarchy of them.
	From: comment on Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 4.4
	A reaction: This sounds devastating for Plantinga, but it is a challenge for traditional Aristotelians. Only a logician suffers from a hierarchy, but a scientist might have to live with an essence, which contains a super-essence.

19. Language / D. Propositions / 1. Propositions

14663	Are propositions and states of affairs two separate things, or only one? I incline to say one [Plantinga]
	Full Idea: Are there two sorts of thing, propositions and states of affairs, or only one? I am inclined to the former view on the ground that propositions have a property, truth or falsehood, not had by states of affairs.
	From: Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976], 1)
	A reaction: Might a proposition be nothing more than an assertion that a state of affairs obtains? It would then pass his test. The idea that a proposition is a complex of facts in the external world ('Russellian' propositions?) quite baffles me.

19. Language / D. Propositions / 2. Abstract Propositions / a. Propositions as sense

8076	The distinction between sentences and abstract propositions is crucial in logic [Devlin]
	Full Idea: The distinction between sentences and the abstract propositions that they express is one of the key ideas of logic. A logical argument consists of propositions, assembled together in a systematic fashion.
	From: Keith Devlin (Goodbye Descartes [1997], Ch. 2)
	A reaction: He may claim that arguments consist of abstract propositions, but they always get expressed in sentences. However, the whole idea of logical form implies the existence of propositions - there is something which a messy sentence 'really' says.