display all the ideas for this combination of texts
11 ideas
| 3181 | A one hour gap in time might be indirectly verified, but then almost anything could be [Rey] |
| Full Idea: You couldn't directly verify that the whole universe had stopped for one hour, but you might indirectly verify it (by prediction) - but then almost anything could be very indirectly verified. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 5.4) | |
| A reaction: Does indirect verification include time travel? Or perfect knowledge of quantum theory, and total knowledge of quantum states. Laplace's Hypothesis. |
| 3204 | The meaning of "and" may be its use, but not of "animal" [Rey] |
| Full Idea: The view that the meaning of language of thought expressions is based on their conceptual role (derived from Wittgenstein's idea of meaning as use), is most plausible for the logical connectives like "and", but implausible for, say, "animal". | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 9.1.2) | |
| A reaction: It was the logical connectives that got LW started on this track. If it doesn't work for 'animal' then does that mean we need two different theories? |
| 3205 | Semantic holism means new evidence for a belief changes the belief, and we can't agree on concepts [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Semantic holism is a desperate measure. Belief content would be continually changed by new beliefs, evidence for a belief would change the target belief, and no two people would ever agree on concepts. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 9.1.2) | |
| A reaction: It is far more plausible to say language is a bit on the holistic side. Total holism is mad. |
| 3209 | Causal theories of reference (by 'dubbing') don't eliminate meanings in the heads of dubbers [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Causal histories may have some role to play in a theory of reference, but the chain of causation requires internal characterisations at each stage, and the original dubber had one thing rather than another in mind when dubbing. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 9.2.1) | |
| A reaction: The modern view of direct reference seems to prefer social context rather than a complete causal chain. |
| 3210 | If meaning and reference are based on causation, then virtually everything has meaning [Rey] |
| Full Idea: What is special about meaning? If meaning and reference are just the result of causal chains, almost everything will mean something, since almost everything is reliably caused by something. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 9.2.2) | |
| A reaction: It would be insane to think that all causal events produced meanings. It is probably better not to mention causation at all when discussing meaning. |
| 3149 | Referential Opacity says truth is lost when you substitute one referring term ('mother') for another ('Jocasta') [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Referential Opacity says you cannot preserve truth if you substitute one referring term for another ('Oedipus desires Jocasta', 'Oedipus desires his mother'). | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 2.5.6) | |
| A reaction: ….That is, in the context of expressing a propositional attitude. 'Oedipus desired his mother' was true. This idea requires some ignorance on the part of the person expressing the thought. |
| 22276 | Bolzano saw propositions as objective entities, existing independently of us [Bolzano, by Potter] |
| Full Idea: Bolzano took the entities of which truth is predicated to be not propositions in the subjective sense but 'propositions-in-themselves' - objective entities existing independent of our apprehension. | |
| From: report of Bernard Bolzano (Theory of Science (Wissenschaftslehre, 4 vols) [1837]) by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 02 'Emp' | |
| A reaction: A serious mistake. Presumably the objective propositions are all true (or there would be endless infinities of them). So what is assessed in the case of error? Something other than the objective propositions! We assess these other things! |
| 17264 | Propositions are abstract structures of concepts, ready for judgement or assertion [Bolzano, by Correia/Schnieder] |
| Full Idea: Bolzano conceived of propositions as abstract objects which are structured compounds of concepts and potential contents of judgements and assertions. | |
| From: report of Bernard Bolzano (Theory of Science (Wissenschaftslehre, 4 vols) [1837]) by Correia,F/Schnieder,B - Grounding: an opinionated introduction 2.3 | |
| A reaction: Personally I think of propositions as brain events, the constituents of thought about the world, but that needn't contradict the view of them as 'abstract'. |
| 12232 | A 'proposition' is the sense of a linguistic expression, and can be true or false [Bolzano] |
| Full Idea: What I mean by 'propositions' is not what the grammarians call a proposition, namely the linguistic expression, but the mere sense of this expression, is what is meant by proposition in itself or object proposition. This sense can be true or false. | |
| From: Bernard Bolzano (Theory of Science (Wissenschaftslehre, 4 vols) [1837], Pref?) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the origin of what we understand by 'proposition'. The disputes are over whether such things exists, and whether they are features of minds or features of the world (resembling facts). |
| 12233 | The ground of a pure conceptual truth is only in other conceptual truths [Bolzano] |
| Full Idea: We can find the ground of a pure conceptual truth only in other conceptual truths. | |
| From: Bernard Bolzano (Theory of Science (Wissenschaftslehre, 4 vols) [1837], Pref) | |
| A reaction: Elsewhere he insists that these grounds must be in 'truths', and not just in the attributes of the concepts of involved. This conflicts with Kit Fine's view, that the concepts themselves are the source of conceptual truth and necessity. |
| 3169 | A simple chaining device can't build sentences containing 'either..or', or 'if..then' [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Bifurcated logical particles (either/or, if/then) are in principle beyond the power of any local chaining device to build sentences. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.2.1) | |
| A reaction: True in natural languages, but not in formal ones? If P then either if-Q-then-R or if-S-then-T. Is that chaining? If rain, then if light then puddles, or if heavy then floods. Hm. |