Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Human Knowledge: its scope and limits' and 'The Essence of Reference'

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4 ideas

19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / b. Causal reference
A new usage of a name could arise from a mistaken baptism of nothing [Sainsbury]
     Full Idea: A baptism which, perhaps through some radical mistake, is the baptism of nothing, is as good a propagator of a new use as a baptism of an object.
     From: Mark Sainsbury (The Essence of Reference [2006], 18.3)
     A reaction: An obvious example might be the Loch Ness Monster. There is something intuitively wrong about saying that physical objects are actually part of linguistic meaning or reference. I am not a meaning!
19. Language / B. Reference / 5. Speaker's Reference
Even a quantifier like 'someone' can be used referentially [Sainsbury]
     Full Idea: A large range of expressions can be used with referential intentions, including quantifier phrases (as in 'someone has once again failed to close the door properly').
     From: Mark Sainsbury (The Essence of Reference [2006], 18.5)
     A reaction: This is the pragmatic aspect of reference, where it can be achieved by all sorts of means. But are quantifiers inherently referential in their semantic function? Some of each, it seems.
19. Language / E. Analyticity / 2. Analytic Truths
The notion of analytic truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis]
     Full Idea: The notion of analytic truth is conspicuously absent in Aristotle.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.5
     A reaction: Cf. Idea 11239.
19. Language / F. Communication / 3. Denial
If we define 'this is not blue' as disbelief in 'this is blue', we eliminate 'not' as an ingredient of facts [Russell]
     Full Idea: We can reintroduce 'not' by a definition: the words 'this is not blue' are defined as expressing disbelief in what is expressed by the words 'this is blue'. In this way the need of 'not' as an indefinable constituent of facts is avoided.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Human Knowledge: its scope and limits [1948], 9)
     A reaction: This is part of Russell's programme of giving a psychological account of logical connectives. See other ideas from his 1940 and 1948 works. He observes that disbelief is a state just as positive as belief. I love it.