Combining Texts

Ideas for 'On Interpretation', 'fragments/reports' and 'Causes and Events: Mackie on causation'

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3 ideas

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 2. Meaning as Mental
For Aristotle meaning and reference are linked to concepts [Aristotle, by Putnam]
     Full Idea: In 'De Interpretatione' Aristotle laid out an enduring theory of reference and meaning, in which we understand a word or any other sign by associating that word with a concept. This concept determines what the word refers to.
     From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE]) by Hilary Putnam - Representation and Reality 2 p.19
     A reaction: Sounds right to me, despite all this Wittgensteinian stuff about beetles in boxes. When you meet a new technical term in philosophy, you must struggle to fully grasp the concept it proposes.
19. Language / D. Propositions / 4. Mental Propositions
Spoken sounds vary between people, but are signs of affections of soul, which are the same for all [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Spoken sounds are symbols of affections in the soul, ...and just as written marks are not the same for all men, neither are spoken sounds. But what these are in the first place signs of - affections of the soul - are the same for all.
     From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 16a03-08)
     A reaction: Loux identifies this passage as the source of the 'conceptualist' view of propositions, which I immediately identify with. The view that these propositions are 'the same for all' is plausible for normal objects, but dubious for complex abstractions.
19. Language / F. Communication / 3. Denial
It doesn't have to be the case that in opposed views one is true and the other false [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: It is not necessary that of every affirmation and opposite negation one should be true and the other false. For what holds for things that are does not hold for things that are not but may possibly be or not be.
     From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a39)
     A reaction: Thus even if Bivalence holds, and the only truth-values are T and F, it doesn't follow that Excluded Middle holds, which says that every proposition must have one of those two values.