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4 ideas
23481 | Propositions assemble a world experimentally, like the model of a road accident [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: In the proposition a world is as it were put together experimentally. (As when in the law court in Paris a motor-car accident is represented by means of dolls, etc). | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Notebooks 1914-1916 [1915], 14.09.29) | |
A reaction: [see Tractatus 4.031] This is the first appearance of LW's picture (or model) theory of meaning. It may well be the best theory of meaning anyone has come up with, since meaning being out in the world strikes me as absurd. |
18967 | A 'proposition' is said to be the timeless cognitive part of the meaning of a sentence [Quine] |
Full Idea: A 'proposition' is the meaning of a sentence. More precisely, since propositions are supposed to be true or false once and for all, it is the meaning of an eternal sentence. More precisely still, it is the 'cognitive' meaning, involving truth, not poetry. | |
From: Willard Quine (Propositional Objects [1965], p.139) | |
A reaction: Quine defines this in order to attack it. I equate a proposition with a thought, and take a sentence to be an attempt to express a proposition. I have no idea why they are supposed to be 'timeless'. Philosophers have some very odd ideas. |
18968 | The problem with propositions is their individuation. When do two sentences express one proposition? [Quine] |
Full Idea: The trouble with propositions, as cognitive meanings of eternal sentences, is individuation. Given two eternal sentences, themselves visibly different linguistically, it is not sufficiently clear under when to say that they mean the same proposition. | |
From: Willard Quine (Propositional Objects [1965], p.140) | |
A reaction: If a group of people agree that two sentences mean the same thing, which happens all the time, I don't see what gives Quine the right to have a philosophical moan about some dubious activity called 'individuation'. |
11240 | 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. |