Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Upanishads' and 'Logic in Mathematics'

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4 ideas

19. Language / D. Propositions / 1. Propositions
A proposition is what can be asserted or denied on its own [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: A proposition is what can be asserted or denied on its own, for example, 'It is day' or 'Dion is walking'.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.65
     A reaction: Note the phrase 'on its own'. If you say 'it is day and Dion is walking', that can't be denied on its own, because first the two halves must each be evaluated, so presumably that doesn't count as a stoic proposition.
19. Language / D. Propositions / 2. Abstract Propositions / a. Propositions as sense
Thoughts are not subjective or psychological, because some thoughts are the same for us all [Frege]
     Full Idea: A thought is not something subjective, is not the product of any form of mental activity; for the thought that we have in Pythagoras's theorem is the same for everybody.
     From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.206)
     A reaction: When such thoughts are treated as if the have objective (platonic) existence, I become bewildered. I take a thought (or proposition) to be entirely psychological, but that doesn't stop two people from having the same thought.
A thought is the sense expressed by a sentence, and is what we prove [Frege]
     Full Idea: The sentence is of value to us because of the sense that we grasp in it, which is recognisably the same in a translation. I call this sense the thought. What we prove is not a sentence, but a thought.
     From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.206)
     A reaction: The 'sense' is presumably the German 'sinn', and a 'thought' in Frege is what we normally call a 'proposition'. So the sense of a sentence is a proposition, and logic proves propositions. I'm happy with that.
19. Language / D. Propositions / 5. Unity of Propositions
The parts of a thought map onto the parts of a sentence [Frege]
     Full Idea: A sentence is generally a complex sign, so the thought expressed by it is complex too: in fact it is put together in such a way that parts of a thought correspond to parts of the sentence.
     From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.207)
     A reaction: This is the compositional view of propositions, as opposed to the holistic view.