display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
| 14215 | Causal theories of reference make errors in reference easy [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Whatever happens in special cases, causal theories usually make it easy to be wrong about the thing we refer to. | |
| From: David Lewis (Putnam's Paradox [1984], 'What Is') | |
| A reaction: I suppose the point of this is that there are no checks and balances to keep reference in focus, but just a requirement to keep connected to an increasingly attenuated causal chain. |
| 14209 | Descriptive theories remain part of the theory of reference (with seven mild modifications) [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Description theories of reference are supposed to have been well and truly refuted. I think not: ..it is still tenable with my seven points, and part of the truth of reference [7: rigidity, egocentric, tokens, causal, imperfect, indeterminate, families]. | |
| From: David Lewis (Putnam's Paradox [1984], 'Glob Desc') | |
| A reaction: (The bit at the end refers to his seven points, on p.59). He calls his basic proposal 'causal descriptivism', incorporating his seven slight modifications of traditional descriptivism about reference. |
| 20787 | 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. |