Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Inventing Logical Necessity' and 'The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism'

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2 ideas

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / b. Language holism
Holism cannot give a coherent account of scientific methodology [Wright,C, by Miller,A]
     Full Idea: Crispin Wright has argued that Quine's holism is implausible because it is actually incoherent: he claims that Quine's holism cannot provide us with a coherent account of scientific methodology.
     From: report of Crispin Wright (Inventing Logical Necessity [1986]) by Alexander Miller - Philosophy of Language 4.5
     A reaction: This sounds promising, given my intuitive aversion to linguistic holism, and almost everything to do with Quine. Scientific methodology is not isolated, but spreads into our ordinary (experimental) interactions with the world (e.g. Idea 2461).
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 3. Predicates
Predicates assert properties, values, denials, relations, conventions, existence and fabrications [Ellis, by PG]
     Full Idea: As well as properties, predicates can assert evaluation, denial, relations, conventions, existence or fabrication.
     From: report of Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.3) by PG - Db (ideas)
     A reaction: This seems important, in order to disentangle our ontological commitments from our language, which was a confusion that ran throughout twentieth-century philosophy. A property is a real thing in the world, not a linguistic convention.