Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Letters to Schlick' and 'Truth and Truthmakers'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts

3 ideas

19. Language / D. Propositions / 2. Abstract Propositions / a. Propositions as sense
18368 For all being, there is a potential proposition which expresses its existence and nature [Armstrong]
     Full Idea: The thesis of 'expressibility' says that for all being, there is a proposition (perhaps one never formulated by any mind at any time) that truly renders the existence and nature of this being.
     From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 02.3.2)
     A reaction: [He credits Stephen Read 2000:68-9 for this] Armstrong accepts this, but I deny it. I can't make any sense of this vast plethora of propositions, each exactly expressing some minute nuance of the infinity complexity of all being.
18370 A realm of abstract propositions is causally inert, so has no explanatory value [Armstrong]
     Full Idea: We could not stand in any causal or nomic relation to a realm of propositions over and above the space-time world, ...so it is unclear that such a postulation is of any explanatory value.
     From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 02.6)
     A reaction: I agree, and I like Armstrong's appeal to explanation as a criterion for whether we should make an ontological commitment here. I am baffled by anyone who thinks reality is crammed full of unarticulated propositions. Only a philosopher....
19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / a. Translation
18285 All translation loses some content (but language does not create reality) [Carnap]
     Full Idea: I do not believe in translatability without loss of content, and therefore I think that the content of a world description is influenced to a certain degree by choice of a language form. But that does not mean that reality is created through language.
     From: Rudolph Carnap (Letters to Schlick [1935], 1935.12.04), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 19 'Truth'
     A reaction: It is a mistake to think Quine was the first to spot the interest of translation in philosophy of language. 'Does translation always lose content?' is a very nice question for focusing the problem.