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Ideas for 'Realistic Rationalism', 'Probabilistic Causality' and 'Letters to Russell'

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2 ideas

19. Language / D. Propositions / 2. Abstract Propositions / a. Propositions as sense
Sentences are abstract types (like musical scores), not individual tokens [Katz]
     Full Idea: Sentences are types, not utterance tokens or mental/neural tokens, and hence sentences are abstract objects (like musical scores).
     From: Jerrold J. Katz (Realistic Rationalism [2000], Int.xxvi)
     A reaction: If sentences are abstract types, then two verbally indistinguishable sentences are the same sentence. But if I say 'I am happy', that isn't the same as you saying it.
19. Language / D. Propositions / 4. Mental Propositions
A thought is mental constituents that relate to reality as words do [Wittgenstein]
     Full Idea: Does a Gedanke [thought] consist of words? No! But of psychical constituents that have the same sort of relation to reality as words.
     From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Letters to Russell [1919], p.125), quoted by Michael Morris - Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus 4B
     A reaction: This is roughly my view of propositions, as non-lingustic mental events. The 'psychical constituents' seem to be concepts, in a psychological rather than a Fregean sense. This idea allowed transfer of his representation theory from thought to language.