Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Ontology' and 'On the Principles of Indiscernibles'

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2 ideas

19. Language / D. Propositions / 1. Propositions
The extreme views on propositions are Frege's Platonism and Quine's extreme nominalism [Jacquette]
     Full Idea: The extreme ontological alternatives with respect to the metaphysics of propositions are a Fregean Platonism (his "gedanken", 'thoughts'), and a radical nominalism or inscriptionalism, as in Quine, where they are just marks related to stimuli.
     From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 9)
     A reaction: Personally I would want something between the two - that propositions are brain events of a highly abstract kind. I say that introspection reveals pre-linguistic thoughts, which are propositions. A proposition is an intentional state.
19. Language / F. Communication / 1. Rhetoric
Plato's whole philosophy may be based on being duped by reification - a figure of speech [Benardete,JA on Plato]
     Full Idea: Plato is liable to the charge of having been duped by a figure of speech, albeit the most profound of all, the trope of reification.
     From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.12
     A reaction: That might be a plausible account if his view was ridiculous, but given how many powerful friends Plato has, especially in the philosophy of mathematics, we should assume he was cleverer than that.