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Ideas for 'Philosophical Fragments', 'Inexpressible Properties and Propositions' and 'works'

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2 ideas

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / a. Sentence meaning
Leibniz was the first modern to focus on sentence-sized units (where empiricists preferred word-size) [Leibniz, by Hart,WD]
     Full Idea: Leibniz seems to be the first modern philosopher to focus on sentence-sized units that he called propositions. The Empiricists among the moderns focused on word-sized units like ideas.
     From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by William D. Hart - The Evolution of Logic 2
     A reaction: Historically, the sentential logic of the Stoics has a claim to have started this one. I find my initial sympathies to be with the empiricists.
19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / a. Translation
Holism says language can't be translated; the expressibility hypothesis says everything can [Hofweber]
     Full Idea: Holism says that nothing that can be said in one language can be said in another one. The expressibility hypothesis says that everything that can be said in one language can be said in every other one.
     From: Thomas Hofweber (Inexpressible Properties and Propositions [2006], 6.4)
     A reaction: Obviously expressibility would only refer to reasonably comprehensive languages (with basic logical connectives, for example). Personally I vote for the expressibility hypothesis, which Hofweber seems to favour.