Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Natural Kinds', 'De arcanus motus' and 'Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic'

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3 ideas

19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 3. Predicates
Projectible predicates can be universalised about the kind to which they refer [Quine]
     Full Idea: 'Projectible' predicates are predicates F and G whose shared instances all do count, for whatever reason, towards confirmation of 'All F are G'. ….A projectible predicate is one that is true of all and only the things of a kind.
     From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.115-6)
     A reaction: Both Quine and Goodman are infuriatingly brief about the introduction of this concept. 'Red' is true of all ripe tomatoes, but not 'only' of them. Hardly any predicates are true only of one kind. Is that a scholastic 'proprium'?
19. Language / E. Analyticity / 1. Analytic Propositions
Analytic judgements say clearly what was in the concept of the subject [Kant]
     Full Idea: Analytic judgements say nothing in the predicate that was not already thought in the concept of the subject, though not so clearly and with the same consciousness. If I say all bodies are extended, I have not amplified my concept of body in the least.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 266)
     A reaction: If I say all bodies are made of atoms, have I extended my concept of 'body'? It would come as a sensational revelation for Aristotle, but it now seems analytic.
Analytic judgement rests on contradiction, since the predicate cannot be denied of the subject [Kant]
     Full Idea: Analytic judgements rest wholly on the principle of contradiction, …because the predicate cannot be denied of the subject without contradiction.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 267)
     A reaction: So if I say 'gold has atomic number 79', that is a (Kantian) analytic statement? This is the view of sceptics about Kripke's a posteriori necessity. …a few lines later Kant gives 'gold is a yellow metal' as an example.