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Ideas for 'Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority', 'Categories' and 'What is Cantor's Continuum Problem?'

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4 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 4. Contraries
The contrary of good is bad, but the contrary of bad is either good or another evil [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: What is contrary to a good thing is necessarily bad, as we see with health and sickness. But the contrary of bad is sometimes good, sometimes not, as we see with excess, opposed by both deficiency and moderation.
     From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 13b36)
Both sides of contraries need not exist (as health without sickness, white without black) [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: With contraries it is not necessary if one exists for the other to exist too, for if everyone were well health would exist but not sickness, and if everything were white whiteness would exist but not black.
     From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 14a06)
2. Reason / D. Definition / 13. Against Definition
How do we determine which of the sentences containing a term comprise its definition? [Horwich]
     Full Idea: How are we to determine which of the sentences containing a term comprise its definition?
     From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §2)
     A reaction: Nice question. If I say 'philosophy is the love of wisdom' and 'philosophy bores me', why should one be part of its definition and the other not? What if I stipulated that the second one is part of my definition, and the first one isn't?
2. Reason / F. Fallacies / 8. Category Mistake / a. Category mistakes
The differentiae of genera which are different are themselves different in kind [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: The differentiae of genera which are different and not subordinate one to the other are themselves different in kind.
     From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 01b16)
     A reaction: This seems to be indicating a category mistake, as he warns us not to attribute the wrong kind of differentiae to something we are picking out.