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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'System of Logic' and 'My Philosophical Development'

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6 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 1. Logical Form
7528 Leibniz bases everything on subject/predicate and substance/property propositions [Russell]
     Full Idea: The metaphysics of Leibniz was explicitly based upon the doctrine that every proposition attributes a predicate to a subject and (what seemed to him almost the same thing) that every fact consists of a substance having a property.
     From: Bertrand Russell (My Philosophical Development [1959], Ch.5)
     A reaction: I think it is realised now that although predicates tend to attribute properties to things, they are far from being the same thing. See Idea 4587, for example. Russell gives us an interesting foot in the door of Leibniz's complex system.
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / d. and
17895 Combining two distinct assertions does not necessarily lead to a single 'complex proposition' [Mill]
     Full Idea: In 'Caesar is dead, and Brutus is alive' ...there are here two distinct assertions; and we might as well call a street a complex house, as these two propositions a complex proposition.
     From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 1.04.3)
     A reaction: Arthur Prior, in his article on 'tonk', cites this to claim that the mere account of the and-introduction rule does not guarantee the existence of any conjunctive proposition that can result from it. Mill says you are adding a third proposition.
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / a. Names
10427 All names are names of something, real or imaginary [Mill]
     Full Idea: All names are names of something, real or imaginary.
     From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], p.32), quoted by Mark Sainsbury - The Essence of Reference 18.2
     A reaction: Mill's example of of being like a chalk mark on a door, but Sainsbury points out that names can be detached from bearers in a way that chalk marks can't.
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / c. Names as referential
4944 Mill says names have denotation but not connotation [Mill, by Kripke]
     Full Idea: It is a well known doctrine of Mill that names have denotation but not connotation.
     From: report of John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843]) by Saul A. Kripke - Naming and Necessity lectures Lecture 1
     A reaction: A nice starting point for any discussion of the topic. The obvious response is that a name like 'Attila the Hun' seems to have a very vague denotation for most of us, but a rather powerful connotation.
7762 Proper names are just labels for persons or objects, and the meaning is the object [Mill, by Lycan]
     Full Idea: Mill seemed to defend the view that proper names are merely labels for individual persons or objects, and contribute no more than those individuals themselves to the meanings of sentences in which they occur.
     From: report of John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843]) by William Lycan - Philosophy of Language
     A reaction: Identity statements can become trivial on this view ('Twain is Clemens'). Modern views have become more sympathetic to Mill, since externalism places meanings outside the head of the speaker.
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / e. Empty names
6439 Names are meaningless unless there is an object which they designate [Russell]
     Full Idea: Unlike descriptions, names are meaningless unless there is an object which they designate.
     From: Bertrand Russell (My Philosophical Development [1959], Ch.14)
     A reaction: This interests Russell because of its ontological implications. If we reduce language to names, we can have a pure ontology of 'objects'. We need a system for saying whether a description names something - which is his theory of definite descriptions.