Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works (all lost)', 'Truthmakers and Converse Barcan Formula' and 'Function and Concept'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts

5 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 5. Functions in Logic
8490 First-level functions have objects as arguments; second-level functions take functions as arguments [Frege]
     Full Idea: Just as functions are fundamentally different from objects, so also functions whose arguments are and must be functions are fundamentally different from functions whose arguments are objects. The latter are first-level, the former second-level, functions.
     From: Gottlob Frege (Function and Concept [1891], p.38)
     A reaction: In 1884 he called it 'second-order'. This is the standard distinction between first- and second-order logic. The first quantifies over objects, the second over intensional entities such as properties and propositions.
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 6. Relations in Logic
8492 Relations are functions with two arguments [Frege]
     Full Idea: Functions of one argument are concepts; functions of two arguments are relations.
     From: Gottlob Frege (Function and Concept [1891], p.39)
     A reaction: Nowadays we would say 'two or more'. Another interesting move in the aim of analytic philosophy to reduce the puzzling features of the world to mathematical logic. There is, of course, rather more to some relations than being two-argument functions.
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 1. Quantification
18492 Not all quantification is either objectual or substitutional [Williamson]
     Full Idea: We should not assume that all quantification is either objectual or substitutional.
     From: Timothy Williamson (Truthmakers and Converse Barcan Formula [1999], p.262)
     A reaction: [see Prior 1971:31-4] He talks of quantifying into sentence position.
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 4. Substitutional Quantification
15136 Substitutional quantification is metaphysical neutral, and equivalent to a disjunction of instances [Williamson]
     Full Idea: If quantification into sentence position is substitutional, then it is metaphysically neutral. A substitutionally interpreted 'existential' quantification is semantically equivalent to the disjunction (possibly infinite) of its substitution instances.
     From: Timothy Williamson (Truthmakers and Converse Barcan Formula [1999], §2)
     A reaction: Is it not committed to the disjunction, just as the objectual reading commits to objects? Something must make the disjunction true. Or is it too verbal to be about reality?
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 7. Unorthodox Quantification
15138 Not all quantification is objectual or substitutional [Williamson]
     Full Idea: We should not assume that all quantification is objectual or substitutional.
     From: Timothy Williamson (Truthmakers and Converse Barcan Formula [1999], §2)