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Ideas for 'works', 'Journals' and 'Vagueness and Contradiction'

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5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 1. Logical Form

4730	For Aristotle, the subject-predicate structure of Greek reflected a substance-accident structure of reality [Aristotle, by O'Grady]
	Full Idea: Aristotle apparently believed that the subject-predicate structure of Greek reflected the substance-accident nature of reality.
	From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Paul O'Grady - Relativism Ch.4
	A reaction: We need not assume that Aristotle is wrong. It is a chicken-and-egg. There is something obvious about subject-predicate language, if one assumes that unified objects are part of nature, and not just conventional.

5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 4. Variables in Logic

9135	We now see that generalizations use variables rather than abstract entities [Sorensen]
	Full Idea: As philosophers gradually freed themselves from the assumption that all words are names, ..they realised that generalizations really use variables rather than names of abstract entities.
	From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 8.4)
	A reaction: This looks like a key thought in trying to understand abstraction - though I don't think you can shake it off that easily. (For all x)(x-is-a-bird then x-has-wings) seems to require a generalised concept of a bird to give a value to the variable.