display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |