display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
| 6042 | The quantifier is overrated as an analytical tool [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: The quantifier has been overrated as a tool of logical and linguistic analysis. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Pref) | |
| A reaction: I find this proposal quite thrilling. Twentieth century analytical philosophy has been in thrall to logic, giving the upper hand in philosophical discussion to the logicians, who are often not very good at philosophy. |
| 6067 | Existential quantifiers just express the quantity of things, leaving existence to the predicate 'exists' [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: What the existential quantifier does is indicate the quantity of things in question - it says that some are; it is left up to the predicate 'exists' to express existence. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This seems right. The whole quantification business seems like a conjuring trick to conceal the embarrassingly indefinable and 'metaphysical' notion of 'existence'. Cf Idea 7697. |
| 21643 | The inferential quantifier focuses on truth; the domain quantifier focuses on reality [Hofweber] |
| Full Idea: When we ask 'is there a number?' in its inferential role (or internalist) reading, then we ask whether or not there is a true instance of 't is a number'. When we ask in its domain conditions (externalist) reading, we ask if the world contains a number. | |
| From: Thomas Hofweber (Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics [2016], 03.6) | |
| A reaction: Hofweber's key distinction. The distinction between making truth prior and making reference prior is intriguing and important. The internalist version is close to substitutional quantification. Only the externalist view needs robust reference. |
| 6069 | 'Partial quantifier' would be a better name than 'existential quantifier', as no existence would be implied [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: We would do much better to call 'some' the 'partial quantifier' (rather than the 'existential quantifier'), on analogy with the universal quantifier - as neither of them logically implies existence. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Like McGinn's other suggestions in this chapter, this strikes me as a potentially huge clarification in linguistic analysis. I wait with interest to see whether the philosophical logicians take it up. I bet they don't. |
| 6068 | We need an Intentional Quantifier ("some of the things we talk about.."), so existence goes into the proposition [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: We could introduce an 'intentional quantifier' (Ix) which means 'some of the things we talk about..'; we could then say 'some of the things we talk about are F and exist' (Ix, x is F and x exists). | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This immediately strikes me as a promising contribution to the analytical toolkit. McGinn is supporting his view that existence is a predicate, and so belongs inside the proposition, not outside. |