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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Ontology and the Vicious Circle Principle' and 'A Powerful Particulars View of Causation'

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3 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 5. First-Order Logic
Philosophers accepted first-order logic, because they took science to be descriptive, not explanatory [Ingthorsson]
     Full Idea: First-order predicate logic was accepted so easily by the philosophical community …because philosophy was already geared toward a neo-Humean view of both science and philosophy as primarily descriptive rather than explanatory.
     From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 1.8)
     A reaction: The point, I think, is that explanatory thinking needs second-order logic, where the properties (or powers) are players in the game, and not just adjuncts of the catalogue of objects. I find this idea mind-expanding. (That's a good thing).
5. Theory of Logic / B. Logical Consequence / 5. Modus Ponens
Modus ponens is one of five inference rules identified by the Stoics [Chrysippus, by Devlin]
     Full Idea: Modus ponens is just one of the five different inference rules identified by the Stoics.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Keith Devlin - Goodbye Descartes Ch.2
     A reaction: Modus ponens strikes me as being more like a definition of implication than a 'rule'. Implication is what gets you from one truth to another. All the implications of a truth must also be true.
5. Theory of Logic / D. Assumptions for Logic / 2. Excluded Middle
Every proposition is either true or false [Chrysippus, by Cicero]
     Full Idea: We hold fast to the position, defended by Chrysippus, that every proposition is either true or false.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 38
     A reaction: I am intrigued to know exactly how you defend this claim. It may depend what you mean by a proposition. A badly expressed proposition may have indeterminate truth, quite apart from the vague, the undecidable etc.