Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Reference and Necessity' and 'Anti-essentialism'

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2 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / C. Ontology of Logic / 1. Ontology of Logic
Logical space is abstracted from the actual world [Stalnaker]
     Full Idea: Logical space is not given independently of the individuals that occupy it, but is abstracted from the world as we find it.
     From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Anti-essentialism [1979], p.85)
     A reaction: I very much like the second half of this idea, and am delighted to find Stalnaker endorsing it. I take the logical connectives to be descriptions of how things behave, at a high level of generality.
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / c. Names as referential
To understand a name (unlike a description) picking the thing out is sufficient? [Stalnaker]
     Full Idea: If we ask 'what must you know to understand a name?', the naïve answer is that one must know who or what it names - nothing more. (But no one would give this answer about what is needed to understand a definite description).
     From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Reference and Necessity [1997], 4)
     A reaction: Presumably this is naive because names can be full of meaning ('the Empress'), or description and reference together ('there's the man who robbed me') and so on. It's a nice starting point though. A number can serve as a name.