display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
| 23506 | Names are primitive, and cannot be analysed [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: A name cannot be dissected any further by means of a definition: it is a primitive sign. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 3.26) | |
| A reaction: All logicians and analytic philosophers seem to agree on this. He means terms which pick out specific objects. |
| 7089 | A name is primitive, and its meaning is the object [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: A name means an object; an object is its meaning. ...A name cannot be dissected further by means of a definition: it is a primitive sign. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 3.203/3.26) | |
| A reaction: This is the optimistic view of names, that they are the point at which language plugs into the world (Russell preferred demonstratives for that job). Kripke's baptismal view of names has the same aspiration. |
| 11028 | λ-abstraction disambiguates the scope of modal operators [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: λ-abstraction can be used to abstract and disambiguate a predicate. De re is [λx◊P(x)](f) - f has the possible-P property - and de dicto is ◊[λxP(x)](f) - possibly f has the P-property. Also applies to □. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], §3.3) | |
| A reaction: Compare the Barcan formula. Originated with Church in the 1930s, and Carnap 1947, but revived by Stalnaker and Thomason 1968. Because it refers to the predicate, it has a role in intensional versions of logic, especially modal logic. |