Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Folk Psychology', 'Philosophy of Language' and 'Towards a Universal Characteristic'

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5 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 4. Pure Logic
19370 'Blind thought' is reasoning without recognition of the ingredients of the reasoning [Leibniz, by Arthur,R]
     Full Idea: Leibniz invented the concept of 'blind thought' - reasoning by a manipulation of characters without being able to recognise what each character stands for.
     From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (Towards a Universal Characteristic [1677]) by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 2. Descriptions / a. Descriptions
15158 Indefinite descriptions are quantificational in subject position, but not in predicate position [Soames]
     Full Idea: The indefinite description in 'A man will meet you' is naturally treated as quantificational, but an occurrence in predicative position, in 'Jones is not a philosopher', doesn't have a natural quantificational counterpart.
     From: Scott Soames (Philosophy of Language [2010], 1.23)
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 2. Descriptions / c. Theory of definite descriptions
15157 Recognising the definite description 'the man' as a quantifier phrase, not a singular term, is a real insight [Soames]
     Full Idea: Recognising the definite description 'the man' as a quantifier phrase, rather than a singular term, is a real insight.
     From: Scott Soames (Philosophy of Language [2010], 1.22)
     A reaction: 'Would the man who threw the stone come forward' seems like a different usage from 'would the man in the black hat come forward'.
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 7. Unorthodox Quantification
15156 The universal and existential quantifiers were chosen to suit mathematics [Soames]
     Full Idea: Since Frege and Russell were mainly interested in formalizing mathematics, the only quantifiers they needed were the universal and existential one.
     From: Scott Soames (Philosophy of Language [2010], 1.22)
5. Theory of Logic / K. Features of Logics / 5. Incompleteness
19391 We can assign a characteristic number to every single object [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The true principle is that we can assign to every object its determined characteristic number.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Towards a Universal Characteristic [1677], p.18)
     A reaction: I add this as a predecessor of Gödel numbering. It is part of Leibniz's huge plan for a Universal Characteristic, to map reality numerically, and then calculate the truths about it. Gödel seems to allow metaphysics to be done mathematically.