display all the ideas for this combination of texts
6 ideas
21657 | Since properties can have properties, some theorists rank them in 'types' [Hofweber] |
Full Idea: Since properties themselves can have properties there is a well-known division in the theory of properties between those who take a typed and those who take a type-free approach. | |
From: Thomas Hofweber (Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics [2016], 08.5) | |
A reaction: I take this idea to be about linguistic predicates, and about semantics which draws on model theory. To see it as about actual 'properties' in the physical world makes no sense. |
8729 | Intuitionists deny excluded middle, because it is committed to transcendent truth or objects [Shapiro] |
Full Idea: Intuitionists in mathematics deny excluded middle, because it is symptomatic of faith in the transcendent existence of mathematical objects and/or the truth of mathematical statements. | |
From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 1.2) | |
A reaction: There are other problems with excluded middle, such as vagueness, but on the whole I, as a card-carrying 'realist', am committed to the law of excluded middle. |
21653 | Maybe not even names are referential, but are just by used by speakers to refer [Hofweber] |
Full Idea: A more radical alternative which takes names not to be referring even in the broader sense, but only takes speakers to refer with uses of names. | |
From: Thomas Hofweber (Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics [2016], 08.1) | |
A reaction: Given that you can make up nicknames and silly nonce names for people, this seems plausible. I may say a name in a crowded room and three people look up. |
21636 | 'Singular terms' are not found in modern linguistics, and are not the same as noun phrases [Hofweber] |
Full Idea: Being a 'singular term' is not a category in contemporary syntactic theory and it doesn't correspond to any of the notions employed there like that of a singular noun phrase or the like. | |
From: Thomas Hofweber (Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics [2016], 02.3) | |
A reaction: Hofweber has researched such things. This is an important objection to the reliance of modern Fregeans on the ontological commitments of singular terms (as proof that there are 'mathematical objects'). |
21637 | If two processes are said to be identical, that doesn't make their terms refer to entities [Hofweber] |
Full Idea: Identity between objects occurs in 'How Mary makes a chocolate cake is identical to how my grandfather used to make it', but does this show that 'how Mary makes a chocolate cake' aims to pick out an entity? | |
From: Thomas Hofweber (Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics [2016], 02.3) | |
A reaction: This is a counterexample to the Fregean thought that the criterion for the existence of the referent of a singular term is its capacity to participate in an identity relation. Defenders of the Fregean view are aware of such examples. |
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. |