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Ideas for '', 'Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus' and 'works'

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5 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 1. Overview of Logic
If a sound conclusion comes from two errors that cancel out, the path of the argument must matter [Rumfitt]
     Full Idea: If a designated conclusion follows from the premisses, but the argument involves two howlers which cancel each other out, then the moral is that the path an argument takes from premisses to conclusion does matter to its logical evaluation.
     From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], II)
     A reaction: The drift of this is that our view of logic should be a little closer to the reasoning of ordinary language, and we should rely a little less on purely formal accounts.
5. Theory of Logic / D. Assumptions for Logic / 1. Bivalence
Bipolarity adds to Bivalence the capacity for both truth values [Morris,M]
     Full Idea: According to the Principle of Bipolarity, every meaningful sentence must be capable both of being true and of being false. It is not enough merely that every sentence must be either true or false (which is Bivalence).
     From: Michael Morris (Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus [2008], 3D)
     A reaction: It is said that early Wittgenstein endorses this. That is, in addition to being true, the sentence must be capable of falsehood (and vice versa). This seems to be flirting with the verification principle. I presume it is 'affirmative' sentences.
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / a. Logical connectives
Standardly 'and' and 'but' are held to have the same sense by having the same truth table [Rumfitt]
     Full Idea: If 'and' and 'but' really are alike in sense, in what might that likeness consist? Some philosophers of classical logic will reply that they share a sense by virtue of sharing a truth table.
     From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000])
     A reaction: This is the standard view which Rumfitt sets out to challenge.
The sense of a connective comes from primitively obvious rules of inference [Rumfitt]
     Full Idea: A connective will possess the sense that it has by virtue of its competent users' finding certain rules of inference involving it to be primitively obvious.
     From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], III)
     A reaction: Rumfitt cites Peacocke as endorsing this view, which characterises the logical connectives by their rules of usage rather than by their pure semantic value.
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 1. Quantification
Conjunctive and disjunctive quantifiers are too specific, and are confined to the finite [Morris,M]
     Full Idea: There are two problems with defining the quantifiers in terms of conjunction and disjunction. The general statements are unspecific, and do not say which things have the properties, and also they can't range over infinite objects.
     From: Michael Morris (Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus [2008], 5C)
     A reaction: That is, the universal quantifier is lots of ands, and the existential is lots of ors. If there only existed finite objects, then naming them all would be universal, and the infinite wouldn't be needed.