display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
16949 | Klein summarised geometry as grouped together by transformations [Quine] |
Full Idea: Felix Klein's so-called 'Erlangerprogramm' in geometry involved characterizing the various branches of geometry by what transformations were irrelevant to each. | |
From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.137) |
17730 | Combining the concepts of negation and finiteness gives the concept of infinity [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: We might arrive to the concept of infinity by composing concepts of negation and finiteness. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 5.3) | |
A reaction: Presumably lots of concepts can be arrived at by negating prior concepts (such as not-wet, not-tall, not-loud, not-straight). So not-infinite is perfectly plausible, and is a far better account than some a priori intuition of pure infinity. Love it. |
17719 | Arithmetic concepts are indispensable because they accurately map the world [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: The indispensability of arithmetical concepts is evidence that they do in fact accurately represent features of the independent world. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], Intro) | |
A reaction: This seems to me to be by far the best account of the matter. So why is the world so arithmetical? Dunno, mate; ask someone else. |
17717 | Senses produce concepts that map the world, and arithmetic is known through these concepts [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: I propose that arithmetical truths are known through an examination of our own arithmetical concepts; that basic arithmetical concepts map the arithmetical structure of the world; that the map obtains in virtue of our normal sensory apparatus. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], Pref) | |
A reaction: She defends the nice but unusual position that arithmetical knowledge is both a priori and empirical (so that those two notions are not, as usually thought, opposed). I am a big Carrie Jenkins fan. |
17724 | It is not easy to show that Hume's Principle is analytic or definitive in the required sense [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: A problem for the neo-Fregeans is that it has not proved easy to establish that Hume's Principle is analytic or definitive in the required sense. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.3) | |
A reaction: It is also asked how we would know the principle, if it is indeed analytic or definitional (Jenkins p.119). |