display all the ideas for this combination of texts
7 ideas
13933 | Existence questions are 'internal' (within a framework) or 'external' (concerning the whole framework) [Carnap] |
Full Idea: We distinguish two kinds of existence questions: first, entities of a new kind within the framework; we call them 'internal questions'. Second, 'external questions', concerning the existence or reality of the system of entities as a whole. | |
From: Rudolph Carnap (Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology [1950], 2) | |
A reaction: This nicely disposes of many ontological difficulties, but at the price of labelling most external questions as meaningless, so that the internal answers have very little commitment, and the external (big) questions are now banned. Not for me. |
13934 | To be 'real' is to be an element of a system, so we cannot ask reality questions about the system itself [Carnap] |
Full Idea: To be real in the scientific sense means to be an element of the system; hence this concept cannot be meaningfully applied to the system itself. | |
From: Rudolph Carnap (Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology [1950], 2) |
11016 | Would a language without vagueness be usable at all? [Read] |
Full Idea: We must ask whether a language without vagueness would be usable at all. | |
From: Stephen Read (Thinking About Logic [1995], Ch.7) | |
A reaction: Popper makes a similar remark somewhere, with which I heartily agreed. This is the idea of 'spreading the word' over the world, which seems the right way of understanding it. |
11013 | Identities and the Indiscernibility of Identicals don't work with supervaluations [Read] |
Full Idea: In supervaluations, the Law of Identity has no value for empty names, and remains so if extended. The Indiscernibility of Identicals also fails if extending it for non-denoting terms, where Fa comes out true and Fb false. | |
From: Stephen Read (Thinking About Logic [1995], Ch.5) |
11012 | A 'supervaluation' gives a proposition consistent truth-value for classical assignments [Read] |
Full Idea: A 'supervaluation' says a proposition is true if it is true in all classical extensions of the original partial valuation. Thus 'A or not-A' has no valuation for an empty name, but if 'extended' to make A true or not-true, not-A always has opposite value. | |
From: Stephen Read (Thinking About Logic [1995], Ch.5) |
11019 | Supervaluations say there is a cut-off somewhere, but at no particular place [Read] |
Full Idea: The supervaluation approach to vagueness is to construe vague predicates not as ones with fuzzy borderlines and no cut-off, but as having a cut-off somewhere, but in no particular place. | |
From: Stephen Read (Thinking About Logic [1995], Ch.7) | |
A reaction: Presumably you narrow down the gap by supervaluation, then split the difference to get a definite value. |
13938 | A linguistic framework involves commitment to entities, so only commitment to the framework is in question [Carnap] |
Full Idea: If someone accepts a framework for a kind of entities, then he must admit the entities as possible designata. Thus the question of the admissibility of entities is reduced to the question of the acceptability of the linguistic framework for the entities. | |
From: Rudolph Carnap (Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology [1950], 4) | |
A reaction: Despite the many differences of opinion between Quine and Carnap, this appears to be a straight endorsement by Carnap of the Quinean conception of ontological commitment. |