Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Function and Concept', 'Rationality and Goodness' and 'The Metaphysics of Properties'

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3 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
Frege takes the existence of horses to be part of their concept [Frege, by Sommers]
     Full Idea: Frege regarded the existence of horses as a property of the concept 'horse'.
     From: report of Gottlob Frege (Function and Concept [1891]) by Fred Sommers - Intellectual Autobiography 'Realism'
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / c. Commitment of predicates
Accepting properties by ontological commitment tells you very little about them [Oliver]
     Full Idea: The route to the existence of properties via ontological commitment provides little information about what properties are like.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §22)
     A reaction: NIce point, and rather important, I would say. I could hardly be committed to something for the sole reason that I had expressed a statement which contained an ontological commitment. Start from the reason for making the statement.
Reference is not the only way for a predicate to have ontological commitment [Oliver]
     Full Idea: For a predicate to have a referential function is one way, but not the only way, to harbour ontological commitment.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §22)
     A reaction: Presumably the main idea is that the predicate makes some important contribution to a sentence which is held to be true. Maybe reference is achieved by the whole sentence, rather than by one bit of it.