display all the ideas for this combination of texts
14 ideas
8643 | Affirmation of existence is just denial of zero [Frege] |
Full Idea: Affirmation of existence is nothing but denial of the number nought. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) [1884], §53) | |
A reaction: Mathematicians - don't you luv 'em. No doubt this is helpful in placing existence within the great network of logical inferences, but his 'nothing but' is laughable. I don't see much existential anguish in the denial of zero. |
17174 | Outside the mind, there are just things and their properties [Spinoza] |
Full Idea: Outside the intellect, there is nothing but substances and their affections. | |
From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], I Pr 04) | |
A reaction: This is pretty close to the very sparse ontology espoused by modern philosophers who take their lead from the logic. |
17176 | The more reality a thing has, the more attributes it has [Spinoza] |
Full Idea: The more reality or being a thing possesses, the more attributes belong to it. | |
From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], I Pr 09) | |
A reaction: This commitment to degrees of existence (which I find baffling) is presumably to enable God to be the thing with infinite attributes, and an infinite degree of Being. What percentage of Being would you say you've got (on a good day)? |
8911 | If abstracta are non-mental, quarks are abstracta, and yet chess and God's thoughts are mental [Rosen on Frege] |
Full Idea: Frege's identification of the abstract with the realm of non-mental things entails that unobservables such as quarks are abstract. The abstract nature of chess, and the possibility of abstracta in the mind of God, show they can be mind-dependent. | |
From: comment on Gottlob Frege (Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) [1884]) by Gideon Rosen - Abstract Objects 'Way of Neg' | |
A reaction: I like the robust question 'if a is said to 'exist', what is it said to be made of?' I consider the views of Frege to have had too much influence in this area, and recognising the role of the mind (psychology!) in abstraction is a start. |
8634 | The equator is imaginary, but not fictitious; thought is needed to recognise it [Frege] |
Full Idea: We speak of the equator as an imaginary line, but it is not a fictitious line; it is not a creature of thought, the product of a psychological process, but is only recognised or apprehended by thought. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) [1884], §26) | |
A reaction: Nice point. The same goes for the apparently very abstract and theoretical concept of a 'circle', because a perfect circle could be imagined in a very specific location, perhaps passing through three specified points. |
17179 | There must always be a reason or cause why some triangle does or does not exist [Spinoza] |
Full Idea: If a triangle exists, there must be a reason or cause why it exists; and if it does not exist, there must be a reason or cause which hinders its existence or which negates it. | |
From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], I Pr 11) | |
A reaction: Hm. Spinoza is setting up a defence of the ontological argument, which seems to require that he lower his normal high standards of argument. |
17186 | Men say they prefer order, not realising that we imagine the order [Spinoza] |
Full Idea: Men prefer order to confusion, as if order were something in nature apart from our own imagination. | |
From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], IApp) |
17443 | Many of us find Frege's claim that truths depend on one another an obscure idea [Heck on Frege] |
Full Idea: Frege sometimes speaks of 'the dependence of truths upon one another' (1884:§2), but I find such ideas obscure, and suspect I'm not the only one who does. | |
From: comment on Gottlob Frege (Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) [1884], §02) by Richard G. Heck - Cardinality, Counting and Equinumerosity 1 | |
A reaction: He refers to Burge 'struggling mightily' with this aspect of Frege's thought. I intend to defend Frege. See his 1914 lectures. I thought this dependence was basic to the whole modern project of doing metaphysics through logic? |
17445 | Parallelism is intuitive, so it is more fundamental than sameness of direction [Frege, by Heck] |
Full Idea: Frege says that parallelism is more fundamental than sameness of direction because all geometrical notions must originally be given in intuition. | |
From: report of Gottlob Frege (Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) [1884], §64) by Richard G. Heck - Cardinality, Counting and Equinumerosity 3 | |
A reaction: If Frege thinks some truths are more fundamental, this gives an indication of his reasons. But intuition is not a very strong base. |
10539 | Frege refers to 'concrete' objects, but they are no different in principle from abstract ones [Frege, by Dummett] |
Full Idea: Frege employs the notion of 'concrete' (wirklich, literally 'actual') objects, in arguing that not every object is concrete, but it does not work; abstract objects are just as much objects as concrete ones. | |
From: report of Gottlob Frege (Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) [1884], §26,85) by Michael Dummett - Frege Philosophy of Language (2nd ed) Ch.14 | |
A reaction: See Idea 10516 for why Dummett is keen on the distinction. Frege strikes me as being wildly irresponsible about ontology. |
20127 | Laws of nature are universal, so everything must be understood through those laws [Spinoza] |
Full Idea: Nature's laws ....are everywhere and always the same; so that there should be one and the same method of understanding the nature of all things whatsoever, namely through nature's universal laws and rules. | |
From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], III Pref) | |
A reaction: Leiter calls this Methodological Naturalism, which says that the procedures and findings of philosophy should conform to those of science. I think I'm also a Substantive Naturalist, who says 'that's all there is'. |
17431 | Vagueness is incomplete definition [Frege, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Frege seems to assimilate vagueness to incompleteness of definition. | |
From: report of Gottlob Frege (Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) [1884]) by Kathrin Koslicki - Isolation and Non-arbitrary Division 2.1 |
13879 | For Frege, ontological questions are to be settled by reference to syntactic structures [Frege, by Wright,C] |
Full Idea: For Frege, syntactic categories are prior to ontological ones, and it is by reference to the syntactic structure of true statements that ontological questions are to be understood and settled. | |
From: report of Gottlob Frege (Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) [1884]) by Crispin Wright - Frege's Concept of Numbers as Objects 1.v |
10642 | Second-order quantifiers are committed to concepts, as first-order commits to objects [Frege, by Linnebo] |
Full Idea: Frege claims that second-order quantifiers are committed to concepts, just as singular first-order quantifiers are committed to objects. | |
From: report of Gottlob Frege (Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) [1884]) by Øystein Linnebo - Plural Quantification 5.3 | |
A reaction: It increasingly strikes me that Fregeans try to get away with this nonsense by diluting both the notion of a 'concept' and the notion of an 'object'. |