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Ideas for 'Essays on Intellectual Powers: Conception', 'Vagueness' and 'Foundations without Foundationalism'

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2 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 10. Properties as Predicates
Properties are often seen as intensional; equiangular and equilateral are different, despite identity of objects [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: Properties are often taken to be intensional; equiangular and equilateral are thought to be different properties of triangles, even though any triangle is equilateral if and only if it is equiangular.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], 1.3)
     A reaction: Many logicians seem to want to treat properties as sets of objects (red being just the set of red things), but this looks like a desperate desire to say everything in first-order logic, where only objects are available to quantify over.
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 1. Nominalism / a. Nominalism
Nominalists suspect that properties etc are our projections, and could have been different [Williamson]
     Full Idea: The nominalist suspects that properties, relations and states of affairs are mere projections onto the world of our forms of speech. One source of the suspicion is a sense that we could just as well have classified things differently.
     From: Timothy Williamson (Vagueness [1994], 9.3)
     A reaction: I know it is very wicked to say so, but I'm afraid I have some sympathy with this view. But I like the primary/secondary distinction, so there is more 'projection' in the latter case. Classification is not random; it is a response to reality.