22 ideas
| 11223 | Definitions usually have a term, a 'definiendum' containing the term, and a defining 'definiens' [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: Many definitions have three elements: the term that is defined, an expression containing the defined term (the 'definiendum'), and another expression (the 'definiens') that is equated by the definition with this expression. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 2) | |
| A reaction: He notes that the definiendum and the definiens are assumed to be in the 'same logical category', which is a right can of worms. |
| 11215 | Notable definitions have been of piety (Plato), God (Anselm), number (Frege), and truth (Tarski) [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: Notable examples of definitions in philosophy have been Plato's (e.g. of piety, in 'Euthyphro'), Anselm's definition of God, the Frege-Russell definition of number, and Tarski's definition of truth. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], Intro) | |
| A reaction: All of these are notable for the extensive metaphysical conclusions which then flow from what seems like a fairly neutral definition. We would expect that if we were defining essences, but not if we were just defining word usage. |
| 11225 | A definition needs to apply to the same object across possible worlds [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: In a modal logic in which names are non-vacuous and rigid, not only must existence and uniqueness in a definition be shown to hold necessarily, it must be shown that the definiens is satisfied by the same object across possible worlds. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 2.4) |
| 11227 | The 'revision theory' says that definitions are rules for improving output [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: The 'revision theory' of definitions says definitions impart a hypothetical character, giving a rule of revision rather than a rule of application. ...The output interpretation is better than the input one. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 2.7) | |
| A reaction: Gupta mentions the question of whether such definitions can extend into the trans-finite. |
| 11224 | Traditional definitions are general identities, which are sentential and reductive [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: Traditional definitions are generalized identities (so definiendum and definiens can replace each other), in which the sentential is primary (for use in argument), and they involve reduction (and hence eliminability in a ground language). | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 2.2) |
| 11226 | Traditional definitions need: same category, mention of the term, and conservativeness and eliminability [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: A traditional definition requires that the definiendum contains the defined term, that definiendum and definiens are of the same logical category, and the definition is conservative (adding nothing new), and makes elimination possible. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 2.4) |
| 11221 | A definition can be 'extensionally', 'intensionally' or 'sense' adequate [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: A definition is 'extensionally adequate' iff there are no actual counterexamples to it. It is 'intensionally adequate' iff there are no possible counterexamples to it. It is 'sense adequate' (or 'analytic') iff it endows the term with the right sense. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 1.4) |
| 17311 | Real definitions don't just single out a thing; they must also explain its essence [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: A statement expressing a real definition must also accomplish more than simply to offer two different ways of singling out the same entity, since the definiens must also be explanatory of the essential nature of the definiendum. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.4) | |
| A reaction: This is why Aristotelian definitions are not just short lexicographical definitions, but may be quite length. Effectively, a definition IS an explanation. |
| 11217 | Chemists aim at real definition of things; lexicographers aim at nominal definition of usage [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: The chemist aims at real definition, whereas the lexicographer aims at nominal definition. ...Perhaps real definitions investigate the thing denoted, and nominal definitions investigate meaning and use. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: Very helpful. I really think we should talk much more about the neglected chemists when we discuss science. Theirs is the single most successful branch of science, the paradigm case of what the whole enterprise aims at. |
| 11216 | If definitions aim at different ideals, then defining essence is not a unitary activity [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: Some definitions aim at precision, others at fairness, or at accuracy, or at clarity, or at fecundity. But if definitions 'give the essence of things' (the Aristotelian formula), then it may not be a unitary kind of activity. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 1) | |
| A reaction: We don't have to accept this conclusion so quickly. Human interests may shift the emphasis, but there may be a single ideal definition of which these various examples are mere parts. |
| 11218 | Stipulative definition assigns meaning to a term, ignoring prior meanings [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: Stipulative definition imparts a meaning to the defined term, and involves no commitment that the assigned meaning agrees with prior uses (if any) of the term | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: A nice question is how far one can go in stretching received usage. If I define 'democracy' as 'everyone is involved in decisions', that is sort of right, but pushing the boundaries (children, criminals etc). |
| 11220 | Ostensive definitions look simple, but are complex and barely explicable [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: Ostensive definitions look simple (say 'this stick is one meter long', while showing a stick), but they are effective only because a complex linguistic and conceptual capacity is operative in the background, of which it is hard to give an account. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: The full horror of the situation is brought out in Quine's 'gavagai' example (Idea 6312) |
| 11222 | The ordered pair <x,y> is defined as the set {{x},{x,y}}, capturing function, not meaning [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: The ordered pair <x,y> is defined as the set {{x},{x,y}}. This does captures its essential uses. Pairs <x,y> <u,v> are identical iff x=u and y=v, and the definition satisfies this. Function matters here, not meaning. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: This is offered as an example of Carnap's 'explications', rather than pure definitions. Quine extols it as a philosophical paradigm (1960:§53). |
| 17312 | It is more explanatory if you show how a number is constructed from basic entities and relations [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Being the successor of the successor of 0 is more explanatory than being predecessor of 3 of the nature of 2, since it mirrors more closely the method by which 2 is constructed from a basic entity, 0, and a relation (successor) taken as primitive. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.4) | |
| A reaction: This assumes numbers are 'constructed', which they are in the axiomatised system of Peano Arithmetic, but presumably the numbers were given in ordinary experience before 'construction' occurred to anyone. Nevertheless, I really like this. |
| 17314 | The relata of grounding are propositions or facts, but for dependence it is objects and their features [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: The relata of the grounding relation are typically taken to be facts or propositions, while the relata of ontological dependence ...are objects and their characteristics, activities, constituents and so on. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.5 n25) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. Good riddance to propositions here, but this seems a bit unfair to facts, since I take facts to be in the world. Audi's concept of 'worldly facts' is what we need here. |
| 17313 | Modern views want essences just to individuate things across worlds and times [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: According to the approach of Plantinga, Forbes and Mackie, the primary job of essences is to individuate the entities whose essences they are across worlds and times at which these entities exist. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.4 n13) | |
| A reaction: A helpful simplification of what is going on. I wish those authors would just say this one their first pages. They all get in a right tangle, because individuation is either too easy, or hopeless. 'Tracking' is a good word for this game. |
| 17309 | For Fine, essences are propositions true because of identity, so they are just real definitions [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Fine assumes that essences can be identified with collections of propositions that are true in virtue of the identity of a particular object, or objects. ...There is not, on this approach, much of a distinction between essences and real definitions. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.4) | |
| A reaction: This won't do, because the essence of a physical object is not a set of propositions, it is some aspects of the object itself, which are described in a definition. Koslicki notes that psuché is an essence, and the soul is hardly a set of propositions! |
| 17315 | We need a less propositional view of essence, and so must distinguish it clearly from real definitions [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: To make room for a less propositional conception of essence than that assumed by Fine, I urge that we distinguish more firmly between essences and real definitions (which state these essences in the form of propositions). | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.6) | |
| A reaction: Yes. The idea that essence is just a verbal or conceptual entity would be utterly abhorrent to Aristotle (a hero for Fine), and it is anathema to me too. We intend essences to be in the world (even if we are deceived about that). They explain! |
| 17317 | A good explanation captures the real-world dependence among the phenomena [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: It is plausible to think that an explanation, when successful, captures or represents (by argument, or a why? question) an underlying real-world relation of dependence which obtains among the phenomena cited. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.6) | |
| A reaction: She cites causal dependence as an example. I'm incline to think that 'grounding' is a better word for the target of good explanations than is 'dependence' (which can, surely, be mutual, where ground has the directionality needed for explanation). |
| 2957 | Brain bisection suggests unity of mind isn't all-or-nothing [Nagel, by Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: Nagel argues (because of brain bisection experiments) that we should jettison our commonsense assumption that the unity of consciousness is an all-or-nothing affair. | |
| From: report of Thomas Nagel (Brain Bisection and Unity of Consciousness [1971]) by Michael Lockwood - Mind, Brain and the Quantum p.84 | |
| A reaction: It seems wrong to call it 'commonsense'. It is an assumption that precedes any judgement, but if you rapidly grasp that your mind is in your brain, it becomes common sense that you can cut lumps out of your mind. |
| 3285 | We may be unable to abandon personal identity, even when split-brains have undermined it [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: As a result of the evidence of split-brains, it is possible that the ordinary, simple idea of a single person will come to seem quaint some day, …but we may be unable to abandon the idea, no matter what we discover. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Brain Bisection and Unity of Consciousness [1971], p.164) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure what grounds you can have for a claim that we can't abandon our current view of selves, even when the new reality will be utterly different. Rather conservative? I would expect future concepts to roughly match future reality. |
| 17316 | We can abstract to a dependent entity by blocking out features of its bearer [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: In 'feature dependence', the ontologically dependent entity may be thought of as the result of a process of abstraction which takes the 'bearer' as its starting point and arrives at the abstracted entity by blocking out all the irrelevant features. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.6) | |
| A reaction: She seems unaware that this is traditional abstraction, found in Aristotle, and a commonplace of thought until Frege got his evil hands on abstraction and stole it for other purposes. I'm a fan. |