Combining Texts

All the ideas for '17: Epistle to Titus', 'A Plea for Substitutional Quantification' and 'Testability and Meaning'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

5 ideas

4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 4. Alethic Modal Logic

9470	Modal logic is not an extensional language [Parsons,C]
	Full Idea: Modal logic is not an extensional language.
	From: Charles Parsons (A Plea for Substitutional Quantification [1971], p.159 n8)
	A reaction: [I record this for investigation. Possible worlds seem to contain objects]

5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 4. Substitutional Quantification

9469	Substitutional existential quantifier may explain the existence of linguistic entities [Parsons,C]
	Full Idea: I argue (against Quine) that the existential quantifier substitutionally interpreted has a genuine claim to express a concept of existence, which may give the best account of linguistic abstract entities such as propositions, attributes, and classes.
	From: Charles Parsons (A Plea for Substitutional Quantification [1971], p.156)
	A reaction: Intuitively I have my doubts about this, since the whole thing sounds like a verbal and conventional game, rather than anything with a proper ontology. Ruth Marcus and Quine disagree over this one.

9468	On the substitutional interpretation, '(∃x) Fx' is true iff a closed term 't' makes Ft true [Parsons,C]
	Full Idea: For the substitutional interpretation of quantifiers, a sentence of the form '(∃x) Fx' is true iff there is some closed term 't' of the language such that 'Ft' is true. For the objectual interpretation some object x must exist such that Fx is true.
	From: Charles Parsons (A Plea for Substitutional Quantification [1971], p.156)
	A reaction: How could you decide if it was true for 't' if you didn't know what object 't' referred to?

5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 6. Paradoxes in Language / a. The Liar paradox

9464	One of their own prophets said that Cretans are always liars [Anon (Titus)]
	Full Idea: One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true.
	From: Anon (Titus) (17: Epistle to Titus [c.115], I.12)
	A reaction: The classic statement of the paradox, the word 'always' being the source of the problem.

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / c. Truth-function conditionals

14305	In the truth-functional account a burnt-up match was soluble because it never entered water [Carnap]
	Full Idea: If a wooden match was completely burned up yesterday, and never placed in water at any time, is it not the case, therefore, that the match is soluble (in the truth-functional view). This follows just from the antecedent being false.
	From: Rudolph Carnap (Testability and Meaning [1937], I.440), quoted by Stephen Mumford - Dispositions
	A reaction: This, along with Edgington's nice example of the conditional command (Idea ) seems conclusive against the truth-functional account. The only defence possible is some sort of pragmatic account about implicature.