20 ideas
| 10928 | Maybe we can quantify modally if the objects are intensional, but it seems unlikely [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps there is no objection to quantifying into modal contexts as long as the values of any variables thus quantified are limited to intensional objects, but they also lead to disturbing examples. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Reference and Modality [1953], §3) | |
| A reaction: [Quine goes on to give his examples] I take it that possibilities are features of actual reality, not merely objects of thought. The problem is that they are harder to know than actual objects. |
| 18823 | To say there could have been people who don't exist, but deny those possible things, rejects Barcan [Stalnaker, by Rumfitt] |
| Full Idea: Stalnaker holds that there could have been people who do not actually exist, but he denies that there are things that could have been those people. That is, he denies the unrestricted validity of the Barcan Formula. | |
| From: report of Robert C. Stalnaker (Counterparts and Identity [1987]) by Ian Rumfitt - The Boundary Stones of Thought 6.2 | |
| A reaction: And quite right too, I should have thought. As they say, Jack Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe might have had a child, but the idea that we should accept some entity which might have been that child but wasn't sounds like nonsense. Except as fiction….. |
| 9406 | A class is natural when everybody can spot further members of it [Quinton] |
| Full Idea: To say that a class is natural is to say that when some of its members are shown to people they pick out others without hesitation and in agreement. | |
| From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
| A reaction: He concedes a number of problems with his view, but I admire his attempt to at least begin to distinguish the natural (real!) classes from the ersatz ones. A mention of causal powers would greatly improve his story. |
| 10925 | Failure of substitutivity shows that a personal name is not purely referential [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Failure of substitutivity shows that the occurrence of a personal name is not purely referential. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Reference and Modality [1953], §1) | |
| A reaction: I don't think I understand the notion of a name being 'purely' referential, as if it somehow ceased to be a word, and was completely transparent to the named object. |
| 10926 | Quantifying into referentially opaque contexts often produces nonsense [Quine] |
| Full Idea: If to a referentially opaque context of a variable we apply a quantifier, with the intention that it govern that variable from outside the referentially opaque context, then what we commonly end up with is unintended sense or nonsense. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Reference and Modality [1953], §2) |
| 15730 | Extreme nominalists say all classification is arbitrary convention [Quinton] |
| Full Idea: Pure, extreme nominalism sees all classification as the product of arbitrary convention. | |
| From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure what the word 'arbitrary' is doing there. Nominalists are not daft, and if they can classify any way they like, they are not likely to choose an 'arbitrary' system. Pragmatism tells the right story here. |
| 15728 | The naturalness of a class depends as much on the observers as on the objects [Quinton] |
| Full Idea: The naturalness of a class depends as essentially on the nature of the observers who classify as it does on the nature of the objects that they classify. ...It depends on our perceptual apparatus, and on our relatively mutable needs and interests. | |
| From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
| A reaction: This seems to translate 'natural' as 'natural for us', which is not much use to scientists, who spend quite a lot of effort combating folk wisdom. Do desirable sports cars constitute a natural class? |
| 9407 | Properties imply natural classes which can be picked out by everybody [Quinton] |
| Full Idea: To say there are properties is to say there are natural classes, classes introduction to some of whose members enables people to pick out others without hesitation and in agreement. | |
| From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
| A reaction: Aristotle would like this approach, but it doesn't find many friends among modern logician/philosophers. We should go on to ask why people agree on these things. Causal powers will then come into it. |
| 15729 | Uninstantiated properties must be defined using the instantiated ones [Quinton] |
| Full Idea: Properties that have no concrete instances must be defined in terms of those that have. | |
| From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
| A reaction: I wonder what the dodo used to smell like? |
| 8520 | An individual is a union of a group of qualities and a position [Quinton, by Campbell,K] |
| Full Idea: Quinton proposes that an individual is a union of a group of qualities and a position. | |
| From: report of Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], Pt I) by Keith Campbell - The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars §5 | |
| A reaction: This seems the obvious defence of a bundle account of objects against the charge that indiscernibles would have to be identical. It introduces, however, 'positions' into the ontology, but maybe that price must be paid. Materialism needs space. |
| 10930 | Quantification into modal contexts requires objects to have an essence [Quine] |
| Full Idea: A reversion to Aristotelian essentialism is required if quantification into modal contexts is to be insisted on. An object must be seen as having some of its traits necessarily. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Reference and Modality [1953], §3) | |
| A reaction: This thought leads directly to Kripke's proposal of rigid designation of objects (and Lewis response of counterparts), which really gets modal logic off the ground. Quine's challenge remains - the modal logic entails a huge metaphysical commitment. |
| 14645 | To be necessarily greater than 7 is not a trait of 7, but depends on how 7 is referred to [Quine] |
| Full Idea: To be necessarily greater than 7 is not a trait of a number, but depends on the manner of referring to the number. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Reference and Modality [1953], §2) | |
| A reaction: The most concise quotation of Quine's objection to 'de re' modality. The point is whether the number might have been referred to as 'the number of planets'. So many of these problems are solved by fixing unambiguous propositions first. |
| 9201 | Whether 9 is necessarily greater than 7 depends on how '9' is described [Quine, by Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Quine's metaphysical argument is that if 9 is 7+2 the number 9 will be necessarily greater than 7, but when 9 is described as the number of planets, the number will not be necessarily greater than 7. The necessity depends on how it is described. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Reference and Modality [1953]) by Kit Fine - Intro to 'Modality and Tense' p. 3 | |
| A reaction: Thus necessity would be entirely 'de dicto' and not 'de re'. It sounds like a feeble argument. If I describe the law of identity (a=a) as 'my least favourite logical principle', that won't make it contingent. Describe 9, or refer to it? See Idea 9203. |
| 10927 | Necessity only applies to objects if they are distinctively specified [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Necessity does not properly apply to the fulfilment of conditions by objects (such as the number which numbers the planets), apart from special ways of specifying them. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Reference and Modality [1953], §3) | |
| A reaction: This appears to say that the only necessity is 'de dicto', and that there is no such thing as 'de re' necessity (of the thing in itself). How can Quine deny that there might be de re necessities? His point is epistemological - how can we know them? |
| 9203 | We can't quantify in modal contexts, because the modality depends on descriptions, not objects [Quine, by Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: 'Necessarily 9>7' may be true while the sentence 'necessarily the number of planets < 7' is false, even though it is obtained by substituting a coreferential term. So quantification in these contexts is unintelligible, without a clear object. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Reference and Modality [1953]) by Kit Fine - Intro to 'Modality and Tense' p. 4 | |
| A reaction: This is Quine's second argument against modality. See Idea 9201 for his first. Fine attempts to refute it. The standard reply seems to be to insist that 9 must therefore be an object, which pushes materialist philosophers into reluctant platonism. |
| 16409 | Unlike Lewis, I defend an actualist version of counterpart theory [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: I defend a version of counterpart theory that is quite different from Lewis's version, as it is tied to actualism (all that exists is part of the actual world) rather than possibilism (possible things may exist without actually existing). | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Counterparts and Identity [1987], 1) | |
| A reaction: This could be the theory I am after. I am sympathetic to both actualism and to counterpart theory. Off to the woodshed…. |
| 16411 | If possible worlds really differ, I can't be in more than one at a time [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Nothing can be in two places at once. If other possible worlds are really other universes, then clearly, you and I cannot be in them if we are here in this one. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Counterparts and Identity [1987], 2) | |
| A reaction: This can be sensibly expressed without possible worlds. I can't embody my other possibilities while I am embodying this one (I'm too busy). Insofar as possible worlds are a good framework, they are just a precise map of common sense. |
| 16412 | If counterparts exist strictly in one world only, this seems to be extreme invariant essentialism [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Counterparts involve the thesis that domains of different possible worlds are disjoint: possible individuals exist in at most one possible world. This seems to suggest extreme essentialism, where nothing could differ from how it is. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Counterparts and Identity [1987], 2) | |
| A reaction: He quotes Salmon (1981:236) as saying counterpart theory is particularly inflexible essentialism. This is a long way from my use of 'essentialism'. The problem is just the extent to which my counterpart is 'the same' as me. |
| 16410 | Extensional semantics has individuals and sets; modal semantics has intensions, functions of world to extension [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Semantic values in extensional semantics are extensions, like individuals for terms, and sets for predicates. In modal semantics we have intensions, functions from worlds to appropriate extensions. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Counterparts and Identity [1987], 2) | |
| A reaction: It seems obvious that the meaning of a word like 'giraffe' must include possible giraffes, as well as actual and deceased giraffes. |
| 10931 | We can't say 'necessarily if x is in water then x dissolves' if we can't quantify modally [Quine] |
| Full Idea: To say an object is soluble in water is to say that it would dissolve if it were in water,..which implies that 'necessarily if x is in water then x dissolves'. Yet we do not know if there is a suitable sense of 'necessarily' into which we can so quantify. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Reference and Modality [1953], §4) | |
| A reaction: This is why there has been a huge revival of scientific essentialism - because Krike seems to offer exacty the account which Quine said was missing. So can you have modal logic without rigid designation? |