10 ideas
| 12154 | Are 'word token' and 'word type' different sorts of countable objects, or two ways of counting? [Geach, by Perry] |
| Full Idea: If we list the words 'bull', 'bull' and 'cow', it is often said that there are three 'word tokens' but only two 'word types', but Geach says there are not two kinds of object to be counted, but two different ways of counting the same object. | |
| From: report of Peter Geach (Reference and Generality (3rd ed) [1980]) by John Perry - The Same F II | |
| A reaction: Insofar as the notion that a 'word type' is an 'object', my sympathies are entirely with Geach, to my surprise. Geach's point is that 'bull' and 'bull' are the same meaning, but different actual words. Identity is relative to a concept. |
| 8969 | We should abandon absolute identity, confining it to within some category [Geach, by Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: Geach argued that the notion of absolute identity should be abandoned. ..We can only grasp the meaning of a count noun when we associate it with a criterion of identity, expressed by a particular relative identity sortal. | |
| From: report of Peter Geach (Reference and Generality (3rd ed) [1980]) by John Hawthorne - Identity | |
| A reaction: In other words, identity needs categorisation. Hawthorne concludes that Geach is wrong. Geach clearly has much common usage on his side. 'What's that?' usually invites a categorisation. Sameness of objects seems to need a 'respect'. |
| 16075 | Denial of absolute identity has drastic implications for logic, semantics and set theory [Wasserman on Geach] |
| Full Idea: Geach's denial of absolute identity has drastic implications for logic, semantics and set theory. He must deny the axiom of extensionality in set theory, for example. | |
| From: comment on Peter Geach (Reference and Generality (3rd ed) [1980]) by Ryan Wasserman - Material Constitution 6 | |
| A reaction: I'm beginning to think we have two entirely different concepts here - the logicians' and mathematicians' notion of when two things are identical, and the ordinary language concept of two things being 'the same'. 'We like the same music'. |
| 12152 | Identity is relative. One must not say things are 'the same', but 'the same A as' [Geach] |
| Full Idea: Identity is relative. When one says 'x is identical with y' this is an incomplete expression. It is short for 'x is the same A as y', where 'A' represents some count noun understood from the context of utterance. | |
| From: Peter Geach (Reference and Generality (3rd ed) [1980], p.39), quoted by John Perry - The Same F I | |
| A reaction: Perry notes that Geach's view is in conscious opposition to Frege, who had a pure notion of identity. We say 'they are the same insofar as they are animals', but not 'they are the same animal'. Perfect identity involves all possible A's. |
| 16073 | Leibniz's Law is incomplete, since it includes a non-relativized identity predicate [Geach, by Wasserman] |
| Full Idea: Geach rejects the standard formulation of Leibniz's Law as incomplete, since it includes a non-relativized identity predicate. | |
| From: report of Peter Geach (Reference and Generality (3rd ed) [1980]) by Ryan Wasserman - Material Constitution 6 | |
| A reaction: Not many people accept Geach's premiss that identity is a relative matter. I agree with Wiggins on this, that identity is an absolute (and possibly indefinable). The problem with the Law is what you mean by a 'property'. |
| 17527 | Causation seems to be an innate concept (or acquired very early) [Bird] |
| Full Idea: There is evidence that the concept of causation is innate, or that we are primed to acquire it very early in life, within months at most. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Causation and the Manifestation of Powers [2010], p.167) | |
| A reaction: Bird doesn't give any references. This is important for our understanding of induction. Creatures seem to learn from a single instance, rather than waiting for habit to be ingrained by many instances. They must infer a cause. |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
| 17528 | The dispositional account explains causation, as stimulation and manifestation of dispositions [Bird] |
| Full Idea: The analysis of causation in terms of dispositions provides no conceptual reduction, but it does provide insight into the metaphysics of causation. We then know what causation is - it is the stimulation and manifestation of a disposition. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Causation and the Manifestation of Powers [2010], p.167) | |
| A reaction: I would say that it offers the essence of causation, by giving a basic explanation of it. See Mumford/Lill Anjum on this. |
| 17526 | The counterfactual approach makes no distinction between cause and pre-condition [Bird] |
| Full Idea: The counterfactual approach makes no distinction between cause and condition, ...but when the smoke sets off the fire alarm, the smoke is the cause, whereas the presence of the alarm is just the condition. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Causation and the Manifestation of Powers [2010], p.162) | |
| A reaction: Bird defends the idea that causes are what stimulate dispositions to act. |
| 5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |