38 ideas
17729 | Examining concepts can recover information obtained through the senses [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: My idea is that conceptual examination might be a way of recovering information previously obtained through the senses. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.8) | |
A reaction: Now you're talking! This is really interesting conceptual analysis, rather than the sort of stamp-collecting approach to analsis practised by the duller sort of philosopher. But why bother with conceptual examination, when you have senses? |
1708 | In "Callias is just/not just/unjust", which of these are contraries? [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Take, for example, "Callias is just", "Callias is not just", and "Callias is unjust"; which of these are contraries? | |
From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 23a31) |
1703 | It is necessary that either a sea-fight occurs tomorrow or it doesn't, though neither option is in itself necessary [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: It is not necessary for a sea-battle to take place tomorrow, nor for one not to take place tomorrow - though it is necessary for one to take place OR not take place tomorrow. | |
From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a30) |
1704 | Statements are true according to how things actually are [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Statements are true according to how things actually are. | |
From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a33) |
17740 | Instead of correspondence of proposition to fact, look at correspondence of its parts [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: Instead of considering only a proposition's 'correspondence to the facts', we should also consider the correspondence between parts of the proposition and parts of the world (a 'correspondence-as-congruence' view). | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], Final - Branching) | |
A reaction: This is something like Russell's Othello example (1912), except that the parts there, with relations seemed to add up to the whole proposition. For Jenkins, presumably parts might correspond, but the whole proposition fail to. |
22272 | Aristotle's later logic had to treat 'Socrates' as 'everything that is Socrates' [Potter on Aristotle] |
Full Idea: When Aristotle moved from basic name+verb (in 'De Interpretatione') to noun+noun logic...names had to be treated as special cases, so that 'Socrates' is treated as short for 'everything that is Socrates'. | |
From: comment on Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE]) by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 02 'Supp' | |
A reaction: Just the sort of rewriting that Russell introduced for definite descriptions. 'Twas ever the logicians' fate to shoehorn ordinary speech into awkward containers. |
9405 | Square of Opposition: not both true, or not both false; one-way implication; opposite truth-values [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Square of Opposition: horizontals - 'contraries' can't both be true, and 'subcontraries' can't both be false; verticals - 'subalternatives' have downwards-only implication; diagonals - 'contradictories' have opposite truth values. | |
From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12-13) | |
A reaction: This is still used in modern discussion (e.g. by Stalnaker against Kripke), and there is a modal version of it (Fitting and Mendelsohn p.7). Corners read: 'All F are G', 'No F are G', 'Some F are G' and 'Some F are not G'. |
9728 | Modal Square 1: □P and ¬◊¬P are 'contraries' of □¬P and ¬◊P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 1: 'It is necessary that P' and 'It is not possible that not P' are the contraries (not both true) of 'It is necessary that not P' and 'It is not possible that P'. | |
From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12a) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
9729 | Modal Square 2: ¬□¬P and ◊P are 'subcontraries' of ¬□P and ◊¬P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 2: 'It is not necessary that not P' and 'It is possible that P' are the subcontraries (not both false) of 'It is not necessary that P' and 'It is possible that not P'. | |
From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12b) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
9730 | Modal Square 3: □P and ¬◊¬P are 'contradictories' of ¬□P and ◊¬P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 3: 'It is necessary that P' and 'It is not possible that not P' are the contradictories (different truth values) of 'It is not necessary that P' and 'It is possible that not P'. | |
From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12c) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
9731 | Modal Square 4: □¬P and ¬◊P are 'contradictories' of ¬□¬P and ◊P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 4: 'It is necessary that not P' and 'It is not possible that P' are the contradictories (different truth values) of 'It is not necessary that not P' and 'It is possible that P'. | |
From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12d) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
9732 | Modal Square 5: □P and ¬◊¬P are 'subalternatives' of ¬□¬P and ◊P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 5: 'It is necessary that P' and 'It is not possible that not P' are the subalternatives (first implies second) of 'It is not necessary that not P' and 'It is possible that P'. | |
From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12e) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
9733 | Modal Square 6: □¬P and ¬◊P are 'subalternatives' of ¬□P and ◊¬P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 6: 'It is necessary that not P' and 'It is not possible that P' are the subalternatives (first implies second) of 'It is not necessary that P' and 'It is possible that not P'. | |
From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12f) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
21593 | In talking of future sea-fights, Aristotle rejects bivalence [Aristotle, by Williamson] |
Full Idea: Unlike Aristotle, Stoics did not reject Bivalence for future contingencies; it is true or false that there will be a sea-fight tomorrow. | |
From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a31) by Timothy Williamson - Vagueness 1.2 | |
A reaction: I'd never quite registered this simple account of the sea-fight. As Williamson emphasises, one should not lightly reject the principle of bivalence. Has Aristotle entered a slippery slope? Stoics disagreed with Aristotle. |
1701 | A prayer is a sentence which is neither true nor false [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: A prayer is a sentence which is neither true nor false. | |
From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 17a01) |
17730 | Combining the concepts of negation and finiteness gives the concept of infinity [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: We might arrive to the concept of infinity by composing concepts of negation and finiteness. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 5.3) | |
A reaction: Presumably lots of concepts can be arrived at by negating prior concepts (such as not-wet, not-tall, not-loud, not-straight). So not-infinite is perfectly plausible, and is a far better account than some a priori intuition of pure infinity. Love it. |
17719 | Arithmetic concepts are indispensable because they accurately map the world [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: The indispensability of arithmetical concepts is evidence that they do in fact accurately represent features of the independent world. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], Intro) | |
A reaction: This seems to me to be by far the best account of the matter. So why is the world so arithmetical? Dunno, mate; ask someone else. |
17717 | Senses produce concepts that map the world, and arithmetic is known through these concepts [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: I propose that arithmetical truths are known through an examination of our own arithmetical concepts; that basic arithmetical concepts map the arithmetical structure of the world; that the map obtains in virtue of our normal sensory apparatus. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], Pref) | |
A reaction: She defends the nice but unusual position that arithmetical knowledge is both a priori and empirical (so that those two notions are not, as usually thought, opposed). I am a big Carrie Jenkins fan. |
17724 | It is not easy to show that Hume's Principle is analytic or definitive in the required sense [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: A problem for the neo-Fregeans is that it has not proved easy to establish that Hume's Principle is analytic or definitive in the required sense. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.3) | |
A reaction: It is also asked how we would know the principle, if it is indeed analytic or definitional (Jenkins p.119). |
1706 | Non-existent things aren't made to exist by thought, because their non-existence is part of the thought [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: It is not true to say that what is not, since it is thought about, is something that is; for what is thought about it is not that it is, but that it is not. | |
From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 21a31) | |
A reaction: At least there has been one philosopher who was quite clear about the distinction between a thought and what the thought is about (its content). Often forgotten! |
1707 | Maybe necessity and non-necessity are the first principles of ontology [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Perhaps the necessary and non-necessary are first principles of everything's either being or not being. | |
From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 23a18) |
17727 | We can learn about the world by studying the grounding of our concepts [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: What concept grounding does for us is ensure that our concepts, like the results of our empirical tests, can be treated as a source of information about the independent world. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.4) | |
A reaction: Presumably we learn our concepts hand-in-hand with experience, so learning our concepts is itself learning about the world. Later checking of concepts and their relations largely confirms what we already knew? |
17720 | There's essential, modal, explanatory, conceptual, metaphysical and constitutive dependence [Jenkins, by PG] |
Full Idea: Dependence comes in essential, modal, explanatory, conceptual, metaphysical and constitutive forms. | |
From: report of Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 1.2) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
A reaction: You'll have to look up Jenkins for the details. |
17728 | The concepts we have to use for categorising are ones which map the real world well [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: Concepts which are indispensably useful for categorising, understanding, explaining, and predicting our sensory input are likely to be ones which map the structure of that input well. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.6) | |
A reaction: Anti-realists about classification seem to think that we just invent an array of concepts, and then start classifying with them. The truth seems to be that the actual classes of worldly thing have generated our concepts. |
17726 | Examining accurate, justified or grounded concepts brings understanding of the world [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: Examining accurate concepts can help us acquire true beliefs about the world, examining justified concepts can help us acquire justified beliefs about the world, and examining grounded concepts can help us acquire knowledge of it. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.4) | |
A reaction: This summarises Jenkins's empirical account of concepts, and I love it all to bits. I feel that contemporary philosophy is beginning to produce a coherent naturalistic worldview which can replace religion. Bar the rituals. We can have priests... |
17734 | It is not enough that intuition be reliable - we need to know why it is reliable [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: The mere reliability of intuition is not a satisfactory ground for saying it is a source of knowledge - we need to know why it is reliable to understand whether it can be a source of knowledge. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 6.5) | |
A reaction: My theory is that intuition is simply believing things for reasons which we have either forgotten, or (more likely) reasons which are too complex or subtle to be articulated. Intuition feels rational, because it is rational. Updated view of mind needed. |
17723 | Knowledge is true belief which can be explained just by citing the proposition believed [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: I propose that knowledge is true belief which can be well explained .....just by citing the proposition believed. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 3.1) | |
A reaction: I don't find this appealing, and my reservation about Jenkins's book is her reliabilist, externalist epistemology. I would add an internalist coherentist epistemology to her very nice theory. 'I believe there are fairies at the bottom of my garden'? |
17739 | The physical effect of world on brain explains the concepts we possess [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: I think the physical effects of the world on the brain explain our possessing the concepts we do. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 8.2) | |
A reaction: A nice slogan for a thought which strikes me as exactly right. |
17718 | Grounded concepts are trustworthy maps of the world [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: Grounded concepts are like trustworthy on-board maps of the independent world. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], Intro) | |
A reaction: You'll probably need more than one concept for it to qualify as a 'map', but I like this idea a lot. The world, rather than we ourselves, creates our concepts. The opposite of the view of Geach in 'Mental Acts'. |
2337 | For Aristotle meaning and reference are linked to concepts [Aristotle, by Putnam] |
Full Idea: In 'De Interpretatione' Aristotle laid out an enduring theory of reference and meaning, in which we understand a word or any other sign by associating that word with a concept. This concept determines what the word refers to. | |
From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE]) by Hilary Putnam - Representation and Reality 2 p.19 | |
A reaction: Sounds right to me, despite all this Wittgensteinian stuff about beetles in boxes. When you meet a new technical term in philosophy, you must struggle to fully grasp the concept it proposes. |
17731 | Verificationism is better if it says meaningfulness needs concepts grounded in the senses [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: I find an updated verificationism plausible, in which we say something meaningful just in case we employ only concepts whose possession could be justified or disjustified by sensory input. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 5.6) | |
A reaction: Wow! This is the first time I have ever had the slightest sympathy for verificationism. It saves my favourite problem case - of wild but meaningful speculation, for example about the contents of another universe. A very nice idea. |
17732 | Success semantics explains representation in terms of success in action [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: Success semantics is the attempt to understand mental representation by thinking about the ways in which representing the world can lead to success in action. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 6.3) | |
A reaction: I take this to be what is also known as 'teleological semantics'. It sounds to me as if this might help to explain success in action, but isn't going to explain the representations that result in the success. |
13763 | Spoken sounds vary between people, but are signs of affections of soul, which are the same for all [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Spoken sounds are symbols of affections in the soul, ...and just as written marks are not the same for all men, neither are spoken sounds. But what these are in the first place signs of - affections of the soul - are the same for all. | |
From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 16a03-08) | |
A reaction: Loux identifies this passage as the source of the 'conceptualist' view of propositions, which I immediately identify with. The view that these propositions are 'the same for all' is plausible for normal objects, but dubious for complex abstractions. |
17725 | 'Analytic' can be conceptual, or by meaning, or predicate inclusion, or definition... [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: 'Analytic' might mean conceptually true, or true in virtue of meaning, or where the predicate is contained in the subject, or for sentences which define something, or where meaning is sufficient for the truth. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.3) | |
A reaction: The second one says meaning grounds the truth, where the last one says meaning entails the truth. |
1705 | It doesn't have to be the case that in opposed views one is true and the other false [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: It is not necessary that of every affirmation and opposite negation one should be true and the other false. For what holds for things that are does not hold for things that are not but may possibly be or not be. | |
From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a39) | |
A reaction: Thus even if Bivalence holds, and the only truth-values are T and F, it doesn't follow that Excluded Middle holds, which says that every proposition must have one of those two values. |
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 |
1702 | Things may be necessary once they occur, but not be unconditionally necessary [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: To say that everything that is, is of necessity, when it is, is not the same as saying unconditionally that it is of necessity. | |
From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a25) |
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. |