Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Critical Common-Sensism' and 'Propositions'

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9 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / b. Names as descriptive

9455	Maybe proper names have the content of fixing a thing's category [Bealer]
	Full Idea: Some say that proper names have no descriptive content, but others think that although a name does not have the right sort of descriptive content which fixes a unique referent, it has a content which fixes the sort or category to which it belongs.
	From: George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §7)
	A reaction: Presumably 'Mary', and 'Felix', and 'Rover', and 'Smallville' are cases in point. There is a well known journalist called 'Manchester', a famous man called 'Hilary', a village in Hertfordshire called 'Matching Tie'... Interesting, though.

5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 2. Descriptions / b. Definite descriptions

9454	The four leading theories of definite descriptions are Frege's, Russell's, Evans's, and Prior's [Bealer]
	Full Idea: The four leading theories of definite descriptions are Frege's, Russell's, Evans's, and Prior's, ...of which to many Frege's is the most intuitive of the four. Frege says they refer to the unique item (if it exists) which satisfies the predicate.
	From: George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §5)
	A reaction: He doesn't expound the other three, but I record this a corrective to the view that Russell has the only game in town.

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / e. Vague objects

14797	Vagueness is a neglected but important part of mathematical thought [Peirce]
	Full Idea: Logicians have too much neglected the study of vagueness, not suspecting the important part it plays in mathematical thought. It is the antithetical analogue of generality.
	From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Critical Common-Sensism [1905], I)

14798	All communication is vague, and is outside the principle of non-contradiction [Peirce]
	Full Idea: The 'vague' might be defined as that to which the principle of contradiction does not apply. For it is false neither that an animal (in a vague sense) is male, nor that an animal is female. No communication between persons can be entirely non-vague.
	From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Critical Common-Sensism [1905], I)
	A reaction: Note that he makes vagueness largely a matter of the way we talk, which is David Lewis's approach, and looks right to me.

19. Language / D. Propositions / 1. Propositions

9453	Sentences saying the same with the same rigid designators may still express different propositions [Bealer]
	Full Idea: The propositions behind 'Cicero is emulated more than Tully' seems to differ somehow from 'Tully is emulated more than Cicero', despite the proper names being rigid designators.
	From: George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §1)
	A reaction: Interesting, because this isn't a directly propositional attitude situation like 'believes', though it depends on such things. Bealer says this is a key modern difficulty with propositions.

9452	Propositions might be reduced to functions (worlds to truth values), or ordered sets of properties and relations [Bealer]
	Full Idea: The reductionist view of propositions sees them as either extensional functions from possible worlds to truth values, or as ordered sets of properties, relations, and perhaps particulars.
	From: George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §1)
	A reaction: The usual problem of all functional accounts is 'what is it about x that enables it to have that function?' And if they are sets, where does the ordering come in? A proposition isn't just a list of items in some particular order. Both wrong.

19. Language / D. Propositions / 2. Abstract Propositions / a. Propositions as sense

9451	Modal logic and brain science have reaffirmed traditional belief in propositions [Bealer]
	Full Idea: Philosophers have been skeptical about abstract objects, and so have been skeptical about propositions,..but with the rise of modal logic and metaphysics, and cognitive science's realism about intentional states, traditional propositions are now dominant.
	From: George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §1)
	A reaction: I personally strongly favour belief in propositions as brain states, which don't need a bizarre ontological status, but are essential to explain language, reasoning and communication.

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature

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

27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution

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.