14 ideas
10365 | We might use 'facta' to refer to the truth-makers for facts [Mellor, by Schaffer,J] |
Full Idea: Mellor offers a distinction between 'facts' and 'facta' (the latter being the truth-makers for facts). | |
From: report of D.H. Mellor (The Facts of Causation [1995]) by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 1.1 | |
A reaction: The idea is that 'facta' can do the work in causation, because 'facts' are not part of the world. This seems a very helpful terminology, which should be encouraged, since 'fact' is plainly ambiguous in current usage. |
4975 | A thought can be split in many ways, so that different parts appear as subject or predicate [Frege] |
Full Idea: A thought can be split up in many ways, so that now one thing, now another, appears as subject or predicate | |
From: Gottlob Frege (On Concept and Object [1892], p.199) | |
A reaction: Thus 'the mouse is in the box', and 'the box contains the mouse'. A simple point, but important when we are trying to distinguish thought from language. |
9949 | There is the concept, the object falling under it, and the extension (a set, which is also an object) [Frege, by George/Velleman] |
Full Idea: For Frege, the extension of the concept F is an object, as revealed by the fact that we use a name to refer to it. ..We must distinguish the concept, the object that falls under it, and the extension of the concept, which is the set containing the object. | |
From: report of Gottlob Frege (On Concept and Object [1892]) by A.George / D.J.Velleman - Philosophies of Mathematics Ch.2 | |
A reaction: This I take to be the key distinction needed if one is to grasp Frege's account of what a number is. When we say that Frege is a platonist about numbers, it is because he is committed to the notion that the extension is an object. |
18995 | Frege mistakenly takes existence to be a property of concepts, instead of being about things [Frege, by Yablo] |
Full Idea: Frege's theory treats existence as a property, not of things we call existent, but of concepts instantiated by those things. 'Biden exists' says our Biden-concept has instances. That is certainly not how it feels! We speak of the thing, not of concepts. | |
From: report of Gottlob Frege (On Concept and Object [1892]) by Stephen Yablo - Aboutness 01.4 | |
A reaction: Yablo's point is that you must ask what the sentence is 'about', and then the truth will refer to those things. Frege gets into a tangle because he thinks remarks using concepts are about the concepts. |
10317 | It is unclear whether Frege included qualities among his abstract objects [Frege, by Hale] |
Full Idea: Expositors of Frege's views have disagreed over whether abstract qualities are to be reckoned among his objects. | |
From: report of Gottlob Frege (On Concept and Object [1892]) by Bob Hale - Abstract Objects Ch.2.II | |
A reaction: [he cites Dummett 1973:70-80, and Wright 1983:25-8] There seems to be a danger here of a collision between Fregean verbal approaches to ontological commitment and the traditional views about universals. No wonder they can't decide. |
10535 | Frege's 'objects' are both the referents of proper names, and what predicates are true or false of [Frege, by Dummett] |
Full Idea: Frege's notion of an object plays two roles in his semantics. Objects are the referents of proper names, and they are equally what predicates are true and false of. | |
From: report of Gottlob Frege (On Concept and Object [1892]) by Michael Dummett - Frege Philosophy of Language (2nd ed) Ch.4 | |
A reaction: Frege is the source of a desperate desire to turn everything into an object (see Idea 8858!), and he has the irritating authority of the man who invented quantificational logic. Nothing but trouble, that man. |
9839 | Frege equated the concepts under which an object falls with its properties [Frege, by Dummett] |
Full Idea: Frege equated the concepts under which an object falls with its properties. | |
From: report of Gottlob Frege (On Concept and Object [1892], p.201) by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics Ch.8 | |
A reaction: I take this to be false, as objects can fall under far more concepts than they have properties. I don't even think 'being a pencil' is a property of pencils, never mind 'being my favourite pencil', or 'not being Alexander the Great'. |
4973 | As I understand it, a concept is the meaning of a grammatical predicate [Frege] |
Full Idea: As I understand it, a concept is the meaning of a grammatical predicate. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (On Concept and Object [1892], p.193) | |
A reaction: All the ills of twentieth century philosophy reside here, because it makes a concept an entirely linguistic thing, so that animals can't have concepts, and language is cut off from reality, leading to relativism, pragmatism, and other nonsense. |
9167 | Frege felt that meanings must be public, so they are abstractions rather than mental entities [Frege, by Putnam] |
Full Idea: Frege felt that meanings are public property, and identified concepts (and hence 'intensions' or meanings) with abstract entities rather than mental entities. | |
From: report of Gottlob Frege (On Concept and Object [1892]) by Hilary Putnam - Meaning and Reference p.150 | |
A reaction: This is the germ of Wittgenstein's private language argument. I am inclined to feel that Frege approached language strictly as a logician, and didn't really care that he got himself into implausible platonist ontological commitments. |
4974 | For all the multiplicity of languages, mankind has a common stock of thoughts [Frege] |
Full Idea: For all the multiplicity of languages, mankind has a common stock of thoughts. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (On Concept and Object [1892], p.196n) | |
A reaction: Given the acknowledgement here that two very different sentences in different languages can express the same thought, he should recognise that at least some aspects of a thought are non-linguistic. |
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 |
4785 | Causal statements relate facts (which are whatever true propositions express) [Mellor, by Psillos] |
Full Idea: Mellor argues that causal statements relate facts, where facts may be seen as whatever true propositions express. | |
From: report of D.H. Mellor (The Facts of Causation [1995]) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §2.6 | |
A reaction: Choose between 'facts', 'objects', 'conserved quantities, 'events' (the usual one) or 'processes'. I rather like processes (Salmon) as they are a better prospect as the building blocks of an ontology. |
8408 | Probabilistic causation says C is a cause of E if it increases the chances of E occurring [Mellor, by Tooley] |
Full Idea: The basic idea of probabilistic causation is that a sufficient condition of C's being a cause of E is that C and E are actual, individual events, and the objective chance of E's occurring is greater given the occurrence of C than it would be without C. | |
From: report of D.H. Mellor (The Facts of Causation [1995]) by Michael Tooley - Causation and Supervenience 5.3 | |
A reaction: Mellor has to include objective 'chances' in his ontology to support his theory. As it stands this looks like a weak theory, since the event might not occur despite C happening, and some less likely event might turn out to be the actual cause. |
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. |