8 ideas
| 15538 | Semantic indecision explains vagueness (if we have precisifications to be undecided about) [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Semantic indecision will suffice to explain the phenomenon of vagueness. [note] Provided that there exist the many precisifications for us to be undecided between. If you deny this, you will indeed have need of vague objects. | |
| From: David Lewis (Many, but almost one [1993], 'Two solutions') | |
| A reaction: [He mentions Van Inwagen 1990:213-83] There seem to be three solutions to vague objects: that they really are vague, that they are precise but we can't know precisely, or Lewis's view. I like Lewis's view. Do animals have any problem with vagueness? |
| 15537 | If cats are vague, we deny that the many cats are one, or deny that the one cat is many [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: To deny that there are many cats on the mat (because removal of a few hairs seems to produce a new one), we must either deny that the many are cats, or else deny that the cats are many. ...I think both alternatives lead to successful solutions. | |
| From: David Lewis (Many, but almost one [1993], 'The paradox') | |
| A reaction: He credits the problem to Geach (and Tibbles), and says it is the same as Unger's 'problem of the many' (Idea 15536). |
| 15536 | We have one cloud, but many possible boundaries and aggregates for it [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Many surfaces are equally good candidates to be boundaries of a cloud; therefore many aggregates of droplets are equally good candidates to be the cloud. How is it that we have just one cloud? And yet we do. This is Unger's (1980) 'problem of the many'. | |
| From: David Lewis (Many, but almost one [1993], 'The problem') | |
| A reaction: This is the problem of vague objects, as opposed to the problem of vague predicates, or the problem of vague truths, or the problem of vague prepositions (like 'towards'). |
| 21686 | Sense-data are dubious abstractions, with none of the plausibility of tables [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The notion of pure sense datum is a pretty tenuous abstraction, a good deal more conjectural than the notion of an external object, a table or a sheep. | |
| From: Willard Quine (On Mental Entities [1952], p.225) | |
| A reaction: This seems to sum up the view of sense-data held by the generation after Russell and Moore. Ayer still talks about them, but Russell had already given them up. The simple challenge is - what is the evidence for their existence? Cf innate ideas. |
| 21685 | Empiricism says evidence rests on the senses, but that insight is derived from science [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The crucial insight of empiricism is that any evidence for science has its end points in the senses. This insight remains valid, but it is an insight which comes after physics, physiology, and psychology, not before. | |
| From: Willard Quine (On Mental Entities [1952], p.225) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. I think Hume and co. were probably outlining essential presuppositions and contraints which must be accepted by science. Quine offers empiricism as more like a description of science (with success as its authority?). |
| 15539 | Basic to pragmatics is taking a message in a way that makes sense of it [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: The cardinal principle of pragmatics is that the right way to take what is said, if at all possible, is the way that makes sense of the message. | |
| From: David Lewis (Many, but almost one [1993], 'A better solution') | |
| A reaction: Thus when someone misuses a word, suggesting nonsense, we gloss over it, often without even mentioning it, because the underlying sense is obvious. A good argument for the existence of propositions. Lewis doesn't mention truth. |
| 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 |
| 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. |