4 ideas
18702 | Names, descriptions and predicates refer to things; without that, language and thought are baffling [Davidson] |
Full Idea: The simple thesis that names and descriptions often refer to things, and that predicates often have an extension in the world of things, is obvious, and essential to the most elementary appreciation of both language and the thoughts we express. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Replies to Critics [1998], p.323) | |
A reaction: In 1983 Davidson had been a rare modern champion of the coherence theory of truth, but this is his clearest later renunciation of that view (and quite right too). |
13858 | The truth-functional account of conditionals is right, if the antecedent is really acceptable [Jackson, by Edgington] |
Full Idea: Jackson defends the truth-functional account by saying that for a conditional to be assertable, it must not only be believed that its truth-conditions are satisfied, but the belief must be robust or resilient with respect to the antecedent. | |
From: report of Frank Jackson (Conditionals and Possibilia [1981]) by Dorothy Edgington - Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? 4 | |
A reaction: ..That is, one would not abandon the conditional if one believed the antecedent to be true. |
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. |