Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Intending' and 'Iteration Again'

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5 ideas

4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 5. Conceptions of Set / f. Limitation of Size
13547 Limitation of Size is weak (Fs only collect is something the same size does) or strong (fewer Fs than objects) [Boolos, by Potter]
     Full Idea: Weak Limitation of Size: If there are no more Fs than Gs and the Gs form a collection, then Fs form a collection. Strong Limitation of Size: A property F fails to be collectivising iff there are as many Fs as there are objects.
     From: report of George Boolos (Iteration Again [1989]) by Michael Potter - Set Theory and Its Philosophy 13.5
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / a. Nature of intentions
20076 An intending is a judgement that the action is desirable [Davidson]
     Full Idea: We can identify an intentional action ...with an all-out conditional judgement that the action is desirable. ...In the case of pure intending, I now suggest that the intention simply is an all-out judgement.
     From: Donald Davidson (Intending [1978], p.99), quoted by Rowland Stout - Action 8 'Davidson's'
     A reaction: 'Pure' intending seems to be what Stout calls 'prior' intending, which is clearer. This still strikes me as obviously false. I judge that it is desirable that I make a cup of coffee, but secretly I'm hoping someone else will make it for me.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / c. Reducing intentions
20024 Davidson gave up reductive accounts of intention, and said it was a primitive [Davidson, by Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: Later Davidson dropped his reductive treatment of intentions (in terms of 'pro-attitudes' and other beliefs), and accepted that intentions are irreducible, and distinct from pro-attitudes.
     From: report of Donald Davidson (Intending [1978]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 2
     A reaction: Only a philosopher would say that intentions cannot be reduced to something else. Since I have a very physicalist view of the mind, I incline to reduce them to powers and dispositions of physical matter.
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.