5 ideas
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 |
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. |
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. |
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. |