Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'On the Reduction of Necessity to Essence' and 'Posthumous notes'

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5 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / a. Logical connectives
The nature of each logical concept is given by a collection of inference rules [Correia]
     Full Idea: The view presented here presupposes that each logical concept is associated with some fixed and well defined collection of rules of inference which characterize its basic logical nature.
     From: Fabrice Correia (On the Reduction of Necessity to Essence [2012], 4)
     A reaction: [He gives Fine's 'Senses of Essences' 57-8 as a source] He seems to have in mind natural deduction, where the rules are for the introduction and elimination of the concepts.
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 6. Logical Necessity
Explain logical necessity by logical consequence, or the other way around? [Correia]
     Full Idea: One view is that logical consequence is to be understood in terms of logical necessity (some proposition holds necessarily, if some group of other propositions holds). Alternatively, logical necessity is a logical consequence of the empty set.
     From: Fabrice Correia (On the Reduction of Necessity to Essence [2012], 3)
     A reaction: I think my Finean preference is for all necessities to have a 'necessitator', so logical necessity results from logic in some way, perhaps from logical consequence, or from the essences of the connectives and operators.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / d. Absolute idealism
Transcendental philosophy is the subject becoming the originator of unified reality [Kant]
     Full Idea: Transcendental philosophy is the act of consciousness whereby the subject becomes the originator of itself and, thereby, of the whole object of technical-practical and moral-practical reason in one system - ordering all things in God
     From: Immanuel Kant (Posthumous notes [1799], 21:78, p.245), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 06 App
     A reaction: This is evidently Kant's last word on the matter (c.1799), and Moore says he was drifting close to Fichte's idealism, in which reality is actually (sort of) created by our own minds. Disappointing! God's role here is unclear.
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
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
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.