7527
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Analysis for Moore and Russell is carving up the world, not investigating language [Moore,GE, by Monk]
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Full Idea:
For Moore and Russell analysis is not - as is commonly understood now - a linguistic activity, but an ontological one. To analyse a proposition is not to investigate language, but to carve up the world so that it begins to make some sort of sense.
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From:
report of G.E. Moore (The Nature of Judgement [1899]) by Ray Monk - Bertrand Russell: Spirit of Solitude Ch.4
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A reaction:
A thought dear to my heart. The twentieth century got horribly side-tracked into thinking that ontology was an entirely linguistic problem. I suggest that physicists analyse physical reality, and philosophers analyse abstract reality.
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18904
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'Predicable' terms come in charged pairs, with one the negation of the other [Sommers, by Engelbretsen]
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Full Idea:
Sommers took the 'predicable' terms of any language to come in logically charged pairs. Examples might be red/nonred, massive/massless, tied/untied, in the house/not in the house. The idea that terms can be negated was essential for such pairing.
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From:
report of Fred Sommers (Intellectual Autobiography [2005]) by George Engelbretsen - Trees, Terms and Truth 2
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A reaction:
If, as Rumfitt says, we learn affirmation and negation as a single linguistic operation, this would fit well with it, though Rumfitt doubtless (as a fan of classical logic) prefers to negation sentences.
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18895
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Logic which maps ordinary reasoning must be transparent, and free of variables [Sommers]
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Full Idea:
What would a 'laws of thought' logic that cast light on natural language deductive thinking be like? Such a logic must be variable-free, conforming to normal syntax, and its modes of reasoning must be transparent, to make them virtually instantaneous.
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From:
Fred Sommers (Intellectual Autobiography [2005], 'How We')
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A reaction:
This is the main motivation for Fred Sommers's creation of modern term logic. Even if you are up to your neck in modern symbolic logic (which I'm not), you have to find this idea appealing. You can't leave it to the psychologists.
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18893
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Translating into quantificational idiom offers no clues as to how ordinary thinkers reason [Sommers]
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Full Idea:
Modern predicate logic's methods of justification, which involve translation into an artificial quantificational idiom, offer no clues to how the average person, knowing no logic and adhering to the vernacular, is so logically adept.
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From:
Fred Sommers (Intellectual Autobiography [2005], Intro)
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A reaction:
Of course, people are very logically adept when the argument is simple (because, I guess, they can test it against the world), but not at all good when the reasoning becomes more complex. We do, though, reason in ordinary natural language.
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18903
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Sommers promotes the old idea that negation basically refers to terms [Sommers, by Engelbretsen]
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Full Idea:
If there is one idea that is the keystone of the edifice that constitutes Sommers's united philosophy it is that terms are the linguistic entities subject to negation in the most basic sense. It is a very old idea, tending to be rejected in modern times.
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From:
report of Fred Sommers (Intellectual Autobiography [2005]) by George Engelbretsen - Trees, Terms and Truth 2
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A reaction:
Negation in modern logic is an operator applied to sentences, typically writing '¬Fa', which denies that F is predicated of a, with Fa being an atomic sentence. Do we say 'not(Stan is happy)', or 'not-Stan is happy', or 'Stan is not-happy'? Third one?
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18894
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Predicates form a hierarchy, from the most general, down to names at the bottom [Sommers]
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Full Idea:
We organise our concepts of predicability on a hierarchical tree. At the top are terms like 'interesting', 'exists', 'talked about', which are predicable of anything. At the bottom are names, and in between are predicables of some things and not others.
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From:
Fred Sommers (Intellectual Autobiography [2005], 'Category')
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A reaction:
The heirarchy seem be arranged simply by the scope of the predicate. 'Tallest' is predicable of anything in principle, but only of a few things in practice. Is 'John Doe' a name? What is 'cosmic' predicable of? Challenging!
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22302
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Moor bypassed problems of correspondence by saying true propositions ARE facts [Moore,GE, by Potter]
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Full Idea:
Moore avoided the problematic correspondence between propositions and reality by identifying the former with the latter; the world consists of true propositions, and there is no difference between a true proposition and the fact that makes it true.
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From:
report of G.E. Moore (The Nature of Judgement [1899]) by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 28 'Refut'
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A reaction:
This is "the most platonic system of modern times", he wrote (letter 14.8.1898). He then added platonist ethics. This is a pernicious and absurd doctrine. The obvious problem is that false propositions can be indistinguishable, but differ in ontology.
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7526
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Hegelians say propositions defy analysis, but Moore says they can be broken down [Moore,GE, by Monk]
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Full Idea:
Moore rejected the Hegelian view, that a proposition is a unity that defies analysis; instead, it is a complex that positively cries out to be broken up into its constituent parts, which parts Moore called 'concepts'.
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From:
report of G.E. Moore (The Nature of Judgement [1899]) by Ray Monk - Bertrand Russell: Spirit of Solitude Ch.4
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A reaction:
Russell was much influenced by this idea, though it may be found in Frege. Anglophone philosophers tend to side instantly with Moore, but the Hegel view must be pondered. An idea comes to us in a unified flash, before it is articulated.
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