6 ideas
| 7771 | We need 'events' to explain adverbs, which are adjectival predicates of events [Davidson, by Lycan] |
| Full Idea: To deal with the truth conditions for some adverbs, Davidson introduced a domain of 'events', and made adverbs into adjectival predicates of events. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (The Logical Form of Action Sentences [1967]) by William Lycan - Philosophy of Language Ch.9 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a striking case of a procedure of which I heartily disapprove - deriving you ontology from your semantics. Do all languages have adverbs? |
| 8860 | Language-learning is not good enough evidence for the existence of events [Yablo on Davidson] |
| Full Idea: One needs a better reason for believing in events than the help they provide with language-learning. | |
| From: comment on Donald Davidson (The Logical Form of Action Sentences [1967], §8) by Stephen Yablo - Apriority and Existence §8 | |
| A reaction: I can almost believe in micro-events at the quantum level, but I cannot believe that the Renaissance (made of events within events within events) is an event, even though I may 'quantify over it', and discuss its causes and effects. |
| 15002 | If the best theory of adverbs refers to events, then our ontology should include events [Davidson, by Sider] |
| Full Idea: Davidson argued that the best linguistic theory of adverbial modification assigns truth-conditions quantifying over events; thus we must embrace an ontology of events. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (The Logical Form of Action Sentences [1967]) by Theodore Sider - Writing the Book of the World 07.8 | |
| A reaction: Sider is critical and I agree. This is just the sort of linguistic manoeuvre that gets philosophy a bad name. As Yablo remarks, we have a terrible tendency to want to thingify everything. |
| 8130 | Qualities of experience are just representational aspects of experience ('Representationalism') [Harman, by Burge] |
| Full Idea: Harman defended what came to be known as 'representationalism' - the view that qualitative aspects of experience are nothing other than representational aspects. | |
| From: report of Gilbert Harman (The Intrinsic Quality of Experience [1990]) by Tyler Burge - Philosophy of Mind: 1950-2000 p.459 | |
| A reaction: Functionalists like Harman have a fairly intractable problem with the qualities of experience, and this may be clutching at straws. What does 'represent' mean? How is the representation achieved? Why that particular quale? |
| 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. |