Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Boole calculus and the Concept script' and 'Conditional Assertion and Restricted Quantification'

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4 ideas

14. Science / C. Induction / 5. Paradoxes of Induction / b. Raven paradox
19000 Read 'all ravens are black' as about ravens, not as about an implication [Belnap]
     Full Idea: 'All ravens are black' might profitably be read as saying not that being a raven 'implies' being black, but rather something more like 'Consider the ravens: each one is black'.
     From: Nuel D. Belnap (Conditional Assertion and Restricted Quantification [1970], p.7), quoted by Stephen Yablo - Aboutness 04.5
     A reaction: Belnap is more interested in the logic than in the paradox of confirmation, since he evidently thinks that universal generalisations should not be read as implications. I like Belnap's suggestion.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 6. Judgement / a. Nature of Judgement
18265 We don't judge by combining subject and concept; we get a concept by splitting up a judgement [Frege]
     Full Idea: Instead of putting a judgement together out of an individual as subject and an already previously formed concept as predicate, we do the opposite and arrive at a concept by splitting up the content of possible judgement.
     From: Gottlob Frege (Boole calculus and the Concept script [1881], p.17)
     A reaction: This is behind holistic views of sentences, and hence of whole languages, and behind Quine's rejection of 'properties' inferred from the predicates in judgements.
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.