Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Boole calculus and the Concept script' and 'Necessary Existents'

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4 ideas

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.
19. Language / D. Propositions / 3. Concrete Propositions
19216 Propositions (such as 'that dog is barking') only exist if their items exist [Williamson]
     Full Idea: A proposition about an item exists only if that item exists... how could something be the proposition that that dog is barking in circumstances in which that dog does not exist?
     From: Timothy Williamson (Necessary Existents [2002], p.240), quoted by Trenton Merricks - Propositions
     A reaction: This is a view of propositions I can't make sense of. If I'm under an illusion that there is a dog barking nearby, when there isn't one, can I not say 'that dog is barking'? If I haven't expressed a proposition, what have I done?
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.