26 ideas
| 12596 | Reasoning aims at increasing explanatory coherence [Harman] |
| Full Idea: In reasoning you try among other things to increase the explanatory coherence of your view. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman ((Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics [1987], 12.2.2) | |
| A reaction: Harman is a champion of inference to the best explanation (abduction), and I agree with him. I think this idea extends to give us a view of justification as coherence, and that extends from inner individual coherence to socially extended coherence. |
| 12599 | Reason conservatively: stick to your beliefs, and prefer reasoning that preserves most of them [Harman] |
| Full Idea: Conservatism is important; you should continue to believe as you do in the absence of any special reason to doubt your view, and in reasoning you should try to minimize change in your initial opinions in attaining other goals of reasoning. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman ((Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics [1987], 12.2.6) | |
| A reaction: One of those principles like Ockham's Razor, which feels right but hard to justify. It seems the wrong principle for someone who can reason well, but has been brainwashed into a large collection of daft beliefs. Japanese soldiers still fighting WWII. |
| 12595 | We have a theory of logic (implication and inconsistency), but not of inference or reasoning [Harman] |
| Full Idea: There is as yet no substantial theory of inference or reasoning. To be sure, logic is well developed; but logic is not a theory of inference or reasoning. Logic is a theory of implication and inconsistency. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman ((Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics [1987], 12.2.2) | |
| A reaction: One problem is that animals can draw inferences without the use of language, and I presume we do so all the time, so it is hard to see how to formalise such an activity. |
| 12597 | I might accept P and Q as likely, but reject P-and-Q as unlikely [Harman] |
| Full Idea: Principles of implication imply there is not a purely probabilistic rule of acceptance for belief. Otherwise one might accept P and Q, without accepting their conjunction, if the conjuncts have a high probability, but the conjunction doesn't. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman ((Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics [1987], 12.2.2) | |
| A reaction: [Idea from Scott Soames] I am told that my friend A has just won a very big lottery prize, and am then told that my friend B has also won a very big lottery prize. The conjunction seems less believable; I begin to suspect a conspiracy. |
| 7760 | Russell only uses descriptions attributively, and Strawson only referentially [Donnellan, by Lycan] |
| Full Idea: Donnellan objects that Russell's theory of definite descriptions overlooks the referential use (Russell writes as if all descriptions are used attributively), and that Strawson assumes they are all used referentially, to draw attention to things. | |
| From: report of Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966]) by William Lycan - Philosophy of Language Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: This seems like a nice little success for analytical philosophy - clarifying a horrible mess by making a simple distinction that leaves everyone happy. |
| 5811 | A definite description can have a non-referential use [Donnellan] |
| Full Idea: A definite description may also be used non-referentially, even as it occurs in one and the same sentence. | |
| From: Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966], §I) | |
| A reaction: Donnellan says we have to know about the particular occasion on which the description is used, as in itself it will not achieve reference. "Will the last person out switch off the lights" achieves its reference at the end of each day. |
| 5812 | Definite descriptions are 'attributive' if they say something about x, and 'referential' if they pick x out [Donnellan] |
| Full Idea: A speaker who uses a definite description 'attributively' in an assertion states something about whoever or whatever is the so-and-so; a speaker who uses it 'referentially' enables his audience to pick out whom or what he is talking about. | |
| From: Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966], §III) | |
| A reaction: "Smith's murderer is insane" exemplifies the first use before he is caught, and the second use afterwards. The gist is that reference is not a purely linguistic activity, but is closer to pointing at something. This seems right. |
| 5814 | 'The x is F' only presumes that x exists; it does not actually entail the existence [Donnellan] |
| Full Idea: For Russell there is a logical entailment: 'the x is F' entails 'there exists one and only one x'. Whether or not this is true of the attributive use of definite descriptions, it does not seem true of the referential use. The existence is a presumption. | |
| From: Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966], §VI) | |
| A reaction: Can we say 'x does not exist, but x is F'? Strictly, that sounds to me more like a contradiction than a surprising rejection of a presumption. However, 'Father Xmas does not exist, but he has a red coat'. |
| 12598 | Reality is the overlap of true complete theories [Harman] |
| Full Idea: Reality is what is invariant among true complete theories. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman ((Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics [1987], 12.2.4) | |
| A reaction: The sort of slogan that gets coined in the age of Quine. The whole manner of starting from your theories and working out to what we think reality is seems to be putting the cart before the horse. |
| 12602 | There is no natural border between inner and outer [Harman] |
| Full Idea: There is no natural border between inner and outer. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman ((Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics [1987], 12.3.4) | |
| A reaction: Perhaps this is the key idea for the anti-individualist view of mind. Subjectively I would have to accept this idea, but looking objectively at another person it seems self-evident nonsense. |
| 12603 | We can only describe mental attitudes in relation to the external world [Harman] |
| Full Idea: No one has ever described a way of explaining what beliefs, desires, and other mental states are except in terms of actual or possible relations to things in the external world. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman ((Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics [1987], 12.3.4) | |
| A reaction: If I pursue my current favourite idea, that how we explain things is the driving force in what ontology we adopt, then this way of seeing the mind, and taking an externalist anti-individualist view of it seems quite attractive. |
| 12601 | The way things look is a relational matter, not an intrinsic matter [Harman] |
| Full Idea: According to functionalism, the way things look to you is a relational characteristic of your experience, not part of its intrinsic character. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman ((Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics [1987], 12.3.3) | |
| A reaction: No, can't make sense of that. How would being in a relation determine what something is? Similar problems with the structuralist account of mathematics. If the whole family love some one cat or one dog, the only difference is intrinsic to the animal. |
| 12592 | Concepts in thought have content, but not meaning, which requires communication [Harman] |
| Full Idea: Concepts and other aspects of mental representation have content but not (normally) meaning (unless they are also expressions in a language used in communication). | |
| From: Gilbert Harman ((Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics [1987], 12.1.2) | |
| A reaction: Given his account of meaning as involving some complex 'role', he has to say this, though it seems a dubious distinction, going against the grain of a normal request to ask what some concept 'means'. What is 'democracy'? |
| 12590 | Take meaning to be use in calculation with concepts, rather than in communication [Harman] |
| Full Idea: (Nonsolipsistic) conceptual role semantics is a version of the theory that meaning is use, where the basic use is taken to be in calculation, not in communication, and where concepts are treated as symbols in a 'language of thought'. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman ((Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics [1987], 12.1.1) | |
| A reaction: The idea seems to be to connect the highly social Wittgensteinian view of language with the reductive physicalist account of how brains generate concepts. Interesting, thought I never like meaning-as-use. |
| 12593 | The use theory attaches meanings to words, not to sentences [Harman] |
| Full Idea: A use theory of meaning has to suppose it is words and ways of putting words together that have meaning because of their uses, not sentences. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman ((Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics [1987], 12.1.3) | |
| A reaction: He says that most sentences are unique, so cannot have a standard use. Words do a particular job over and over again. How do you distinguish the quirky use of a word from its standard use? |
| 12588 | Meaning from use of thoughts, constructed from concepts, which have a role relating to reality [Harman] |
| Full Idea: Conceptual role semantics involves meanings of expressions determined by used contents of concepts and thoughts, contents constructed from concepts, concepts determined by functional role, which involves relations to things in the world. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman ((Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics [1987], 12.1) | |
| A reaction: This essay is the locus classicus for conceptual-role semantics. Any attempt to say what something IS by giving an account of its function always feels wrong to me. |
| 12589 | Some regard conceptual role semantics as an entirely internal matter [Harman] |
| Full Idea: I call my conceptual role semantics 'non-solipsistic' to contrast it with that of authors (Field, Fodor, Loar) who think of conceptual role solipsistically as a completely internal matter. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman ((Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics [1987], 12.1) | |
| A reaction: Evidently Harman is influenced by Putnam's Twin Earth, and that meanings ain't in the head, so that the conceptual role has to be extended out into the world to get a good account. I prefer extending into the language community, rather into reality. |
| 12600 | The content of thought is relations, between mental states, things in the world, and contexts [Harman] |
| Full Idea: In (nonsolipsistic) conceptual role semantics the content of thought is not in an 'intrinsic nature', but is rather a matter of how mental states are related to each other, to things in the external world, and to things in a context understood as normal. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman ((Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics [1987], 12.3.3) | |
| A reaction: This is part of Harman's functional view of consciousness, which I find rather dubious. If things only have identity because of some place in a flow diagram, we must ask why that thing has that place in that diagram. |
| 10435 | A definite description 'the F' is referential if the speaker could thereby be referring to something not-F [Donnellan, by Sainsbury] |
| Full Idea: Donnellan argued that we could recognize a referential use of a definite description 'the F' by the fact that the speaker could thereby refer to something which is not F. | |
| From: report of Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966]) by Mark Sainsbury - The Essence of Reference 18.5 | |
| A reaction: If the expression employed achieved reference whether the speaker wanted it to or not, it would certainly look as if the expression was inherently referring. |
| 10451 | Donnellan is unclear whether the referential-attributive distinction is semantic or pragmatic [Bach on Donnellan] |
| Full Idea: Donnellan seems to be unsure whether to regard his referential-attributive distinction as indicating a semantic ambiguity or merely a pragmatic one. | |
| From: comment on Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966]) by Kent Bach - What Does It Take to Refer? 22.2 L1 | |
| A reaction: I vote for pragmatic. In a single brief conversation a definite description could start as attributive and end as referential, but it seems unlikely that its semantics changed in mid-paragraph. |
| 5813 | A description can successfully refer, even if its application to the subject is not believed [Donnellan] |
| Full Idea: If I think the king is a usurper, "Is the king in his counting house?" succeeds in referring to the right man, even though I do not believe that he fits the description. | |
| From: Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966], §IV) | |
| A reaction: This seems undeniable. If I point at someone, I can refer successfully with almost any description. "Oy! Adolf! Get me a drink!" Reference is an essential aspect of language, and it is not entirely linguistic. |
| 5815 | Whether a definite description is referential or attributive depends on the speaker's intention [Donnellan] |
| Full Idea: Whether or not a definite description is used referentially or attributively is a function of the speaker's intentions in a particular case. | |
| From: Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966], §VII) | |
| A reaction: Donnellan's distinction, and his claim here, seem to me right. However words on a notice could refer on one occasion, and just describe on another. "Anyone entering this cage is mad". |
| 12594 | If one proposition negates the other, which is the negative one? [Harman] |
| Full Idea: A relation of negation might hold between two beliefs without there being anything that determines which belief is the negative one. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman ((Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics [1987], 12.1.4) | |
| A reaction: [He attributes this thought to Brian Loar] This seems to give us a reason why we need a semantics for a logic, and not just a structure of inferences and proofs. |
| 12591 | Mastery of a language requires thinking, and not just communication [Harman] |
| Full Idea: If one cannot think in a language, one has not yet mastered it. A symbol system used only for communication, like Morse code, is not a language. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman ((Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics [1987], 12.1.2) | |
| A reaction: This invites the question of someone who has mastered thinking, but has no idea how to communicate. No doubt we might construct a machine with something like that ability. I think it might support Harman's claim. |
| 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. |