Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Set Theory and its Logic' and 'Dialektik'

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4 ideas

4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 4. Axioms for Sets / p. Axiom of Reducibility
21717 Reducibility undermines type ramification, and is committed to the existence of functions [Quine, by Linsky,B]
     Full Idea: Quine charges that the axiom of Reducibility both undoes the effect of the ramification, and commits the theory to a platonist view of propositional functions (which is a theory of sets, once use/mention confusions are cleared up).
     From: report of Willard Quine (Set Theory and its Logic [1963], p.249-58) by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 6.1
19. Language / E. Analyticity / 4. Analytic/Synthetic Critique
20959 Concepts are only analytic once the predicate is absorbed into the subject [Schleiermacher]
     Full Idea: The difference between analytic and synthetic judgements is an unimportant fluid one. 'Ice melts' is analytic if it is already taken up into the concept of ice, and synthetic if not yet taken up. It is just a different state of the formation of concepts.
     From: Friedrich Schleiermacher (Dialektik [1833], p.563), quoted by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 8 'Scientific'
     A reaction: [compressed] I wonder if Quine ever encountered this quotation. The idea refers to Kant's notion of analyticity, and makes the good point that predicates only become 'contained in the subject' once the situation is very familiar.
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.