Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Ontological Relativity' and 'Public Text and Common Reader'

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14 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 4. Substitutional Quantification
If quantification is all substitutional, there is no ontology [Quine]
     Full Idea: Ontology is meaningless for a theory whose only quantification is substitutionally construed.
     From: Willard Quine (Ontological Relativity [1968], p.64), quoted by Thomas Hofweber - Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics 03.5.1 n18
     A reaction: Hofweber views it as none the worse for that, since clearly lots of quantification has no ontological commitment at all. But he says it is rightly called 'a nominalists attempt at a free lunch'.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
Absolute ontological questions are meaningless, because the answers are circular definitions [Quine]
     Full Idea: What makes ontological questions meaningless when taken absolutely is not universality but circularity. A question of the form "What is an F?" can only be answered with "An F is a G", which makes sense relative to the uncritical acceptance of G.
     From: Willard Quine (Ontological Relativity [1968], p.53)
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / d. Commitment of theories
Ontology is relative to both a background theory and a translation manual [Quine]
     Full Idea: Ontology is doubly relative. Specifying the universe of a theory makes sense only relative to some background theory, and only relative to some choice of a manual of translation of one theory into another.
     From: Willard Quine (Ontological Relativity [1968], p.54)
     A reaction: People tend to forget about the double nature of Quine's notion of ontological commitment, and usually only talk about the commitment of the theory being employed. Why is the philosophical community not devoting itself to the study of tranlation manuals?
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 1. Concept of Identity
We know what things are by distinguishing them, so identity is part of ontology [Quine]
     Full Idea: We cannot know what something is without knowing how it is marked off from other things. Identity is thus of a piece with ontology.
     From: Willard Quine (Ontological Relativity [1968], p.55)
     A reaction: Actually it is failure of identity which seems to raise questions of individuation. If I say 'this apple is [pause] identical to this apple', I don't see how that helps me to individuate apples.
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 5. Language Relativism
Two things are relative - the background theory, and translating the object theory into the background theory [Quine]
     Full Idea: Relativity has two components: to the choice of a background theory, and to the choice of how to translate the object theory into the background theory.
     From: Willard Quine (Ontological Relativity [1968], p.67)
19. Language / B. Reference / 1. Reference theories
Reference is inscrutable, because we cannot choose between theories of numbers [Quine, by Orenstein]
     Full Idea: For Quine, we cannot sensibly ask which is the real number five, the Frege-Russell set or the Von Neumann one. There is no arithmetical or empirical way of deciding between the two. Reference is inscrutable.
     From: report of Willard Quine (Ontological Relativity [1968]) by Alex Orenstein - W.V. Quine Ch.3
     A reaction: To generalise from a problem of reference in the highly abstract world of arithmetic, and say that all reference is inscrutable, strikes me as implausible.
19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / b. Indeterminate translation
Indeterminacy translating 'rabbit' depends on translating individuation terms [Quine]
     Full Idea: The indeterminacy between 'rabbit', 'rabbit stage' and the rest depended only on a correlative indeterminacy of translation of the English apparatus of individuation - pronouns, plurals, identity, numerals and so on.
     From: Willard Quine (Ontological Relativity [1968], p.35)
     A reaction: This spells out the problem a little better than in 'Word and Object'. I just don't believe these problems are intractable. Quine is like a child endlessly asking 'why?'.
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 3. Taste
Literary meaning emerges in comparisons, and tradition shows which comparisons are relevant [Scruton]
     Full Idea: We must discover the meanings that emerge when works of literature are experience in relation to each other. ...The importance of tradition is that it denotes - ideally, at least - the class of relevant comparisons.
     From: Roger Scruton (Public Text and Common Reader [1982], p.27)
     A reaction: This is a nice attempt to explain why we all agree that a thorough education in an art is an essential prerequisite for good taste. Some people (e.g. among the young) seem to have natural good taste. How does that happen?
21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 5. Art as Language
In literature, word replacement changes literary meaning [Scruton]
     Full Idea: In literary contexts semantically equivalent words cannot replace each other without loss of literary meaning.
     From: Roger Scruton (Public Text and Common Reader [1982], p.25)
     A reaction: The notion of 'literary meaning' is not a standard one, and is questionable whether 'meaning' is the right word, given that a shift in word in a poem is as much to do with sound as with connotations.
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 1. Artistic Intentions
Without intentions we can't perceive sculpture, but that is not the whole story [Scruton]
     Full Idea: A person for whom it made no difference whether a sculpture was carved by wind and rain or by human hand would be unable to interpret or perceive sculptures - even though the interpretation of sculpture is not the reading of an intention.
     From: Roger Scruton (Public Text and Common Reader [1982], p.15)
     A reaction: Scruton compares it to the role of intention in language, where there is objective meaning, even though intention is basic to speech.
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 3. Artistic Representation
In aesthetic interest, even what is true is treated as though it were not [Scruton]
     Full Idea: In aesthetic interest, even what is true is treated as though it were not.
     From: Roger Scruton (Public Text and Common Reader [1982], p.18)
     A reaction: A nice aphorism. I always feel uncomfortable reading novels about real people, although the historical Macbeth doesn't bother me much. Novels are too close to reality. Macbeth didn't speak blank verse.
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 5. Objectivism in Art
We can be objective about conventions, but love of art is needed to understand its traditions [Scruton]
     Full Idea: An historian can elucidate convention while having no feeling for the art that exploits it; whereas an understanding of tradition is reserved for those with the critical insight which comes from the love of art, both past and present.
     From: Roger Scruton (Public Text and Common Reader [1982], p.24)
     A reaction: This aesthetic observation is obviously close to Scruton's well-known conservatism in politics. I am doubtful whether the notion of 'tradition' can stand up to close examination, though we all know roughly what he means.
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
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
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.