35 ideas
| 1708 | In "Callias is just/not just/unjust", which of these are contraries? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Take, for example, "Callias is just", "Callias is not just", and "Callias is unjust"; which of these are contraries? | |
| From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 23a31) |
| 1703 | It is necessary that either a sea-fight occurs tomorrow or it doesn't, though neither option is in itself necessary [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is not necessary for a sea-battle to take place tomorrow, nor for one not to take place tomorrow - though it is necessary for one to take place OR not take place tomorrow. | |
| From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a30) |
| 1704 | Statements are true according to how things actually are [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Statements are true according to how things actually are. | |
| From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a33) |
| 22272 | Aristotle's later logic had to treat 'Socrates' as 'everything that is Socrates' [Potter on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: When Aristotle moved from basic name+verb (in 'De Interpretatione') to noun+noun logic...names had to be treated as special cases, so that 'Socrates' is treated as short for 'everything that is Socrates'. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE]) by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 02 'Supp' | |
| A reaction: Just the sort of rewriting that Russell introduced for definite descriptions. 'Twas ever the logicians' fate to shoehorn ordinary speech into awkward containers. |
| 9405 | Square of Opposition: not both true, or not both false; one-way implication; opposite truth-values [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Square of Opposition: horizontals - 'contraries' can't both be true, and 'subcontraries' can't both be false; verticals - 'subalternatives' have downwards-only implication; diagonals - 'contradictories' have opposite truth values. | |
| From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12-13) | |
| A reaction: This is still used in modern discussion (e.g. by Stalnaker against Kripke), and there is a modal version of it (Fitting and Mendelsohn p.7). Corners read: 'All F are G', 'No F are G', 'Some F are G' and 'Some F are not G'. |
| 9728 | Modal Square 1: □P and ¬◊¬P are 'contraries' of □¬P and ¬◊P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
| Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 1: 'It is necessary that P' and 'It is not possible that not P' are the contraries (not both true) of 'It is necessary that not P' and 'It is not possible that P'. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12a) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
| 9729 | Modal Square 2: ¬□¬P and ◊P are 'subcontraries' of ¬□P and ◊¬P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
| Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 2: 'It is not necessary that not P' and 'It is possible that P' are the subcontraries (not both false) of 'It is not necessary that P' and 'It is possible that not P'. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12b) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
| 9730 | Modal Square 3: □P and ¬◊¬P are 'contradictories' of ¬□P and ◊¬P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
| Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 3: 'It is necessary that P' and 'It is not possible that not P' are the contradictories (different truth values) of 'It is not necessary that P' and 'It is possible that not P'. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12c) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
| 9731 | Modal Square 4: □¬P and ¬◊P are 'contradictories' of ¬□¬P and ◊P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
| Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 4: 'It is necessary that not P' and 'It is not possible that P' are the contradictories (different truth values) of 'It is not necessary that not P' and 'It is possible that P'. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12d) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
| 9732 | Modal Square 5: □P and ¬◊¬P are 'subalternatives' of ¬□¬P and ◊P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
| Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 5: 'It is necessary that P' and 'It is not possible that not P' are the subalternatives (first implies second) of 'It is not necessary that not P' and 'It is possible that P'. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12e) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
| 9733 | Modal Square 6: □¬P and ¬◊P are 'subalternatives' of ¬□P and ◊¬P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
| Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 6: 'It is necessary that not P' and 'It is not possible that P' are the subalternatives (first implies second) of 'It is not necessary that P' and 'It is possible that not P'. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12f) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
| 21593 | In talking of future sea-fights, Aristotle rejects bivalence [Aristotle, by Williamson] |
| Full Idea: Unlike Aristotle, Stoics did not reject Bivalence for future contingencies; it is true or false that there will be a sea-fight tomorrow. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a31) by Timothy Williamson - Vagueness 1.2 | |
| A reaction: I'd never quite registered this simple account of the sea-fight. As Williamson emphasises, one should not lightly reject the principle of bivalence. Has Aristotle entered a slippery slope? Stoics disagreed with Aristotle. |
| 1701 | A prayer is a sentence which is neither true nor false [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A prayer is a sentence which is neither true nor false. | |
| From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 17a01) |
| 13134 | We negate predicates but do not negate names [Westerhoff] |
| Full Idea: We negate predicates but do not negate names. | |
| From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §88) | |
| A reaction: This is a point for anyone like Ramsey who wants to collapse the distinction between particulars and universals, or singular terms and their predicates. |
| 1706 | Non-existent things aren't made to exist by thought, because their non-existence is part of the thought [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is not true to say that what is not, since it is thought about, is something that is; for what is thought about it is not that it is, but that it is not. | |
| From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 21a31) | |
| A reaction: At least there has been one philosopher who was quite clear about the distinction between a thought and what the thought is about (its content). Often forgotten! |
| 1707 | Maybe necessity and non-necessity are the first principles of ontology [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps the necessary and non-necessary are first principles of everything's either being or not being. | |
| From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 23a18) |
| 13117 | How far down before we are too specialised to have a category? [Westerhoff] |
| Full Idea: How far down are we allowed to go before the categories become too special to qualify as ontological categories? | |
| From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], Intro) | |
| A reaction: A very nice question, because we can't deny a category to a set with only one member, otherwise the last surviving dodo would not have been a dodo. |
| 13116 | Maybe objects in the same category have the same criteria of identity [Westerhoff] |
| Full Idea: There is an idea that objects belonging to the same category have the same criteria of identity. This view was first explicitly endorsed by Frege (1884), and was later systematized by Dummett (1981). | |
| From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This approach is based on identity between equivalence classes. Westerhoff says it means, implausibly, that the resulting categories cannot share properties. |
| 13118 | Categories are base-sets which are used to construct states of affairs [Westerhoff] |
| Full Idea: My fundamental idea is that 'form-sets' are intersubstitutable constituents of states of affairs with the same form, and 'base-sets' are special form-sets which can be used to construct other form-sets. Ontological categories are the base-sets. | |
| From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], Intro) | |
| A reaction: The spirit of this is, of course, to try to achieve the kind of rigour that is expected in contemporary professional philosophy, by aiming for some sort of axiom-system that is related to a well established precise discipline like set theory. Maybe. |
| 13125 | Categories are held to explain why some substitutions give falsehood, and others meaninglessness [Westerhoff] |
| Full Idea: It is usually assumed of ontological categories that they can explain why certain substitutions make a statement false ('prime' for 'odd'), while others make it meaningless ('sweet' for 'odd', of numbers). | |
| From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §05) | |
| A reaction: So there is a strong link between big ontological questions, and Ryle's famous identification of the 'category mistake'. The phenomenon of the category mistake is undeniable, and should make us sympathetic to the idea of categories. |
| 13126 | Categories systematize our intuitions about generality, substitutability, and identity [Westerhoff] |
| Full Idea: Systems of ontological categories are systematizations of our intuitions about generality, intersubstitutability, and identity. | |
| From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §23) | |
| A reaction: I think we might be able to concede this without conceding the relativism about categories which Westerhoff espouses. I would claim that our 'intuitions' are pretty accurate about the joints of nature, and hence accurate about these criteria. |
| 13130 | Categories as generalities don't give a criterion for a low-level cut-off point [Westerhoff] |
| Full Idea: Categories in terms of generality, dependence and containment are unsatisfactory because of the 'cut-off point problem': they don't give an account of how far down the order we can go and be sure we are still dealing with categories. | |
| From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §27) | |
| A reaction: I don't see why this should be a devastating objection to any theory. I have a very clear notion of a human being, but a very hazy notion of how far back towards its conception a human being extends. |
| 13124 | Categories can be ordered by both containment and generality [Westerhoff] |
| Full Idea: Categories are usually not assumed to be ordered by containment, but also be generality. | |
| From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §02) | |
| A reaction: I much prefer generality, which is responsive to the full picture, whereas containment seems to appeal too much to the orderly and formalised mind. Containments overlap, so we can't dream of a perfectly neat system. |
| 13131 | The aim is that everything should belong in some ontological category or other [Westerhoff] |
| Full Idea: It seems to be one of the central points of constructing systems of ontological categories that everything can be placed in some category or other. | |
| From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §49) | |
| A reaction: After initial resistance to this, I suppose I have to give in. The phoenix (a unique mythological bird) is called a 'phoenix', though it might just be called 'John' (cf. God). If there were another phoenix, we would know how to categorise it. |
| 13123 | All systems have properties and relations, and most have individuals, abstracta, sets and events [Westerhoff] |
| Full Idea: Surveyed ontological systems show overlaps: properties and relations turn up in every system; individuals form part of five systems; abstracta, collections/sets and events are in four; facts are in two. | |
| From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §02) | |
| A reaction: Westerhoff is a hero for doing such a useful survey. Of course, Quine challenges properties, and relations are commonly given a reductive analysis. Individuals can be challenged, and abstracta reduced. Sets are fictions. Events or facts? Etc. |
| 13115 | Ontological categories are like formal axioms, not unique and with necessary membership [Westerhoff] |
| Full Idea: I deny the absolutism of a unique system of ontological categories and the essentialist view of membership in ontological categories as necessary features. ...I regard ontological categories as similar to axioms of formalized theories. | |
| From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], Intro) | |
| A reaction: The point is that modern axioms are not fundamental self-evident truths, but an economic set of basic statements from which some system can be derived. There may be no unique set of axioms for a formal system. |
| 13119 | Categories merely systematise, and are not intrinsic to objects [Westerhoff] |
| Full Idea: My conclusion is that categories are relativistic, used for systematization, and that it is not an intrinsic feature of an object to belong to a category, and that there is no fundamental distinction between individuals and properties. | |
| From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], Intro) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] He calls his second conclusion 'anti-essentialist', but I think we can still get an account of (explanatory) essence while agreeing with his relativised view of categories. Wiggins might be his main opponent. |
| 13135 | A thing's ontological category depends on what else exists, so it is contingent [Westerhoff] |
| Full Idea: What ontological category a thing belongs to is not dependent on its inner nature, but dependent on what other things there are in the world, and this is a contingent matter. | |
| From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §89) | |
| A reaction: This is aimed at those, like Wiggins, who claim that category is essential to a thing, and there is no possible world in which that things could belong to another category. Sounds good, till you try to come up with examples. |
| 13129 | Essential kinds may be too specific to provide ontological categories [Westerhoff] |
| Full Idea: Essential kinds can be very specific, and arguably too specific for the purposes of ontological categories. | |
| From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §27) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. There doesn't seem to be any precise guideline as to how specific an essential kind might be. In scientific essentialism, each of the isotopes of tin has a distinct essence, but why should they not be categories |
| 4042 | Metaphysics requires the idea of people (speakers) located in space and time [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: An intelligible metaphysics will assign a central place to the idea of people (= speakers) with a location in public space and time. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Method of Truth in Metaphysics [1977], §III) | |
| A reaction: The 'location' is the interesting bit, requiring people to be bodies, not abstractions. A big, plausible claim, but hard to prove. |
| 2337 | For Aristotle meaning and reference are linked to concepts [Aristotle, by Putnam] |
| Full Idea: In 'De Interpretatione' Aristotle laid out an enduring theory of reference and meaning, in which we understand a word or any other sign by associating that word with a concept. This concept determines what the word refers to. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE]) by Hilary Putnam - Representation and Reality 2 p.19 | |
| A reaction: Sounds right to me, despite all this Wittgensteinian stuff about beetles in boxes. When you meet a new technical term in philosophy, you must struggle to fully grasp the concept it proposes. |
| 4041 | Sentences held true determine the meanings of the words they contain [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Sentences held true (the linguistic representatives of beliefs) determine the meanings of the words they contain. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Method of Truth in Metaphysics [1977], §II) | |
| A reaction: Maybe. Historically, truth and belief presumably precede words and sentences. But words separate off from beliefs very easily. I'm not convinced. Words initiate language, not beliefs? |
| 13763 | Spoken sounds vary between people, but are signs of affections of soul, which are the same for all [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Spoken sounds are symbols of affections in the soul, ...and just as written marks are not the same for all men, neither are spoken sounds. But what these are in the first place signs of - affections of the soul - are the same for all. | |
| From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 16a03-08) | |
| A reaction: Loux identifies this passage as the source of the 'conceptualist' view of propositions, which I immediately identify with. The view that these propositions are 'the same for all' is plausible for normal objects, but dubious for complex abstractions. |
| 1705 | It doesn't have to be the case that in opposed views one is true and the other false [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is not necessary that of every affirmation and opposite negation one should be true and the other false. For what holds for things that are does not hold for things that are not but may possibly be or not be. | |
| From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a39) | |
| A reaction: Thus even if Bivalence holds, and the only truth-values are T and F, it doesn't follow that Excluded Middle holds, which says that every proposition must have one of those two values. |
| 1702 | Things may be necessary once they occur, but not be unconditionally necessary [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: To say that everything that is, is of necessity, when it is, is not the same as saying unconditionally that it is of necessity. | |
| From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a25) |