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11103
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We aren't stuck with our native conceptual scheme; we can gradually change it [Quine]
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Full Idea:
We must not leap to the fatalistic conclusion that we are stuck with the conceptual scheme that we grew up in. We can change it bit by bit, plank by plank.
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From:
Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 5)
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A reaction:
This is an interesting commitment to Strawson's 'revisionary' metaphysics, rather than its duller cousin 'descriptive' metaphysics. Good for Quine. Remember, though, Davidson's 'On the Very Idea of Conceptual Scheme'.
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11092
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A river is a process, with stages; if we consider it as one thing, we are considering a process [Quine]
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Full Idea:
A river is a process through time, and the river stages are its momentary parts. Identification of the river bathed in once with the river bathed in again is just what determines our subject matter to be a river process as opposed to a river stage.
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From:
Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 1)
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A reaction:
So if we take a thing which has stages, but instead of talking about the stages we talk about a single thing that endures through them, then we are talking about a process. Sounds very good to me.
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11093
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We don't say 'red' is abstract, unlike a river, just because it has discontinuous shape [Quine]
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Full Idea:
'Red' is surely not going to be opposed to 'Cayster' [name of a river], as abstract to concrete, merely because of discontinuity in geometrical shape?
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From:
Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 2)
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A reaction:
I've been slow to grasp the truth of this. However, Quine assumes that 'red' is concrete because 'Cayster' is, but it is perfectly arguable that 'Cayster' is an abstraction, despite all that water.
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15201
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That Queen Anne is dead is a 'general fact', not a fact about Queen Anne [Prior,AN]
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Full Idea:
The fact that Queen Anne has been dead for some years is not, in the strict sense of 'about', a fact about Queen Anne; it is not a fact about anyone or anything - it is a general fact.
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From:
Arthur N. Prior (Changes in Events and Changes in Things [1968], p.13), quoted by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 1 b
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A reaction:
He distinguishes 'general facts' (states of affairs, I think) from 'individual facts', involving some specific object. General facts seem to be what are expressed by negative existential truths, such as 'there is no Loch Ness Monster'. Useful.
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11101
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General terms don't commit us ontologically, but singular terms with substitution do [Quine]
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Full Idea:
The use of general terms does not commit us to admitting a corresponding abstract entity into our ontology, but an abstract singular term, including the law of putting equals for equals, flatly commits us to an abstract entity named by the term.
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From:
Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 4)
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A reaction:
Does this mean that in 'for the sake of the children', I have to believe in 'sakes' if I can find a synonym which will substitute for it?
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17595
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To unite a sequence of ostensions to make one object, a prior concept of identity is needed [Quine]
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Full Idea:
The concept of identity is central in specifying spatio-temporally broad objects by ostension. Without identity, n acts of ostension merely specify up to n objects. ..But when we affirm identity of object between ostensions, they refer to the same object.
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From:
Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 1)
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A reaction:
Quine says that there is an induction involved. On the whole, Quine seems to give a better account of identity than Geach or Wiggins can offer.
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4581
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Virtues and vices are like secondary qualities in perception, found in observers, not objects [Hume]
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Full Idea:
Vice and virtue may be compared to sounds, colours, heat and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects but perceptions in the mind.
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From:
David Hume (Letters [1739], to Hutcheson 1740)
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A reaction:
Very revealing about the origin of the is/ought idea, but this is an assertion rather than an argument. Most Greeks treat value as a primary quality of things (e.g. life, harmony, beauty, health).
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22899
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'Thank goodness that's over' is not like 'thank goodness that happened on Friday' [Prior,AN]
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Full Idea:
One says 'thank goodness that is over', ..and it says something which it is impossible which any use of any tenseless copula with a date should convey. It certainly doesn't mean the same as 'thank goodness that occured on Friday June 15th 1954'.
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From:
Arthur N. Prior (Changes in Events and Changes in Things [1968]), quoted by Adrian Bardon - Brief History of the Philosophy of Time 4 'Pervasive'
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A reaction:
[Ref uncertain] This seems to be appealing to ordinary usage, in which tenses have huge significance. If we take time (with its past, present and future) as primitive, then tenses can have full weight. Did tenses mean anything at all to Einstein?
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