14238
|
A class is an aggregate of objects; if you destroy them, you destroy the class; there is no empty class [Frege]
|
|
Full Idea:
A class consists of objects; it is an aggregate, a collective unity, of them; if so, it must vanish when these objects vanish. If we burn down all the trees of a wood, we thereby burn down the wood. Thus there can be no empty class.
|
|
From:
Gottlob Frege (Elucidation of some points in E.Schröder [1895], p.212), quoted by Oliver,A/Smiley,T - What are Sets and What are they For?
|
|
A reaction:
This rests on Cantor's view of a set as a collection, rather than on Dedekind, which allows null and singleton sets.
|
15201
|
That Queen Anne is dead is a 'general fact', not a fact about Queen Anne [Prior,AN]
|
|
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.
|
|
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
|
|
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.
|
22899
|
'Thank goodness that's over' is not like 'thank goodness that happened on Friday' [Prior,AN]
|
|
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'.
|
|
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'
|
|
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?
|