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All the ideas for 'Changes in Events and Changes in Things', 'Oxford Commentary on Sentences' and 'Quantification and Descriptions'

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5 ideas

2. Reason / D. Definition / 7. Contextual Definition

18776	Contextual definitions eliminate descriptions from contexts [Linsky,B]
	Full Idea: A 'contextual' definition shows how to eliminate a description from a context.
	From: Bernard Linsky (Quantification and Descriptions [2014], 2)
	A reaction: I'm trying to think of an example, but what I come up with are better described as 'paraphrases' than as 'definitions'.

5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 2. Descriptions / b. Definite descriptions

18774	Definite descriptions, unlike proper names, have a logical structure [Linsky,B]
	Full Idea: Definite descriptions seem to have a logical structure in a way that proper names do not.
	From: Bernard Linsky (Quantification and Descriptions [2014], 1.1.1)
	A reaction: Thus descriptions have implications which plain names do not.

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / b. Types of fact

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.

9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 2. Hylomorphism / d. Form as unifier

16614	Matter and form give true unity; subject and accident is just unity 'per accidens' [Duns Scotus]
	Full Idea: From matter and form comes one thing per se. This is not so for subject and accident. Matter and form are instrinsic causes of a composite being, but whiteness and a human being are not. Humans can exist without whiteness, so it is one thing per accidens.
	From: John Duns Scotus (Oxford Commentary on Sentences [1301], II.12.1.14), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671
	A reaction: This isn't much of a theory, but at least it is focusing on an interesting question, and the distinction between genuinely unified, and unified by chance. Compare a loving couple with siblings who hate each other.

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / e. Tensed (A) series

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?