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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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9152
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If green is abstracted from a thing, it is only seen as a type if it is common to many things [Fine,K]
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Full Idea:
In traditional abstraction, the colour green merely has the intrinsic property of being green, other properties of things being abstracted away. But why should that be regarded as a type? It must be because the property is common to the instances.
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From:
Kit Fine (Cantorian Abstraction: Recon. and Defence [1998], §5)
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A reaction:
A nice question which shows that the much-derided single act of abstraction is not sufficient to arrive at a concept, so that abstraction is a more complex matter (perhaps even a rational one) than simple empiricists believe.
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23794
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Some representational states, like perception, may be nonconceptual [Evans, by Schulte]
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Full Idea:
Evans introduced the idea that there are some representational states, for example perceptual experiences, which have content that is nonconceptual.
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From:
report of Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980]) by Peter Schulte - Mental Content 3.4
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A reaction:
McDowell famously disagree, and whether all experience is inherently conceptualised is a main debate from that period. Hard to see how it could be settled, but I incline to McDowell, because minimal perception hardly counts as 'experience'.
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16366
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The Generality Constraint says if you can think a predicate you can apply it to anything [Evans]
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Full Idea:
If a subject can be credited with the thought that a is F, then he must have the conceptual resources for entertaining the thought that a is G, for every property of being G of which he has conception. This condition I call the 'Generality Constraint'.
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From:
Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980], p.104), quoted by François Recanati - Mental Files 5.3
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A reaction:
Recanati endorses the Constraint in his account of mental files. Apparently if I can entertain the thought of a circle being round, I can also entertain the thought of it being square, so I am not too sure about this one.
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9146
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After abstraction all numbers seem identical, so only 0 and 1 will exist! [Fine,K]
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Full Idea:
In Cantor's abstractionist account there can only be two numbers, 0 and 1. For abs(Socrates) = abs(Plato), since their numbers are the same. So the number of {Socrates,Plato} is {abs(Soc),abs(Plato)}, which is the same number as {Socrates}!
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From:
Kit Fine (Cantorian Abstraction: Recon. and Defence [1998], §1)
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A reaction:
Fine tries to answer this objection, which arises from §45 of Frege's Grundlagen. Fine summarises that "indistinguishability without identity appears to be impossible". Maybe we should drop talk of numbers in terms of sets.
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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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