Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'works', 'Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis' and 'Tropes'

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17 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 6. Metaphysics as Conceptual
We aren't stuck with our native conceptual scheme; we can gradually change it [Quine]
     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.
     From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 5)
     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'.
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 2. Domain of Quantification
De Morgan introduced a 'universe of discourse', to replace Boole's universe of 'all things' [De Morgan, by Walicki]
     Full Idea: In 1846 De Morgan introduced the enormously influential notion of a possibly arbitrary and stipulated 'universe of discourse'. It replaced Boole's original - and metaphysically a bit suspect - universe of 'all things'.
     From: report of Augustus De Morgan (works [1846]) by Michal Walicki - Introduction to Mathematical Logic History D.1.1
     A reaction: This not only brings formal logic under control, but also reflects normal talk, because there is always an explicit or implicit domain of discourse when we talk. Of virtually any conversation, you can say what it is 'about'.
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 2. Processes
A river is a process, with stages; if we consider it as one thing, we are considering a process [Quine]
     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.
     From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 1)
     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.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 7. Abstract/Concrete / a. Abstract/concrete
We don't say 'red' is abstract, unlike a river, just because it has discontinuous shape [Quine]
     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?
     From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 2)
     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.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / a. Ontological commitment
General terms don't commit us ontologically, but singular terms with substitution do [Quine]
     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.
     From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 4)
     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?
7. Existence / E. Categories / 5. Category Anti-Realism
Discourse generally departmentalizes itself to some degree [Quine]
     Full Idea: Discourse generally departmentalizes itself to some degree.
     From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 2)
     A reaction: I pick this out because I think it is important. There is a continually shifting domain in any conversation ('what we are talking about'), and speech cannot be understand if the shifting domain or department has not been grasped.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / a. Nature of tropes
Individuals consist of 'compresent' tropes [Bacon,John]
     Full Idea: 'Qualitons' or 'relatons' (quality and relation tropes) are held to belong to the same individual if they are all 'compresent' with one another.
     From: John Bacon (Tropes [2008], §4)
     A reaction: There is a perennial problem with bundles - how to distinguish accidental compresence (like people in a lift) from united compresence (like people who make a family).
A trope is a bit of a property or relation (not an exemplification or a quality) [Bacon,John]
     Full Idea: A trope is an instance or bit (not an exemplification) of a property or a relation. Bill Clinton's eloquence is not his participating in the universal eloquence, or the peculiar quality of his eloquence, but his bit, and his alone, of eloquence.
     From: John Bacon (Tropes [2008], Intro)
     A reaction: If we have identified something as a 'bit' of something, we can ask whether that bit is atomic, or divisible into something else, and we can ask what are the qualities and properties and powers of this bit, we seems to defeat the object.
Trope theory is ontologically parsimonious, with possibly only one-category [Bacon,John]
     Full Idea: A major attraction of tropism has been its promise of parsimony; some adherents (such as Campbell) go so far as to proclaim a one-category ontology.
     From: John Bacon (Tropes [2008], §2)
     A reaction: This seems to go against the folk idiom which suggests that it is things which have properties, rather than properties ruling to roost. Maybe if one identified tropes with processes, the theory could be brought more into line with modern physics?
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 4. Concept Nominalism
Understanding 'is square' is knowing when to apply it, not knowing some object [Quine]
     Full Idea: No more need be demanded of 'is square' than that our listener learn when to expect us to apply it to an object and when not; there is no need for the phrase itself to be the name in turn of a separate object of any kind.
     From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 4)
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 6. Mereological Nominalism
'Red' is a single concrete object in space-time; 'red' and 'drop' are parts of a red drop [Quine]
     Full Idea: Why not view 'red' as naming a single concrete object extended in space and time? ..To say a drop is red is to say that the one object, the drop, is a spatio-temporal part of the other, red, as a waterfall is part of a river.
     From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 2)
Red is the largest red thing in the universe [Quine]
     Full Idea: Red is the largest red thing in the universe - the scattered total thing whose parts are all the red things.
     From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 3)
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 1. Concept of Identity
To unite a sequence of ostensions to make one object, a prior concept of identity is needed [Quine]
     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.
     From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 1)
     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.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 7. Indiscernible Objects
We should just identify any items which are indiscernible within a given discourse [Quine]
     Full Idea: We might propound the maxim of the 'identification of indiscernibles': Objects indistinguishable from one another within the terms of a given discourse should be construed as identical for that discourse.
     From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 2)
     A reaction: This increasingly strikes me as the correct way to discuss such things. Identity is largely contextual, and two things can be viewed as type-identical for practical purposes (e.g. teaspoons), but distinguished if it is necessary.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 2. Nature of Possible Worlds / a. Nature of possible worlds
Maybe possible worlds are just sets of possible tropes [Bacon,John]
     Full Idea: Meinongian tropism has the advantage that possible worlds might be thought of as sets of 'qualitons' and 'relatons' (quality and relational tropes).
     From: John Bacon (Tropes [2008], §3)
     A reaction: You are still left with 'possible' to explain, and I'm not sure that anything is explain here. If the actual world is sets of tropes, then possible worlds would also have to be, I suppose.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 5. Concepts and Language / b. Concepts are linguistic
Concepts are language [Quine]
     Full Idea: Concepts are language.
     From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 5)
     A reaction: Hm. This seems to mean that animals and pre-linguistic children have no concepts. I just don't believe that.
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 1. Abstract Thought
Apply '-ness' or 'class of' to abstract general terms, to get second-level abstract singular terms [Quine]
     Full Idea: Applying the operator '-ness' or 'class of' to abstract general terms, we get second-level abstract singular terms.
     From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 5)
     A reaction: This is the derivation of abstract concepts by naming classes, rather than by deriving equivalence classes. Any theory which doesn't allow multi-level abstraction is self-evidently hopeless. Quine says Frege and Russell get numbers this way.