14 ideas
| 7085 | The main problem of philosophy is what can and cannot be thought and expressed [Wittgenstein, by Grayling] |
| Full Idea: The 'Tractatus' concerns the theory of what can be expressed by propositions (and, which comes to the same thing, can be thought), and what cannot be expressed by propositions, but can only be shown; which, I believe, is the main problem of philosophy. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Letters to Russell [1919]) by A.C. Grayling - Wittgenstein Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This contains what a I consider the heresy of making thought depend on language, but his main question remains, of the limits of thought. It is dramatised nicely in the 'mysterian' view of the mind-body problem (e.g. Idea 2540). |
| 12223 | It is a fallacy to explain the obscure with the even more obscure [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: The fallacy of 'ad obscurum per obscurius' is to explain the obscure by appeal to what is more obscure. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §3) | |
| A reaction: Not strictly a fallacy, so much as an example of inadequate explanation, along with circularity and infinite regresses. |
| 12230 | Singular terms refer if they make certain atomic statements true [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: Anyone should agree that a justification for regarding a singular term as having objectual reference is provided just as soon as one has justification for regarding as true certain atomic statements in which it functions as a singular term. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §9) | |
| A reaction: The meat of this idea is hidden in the word 'certain'. See Idea 10314 for Hale's explanation. Without that, the proposal strikes me as absurd. |
| 12225 | Neo-Fregeanism might be better with truth-makers, rather than quantifier commitment [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: A third way has been offered to 'make sense' of neo-Fregeanism: we should reject Quine's well-known criterion of ontological commitment in favour of one based on 'truth-maker theory'. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §4 n19) | |
| A reaction: [The cite Ross Cameron for this] They reject this proposal, on the grounds that truth-maker theory is not sufficient to fix the grounding truth-conditions of statements. |
| 12224 | Are neo-Fregeans 'maximalists' - that everything which can exist does exist? [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: It is claimed that neo-Fregeans are committed to 'maximalism' - that whatever can exist does. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §4) | |
| A reaction: [The cite Eklund] They observe that maximalism denies contingent non-existence (of the £20 note I haven't got). There seems to be the related problem of 'hyperinflation', that if abstract objects are generated logically, the process is unstoppable. |
| 23463 | Atomic facts correspond to true elementary propositions [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Atomic fact [Sachverhalt] is what corresponds to an elementary proposition [Elementarsatz] if it is true. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Letters to Russell [1919], CL 125) | |
| A reaction: This is perhaps the key to the Tractatus, because it is the binding point between world and language. A true realist would allow for atomic facts that may go beyond even possible propositions. |
| 12226 | The identity of Pegasus with Pegasus may be true, despite the non-existence [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: Identity is sometimes read so that 'Pegasus is Pegasus' expresses a truth, the non-existence of any winged horse notwithstanding. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §5) | |
| A reaction: This would give you ontological commitment to truth, without commitment to existence. It undercuts the use of identity statements as the basis of existence claims, which was Frege's strategy. |
| 12229 | Maybe we have abundant properties for semantics, and sparse properties for ontology [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: There is a compatibilist view which says that it is for the abundant properties to play the role of 'bedeutungen' in semantic theory, and the sparse ones to address certain metaphysical concerns. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §9) | |
| A reaction: Only a philosopher could live with the word 'property' having utterly different extensions in different areas of discourse. They similarly bifurcate words like 'object' and 'exist'. Call properties 'quasi-properties' and I might join in. |
| 18443 | A successful predicate guarantees the existence of a property - the way of being it expresses [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: The good standing of a predicate is already trivially sufficient to ensure the existence of an associated property, a (perhaps complex) way of being which the predicate serves to express. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §9) | |
| A reaction: 'Way of being' is interesting. Is 'being near Trafalgar Sq' a way of being? I take properties to be 'features', which seems to give a clearer way of demarcating them. They say they are talking about 'abundant' (rather than 'sparse') properties. |
| 12227 | Abstractionism needs existential commitment and uniform truth-conditions [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: Abstractionism needs a face-value, existentially committed reading of the terms occurring on the left-hand sides together with sameness of truth-conditions across the biconditional. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §5) | |
| A reaction: They employ 'abstractionism' to mean their logical Fregean strategy for defining abstractions, not to mean the older psychological account. Thus the truth-conditions for being 'parallel' and for having the 'same direction' must be consistent. |
| 12228 | Equivalence abstraction refers to objects otherwise beyond our grasp [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: Abstraction principles purport to introduce fundamental means of reference to a range of objects, to which there is accordingly no presumption that we have any prior or independent means of reference. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §8) | |
| A reaction: There's the rub! They make it sound like a virtue, that we open up yet another heaven of abstract toys to play with. As fictions, they are indeed exciting new fun. As platonic discoveries they strike me as Cloud-Cuckoo Land. |
| 12231 | Reference needs truth as well as sense [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: It takes, over and above the possession of sense, the truth of relevant contexts to ensure reference. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §9) | |
| A reaction: Reference purely through sense was discredited by Kripke. The present idea challenges Kripke's baptismal realist approach. How do you 'baptise' an abstract object? But isn't reference needed prior to the establishment of truth? |
| 23490 | A thought is mental constituents that relate to reality as words do [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Does a Gedanke [thought] consist of words? No! But of psychical constituents that have the same sort of relation to reality as words. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Letters to Russell [1919], p.125), quoted by Michael Morris - Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus 4B | |
| A reaction: This is roughly my view of propositions, as non-lingustic mental events. The 'psychical constituents' seem to be concepts, in a psychological rather than a Fregean sense. This idea allowed transfer of his representation theory from thought to language. |
| 16570 | Elements are found last in dismantling bodies, and first in generating them [Albert of Saxony] |
| Full Idea: On one possible description, an element is what is found last when bodies are taken apart, and what is found first when bodies are generated. | |
| From: Albert of Saxony (On 'Generation and Corruption' [1356], II.3), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 2.1 |