Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Are Persons Bodies?', 'Perceptual Content and Monadic Truth' and 'Vagaries of Definition'

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6 ideas

6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 6. Mathematics as Set Theory / a. Mathematics is set theory

8203	All the arithmetical entities can be reduced to classes of integers, and hence to sets [Quine]
	Full Idea: The arithmetic of ratios and irrational and imaginary numbers can all be reduced by definition to the theory of classes of positive integers, and this can in turn be reduced to pure set theory.
	From: Willard Quine (Vagaries of Definition [1972], p.53)
	A reaction: This summarises Quine's ontology of mathematics, which tries to eliminate virtually everything, but has to affirm the existence of sets. Can you count sets and their members, if the sets are used to define the numbers?

16. Persons / A. Concept of a Person / 1. Existence of Persons

3238	'Dead person' isn't a contradiction, so 'person' is somewhat vague [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: If we say (in opposition to a physical view of identity) that when Jones dies 'Jones ceases to exist' but 'Jones' body does not cease to exist', this shouldn't be pressed too hard, because it would make 'dead person' a contradiction.
	From: Bernard Williams (Are Persons Bodies? [1970], p.74)
	A reaction: A good point, which nicely challenges the distinction between a 'human' and a 'person', but the problem case is much more the one where Jones gets advanced Alzheimer's, rather than dies. A dead body ceases as a mechanism, as well as as a personality.

3239	You can only really love a person as a token, not as a type [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: If you love a person as a type instead of as a token (i.e. a "person", instead of a physical body) you might prefer a run-down copy of them to no person at all, but at this point our idea of loving a person begins to crack.
	From: Bernard Williams (Are Persons Bodies? [1970], p.81)
	A reaction: Very persuasive. If you love a person you can cope with them getting old. If you own an original watercolour, you can accept that it fades, but you would replace a reproduction of it if that faded. But what, then, is it that you love?

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 9. Indexical Thought

18424	If two people can have phenomenally identical experiences, they can't involve the self [Brogaard]
	Full Idea: It is plausible that you and I can have perceptual experiences with the same phenomenology of two trees at different distances from us (perhaps at different times). ..So our perceptual experiences cannot contain you or me in the content of representation.
	From: Berit Brogaard (Perceptual Content and Monadic Truth [2009], p.223), quoted by Cappelen,H/Dever,Josh - The Inessential Indexical 08.2
	A reaction: If you accept the example, which seems reasonable, then that pretty conclusively shows that perception is not inherently indexical.

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 10. Denial of Meanings

8202	Meaning is essence divorced from things and wedded to words [Quine]
	Full Idea: Meaning is essence divorced from the thing and wedded to the word.
	From: Willard Quine (Vagaries of Definition [1972], p.51)
	A reaction: Quine's strategy is that a demolition of essences will be a definition of meaning. Personally I would like to defend essences, though I admit to finding meaning tricky. That is because essences are external, but meanings are in minds.

19. Language / E. Analyticity / 4. Analytic/Synthetic Critique

8201	The distinction between meaning and further information is as vague as the essence/accident distinction [Quine]
	Full Idea: The distinction between what belongs to the meaning of a word and what counts as further information is scarcely clearer than the distinction between the essence of a thing and its accidents.
	From: Willard Quine (Vagaries of Definition [1972], p.51)
	A reaction: In lots of cases the distinction between essence and accident strikes me as totally clear. Tricky borderline cases don't destroy a distinction. That bachelors are married is clearly not 'further information'.