Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Are Persons Bodies?', 'works' and 'Ontology and the Vicious Circle Principle'

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4 ideas

4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 8. Critique of Set Theory

18151	Could we replace sets by the open sentences that define them? [Chihara, by Bostock]
	Full Idea: Chihara proposes to replace all sets by reference to the open sentences that define them.
	From: report of Charles Chihara (Ontology and the Vicious Circle Principle [1973]) by David Bostock - Philosophy of Mathematics 9.B.4
	A reaction: This depends on predicativism, because that stipulates the definitions will be available (cos if it ain't definable it ain't there). Chihara went on to define the open sentences in terms of the possibility of uttering them. Cf. propositional functions.

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?

19. Language / F. Communication / 4. Private Language

8478	Dewey argued long before Wittgenstein that there could not seriously be a private language [Dewey, by Orenstein]
	Full Idea: Dewey argued in the twenties that there could not be, in any serious sense, a private language. Wittgenstein also, years later, came to appreciate this point.
	From: report of John Dewey (works [1926]) by Alex Orenstein - W.V. Quine Ch.6
	A reaction: A nice historical footnote to perhaps the most famous argument in twentieth century philosophy. Can anyone send me the Dewey reference?