8 ideas
10121 | Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor lack of contradiction a sign of truth [Pascal] |
Full Idea: Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth. | |
From: Blaise Pascal (works [1660]), quoted by A.George / D.J.Velleman - Philosophies of Mathematics Ch.6 | |
A reaction: [Quoted in Auden and Kronenberger's Book of Aphorisms] Presumably we would now say that contradiction is a purely formal, syntactic notion, and not a semantic one. If you hit a contradiction, something has certainly gone wrong. |
9182 | Ancient names like 'Obadiah' depend on tradition, not on where the name originated [Dummett] |
Full Idea: In the case of 'Obadiah', associated only with one act of writing a prophecy, ..it is the tradition which connects our use of the name with the man; where the actual name itself first came from has little to do with it. | |
From: Michael Dummett (Frege's Distinction of Sense and Reference [1975], p.256) | |
A reaction: Excellent. This seems to me a much more accurate account of reference than the notion of a baptism. In the case of 'Homer', whether someone was ever baptised thus is of no importance to us. The tradition is everything. Also Shakespeare. |
10993 | Ramsey's Test: believe the consequent if you believe the antecedent [Ramsey, by Read] |
Full Idea: Ramsey's Test for conditionals is that a conditional should be believed if a belief in its antecedent would commit one to believing its consequent. | |
From: report of Frank P. Ramsey (Law and Causality [1928]) by Stephen Read - Thinking About Logic Ch.3 | |
A reaction: A rather pragmatic approach to conditionals |
14279 | Asking 'If p, will q?' when p is uncertain, then first add p hypothetically to your knowledge [Ramsey] |
Full Idea: If two people are arguing 'If p, will q?' and are both in doubt as to p, they are adding p hypothetically to their stock of knowledge, and arguing on that basis about q; ...they are fixing their degrees of belief in q given p. | |
From: Frank P. Ramsey (Law and Causality [1928], B 155 n) | |
A reaction: This has become famous as the 'Ramsey Test'. Bennett emphasises that he is not saying that you should actually believe p - you are just trying it for size. The presupposition approach to conditionals seems attractive. Edgington likes 'degrees'. |
6894 | Mental terms can be replaced in a sentence by a variable and an existential quantifier [Ramsey] |
Full Idea: Ramsey Sentences are his technique for eliminating theoretical terms in science (and can be applied to mental terms, or to social rights); a term in a sentence is replaced by a variable and an existential quantifier. | |
From: Frank P. Ramsey (Law and Causality [1928]), quoted by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.469 | |
A reaction: The technique is used by functionalists and results in a sort of eliminativism. The intrinsic nature of mental states is eliminated, because everything worth saying can be expressed in terms of functional/causal role. Sounds wrong to me. |
9181 | The causal theory of reference can't distinguish just hearing a name from knowing its use [Dummett] |
Full Idea: The causal theory of reference, in a full-blown form, makes it impossible to distinguish between knowing the use of a proper name and simply having heard the name and recognising it as a name. | |
From: Michael Dummett (Frege's Distinction of Sense and Reference [1975], p.254) | |
A reaction: None of these things are all-or-nothing. I have an inkling of how to use it once I realise it is a name. Of course you could be causally connected to a name and not even realise that it was a name, so something more is needed. |
9418 | All knowledge needs systematizing, and the axioms would be the laws of nature [Ramsey] |
Full Idea: Even if we knew everything, we should still want to systematize our knowledge as a deductive system, and the general axioms in that system would be the fundamental laws of nature. | |
From: Frank P. Ramsey (Law and Causality [1928], §A) | |
A reaction: This is the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis view. Cf. Idea 9420. |
9420 | Causal laws result from the simplest axioms of a complete deductive system [Ramsey] |
Full Idea: Causal laws are consequences of those propositions which we should take as axioms if we knew everything and organized it as simply as possible in a deductive system. | |
From: Frank P. Ramsey (Law and Causality [1928], §B) | |
A reaction: Cf. Idea 9418. |