3 ideas
| 23766 | Don't be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine, by cunning deceptive men [Paul] |
| Full Idea: Henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. | |
| From: St Paul (10: Ephesians [c.55], 4:14) | |
| A reaction: One quoted to me by a learned religious friend, in response to Idea 23767. I sympathise. I find it extraordinary the nonsense that students of philosophy can be led into, when they swallow some specious argument. |
| 18779 | 'The' is a quantifier, like 'every' and 'a', and does not result in denotation [Montague] |
| Full Idea: The expression 'The' turns out to play the role of a quantifier, in complete analogy with 'every' and 'a', and does not generate (in common with common noun phrases) denoting expressions | |
| From: Richard Montague (English as a Formal Language [1970], p.216), quoted by Bernard Linsky - Quantification and Descriptions 4 | |
| A reaction: Linsky says that it is now standard to interpret definite descriptions as quantifiers |
| 3102 | Why don't we experience or remember going to sleep at night? [Magee] |
| Full Idea: As a child it was incomprehensible to me that I did not experience going to sleep, and never remembered it. When my sister said 'Nobody remembers that', I just thought 'How does she know?' | |
| From: Bryan Magee (Confessions of a Philosopher [1997], Ch.I) | |
| A reaction: This is actually evidence for something - that we do not have some sort of personal identity which is separate from consciousness, so that "I am conscious" would literally mean that an item has a property, which it can lose. |