Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Frege's Theory of Numbers', 'Possible Worlds and Necessary A Posteriori' and 'Reply to Hellman'

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6 ideas

6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 4. Using Numbers / c. Counting procedure

17447	Parsons says counting is tagging as first, second, third..., and converting the last to a cardinal [Parsons,C, by Heck]
	Full Idea: In Parsons's demonstrative model of counting, '1' means the first, and counting says 'the first, the second, the third', where one is supposed to 'tag' each object exactly once, and report how many by converting the last ordinal into a cardinal.
	From: report of Charles Parsons (Frege's Theory of Numbers [1965]) by Richard G. Heck - Cardinality, Counting and Equinumerosity 3
	A reaction: This sounds good. Counting seems to rely on that fact that numbers can be both ordinals and cardinals. You don't 'convert' at the end, though, because all the way you mean 'this cardinality in this order'.

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 9. Essence and Properties

14633	How do we tell a table's being contingently plastic from its being essentially plastic? [Jackson]
	Full Idea: On a friendly reading of Quine, there is nothing to make the difference between a table's being contingently plastic and its being essentially plastic.
	From: Frank Jackson (Possible Worlds and Necessary A Posteriori [2010], 5)
	A reaction: This is, of course, the dreaded modern usage of 'essential' to just mean 'necessary' and nothing more. In my view, there may be a big problem with knowing whether a problem is necessary, but knowing whether it is essential is much easier.

14635	An x is essentially F if it is F in every possible world in which it appears [Jackson]
	Full Idea: On the possible world's account, x's being essentially F is nothing more nor less than x's being F in every world in which it appears.
	From: Frank Jackson (Possible Worlds and Necessary A Posteriori [2010], 6)
	A reaction: There you go - 'true in every possible world' is the definition of metaphysical necessity, not the definition of essence. Either get back to Aristotle, or stop (forever!) talking about 'essence'!

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism

14632	Quine may have conflated de re and de dicto essentialism, but there is a real epistemological problem [Jackson]
	Full Idea: The unfriendly response to Quine's objection to essentialism is that it conflates the de re and the de dicto. The friendly response is that behind that conflation is a real epistemological problem for essentialism.
	From: Frank Jackson (Possible Worlds and Necessary A Posteriori [2010], 1)
	A reaction: He cites Richard Cartwright 1968 for the friendly response. The epistemological question is how we can know the essentialness of an essence.

10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 3. A Posteriori Necessary

14631	How can you show the necessity of an a posteriori necessity, if it might turn out to be false? [Jackson]
	Full Idea: If something is offered as a candidate necessary a posteriori truth, how could we show that it is necessary, in the face of the fact that it takes investigation to show that it is true, and so, in some sense, it might have turned out to be false?
	From: Frank Jackson (Possible Worlds and Necessary A Posteriori [2010], 1)
	A reaction: This is the topic of his paper, which he compares with how we can know that essences are essential.

12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 2. Self-Evidence

9379	A sentence is obvious if it is true, and any speaker of the language will instantly agree to it [Quine]
	Full Idea: A sentence is obvious if (a) it is true and (b) any speaker of the language is prepared, for any reason or none, to assent to it without hesitation, unless put off by being asked so obvious a question.
	From: Willard Quine (Reply to Hellman [1975], p.206), quoted by Paul Boghossian - Analyticity Reconsidered §III
	A reaction: This comes from someone who is keen to deny a priori knowledge, but what are we to make of the expostulations "It's obvious, you idiot!", and "Now I see it, it's obvious!", and "It seemed obvious, but I was wrong!"?