7 ideas
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'. |
17644 | Metaphysical realism is committed to there being one ultimate true theory [Putnam] |
Full Idea: What makes the metaphysical realist a 'metaphysical' realist is his belief that there is somewhere 'one true theory' (two theories which are true and complete descriptions of the world would be mere notational variants of each other). | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Why there isn't a ready-made world [1981], 'Causation') | |
A reaction: This is wrong!!!!! Commitment to one reality doesn't imply that only one comprehensive theory is possible. Theory-making (at least in any human language, or in mathematics) is an inherently limited activity. |
17648 | It is an illusion to think there could be one good scientific theory of reality [Putnam] |
Full Idea: The idea of a coherent theory of the noumena; consistent, systematic, and arrived at by 'the scientific method' seems to me to be chimerical. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Why there isn't a ready-made world [1981], 'Failure') | |
A reaction: I sort of agree with this, but it definitely doesn't make me an anti-realist. |
17643 | Shape is essential relative to 'statue', but not essential relative to 'clay' [Putnam] |
Full Idea: Relative to the description 'that statue', a certain shape is an essential property of the object; relative to the description 'that piece of clay', the shape not an essential property (but being clay is). | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Why there isn't a ready-made world [1981], 'Intro') | |
A reaction: Relative to the description 'that loathsome object', is the statue essentially loathsome? Asserting the essence of an object is a response to the object, not a response to a description of it. This is not the solution to the statue problem. |
17642 | The old view that sense data are independent of mind is quite dotty [Putnam] |
Full Idea: Moore and Russell held the strange view that 'sensibilia' (sense data) are mind-independent entities: a view so dotty, on the face of it, that few analytic philosophers like to be reminded that this is how analytic philosophy started. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Why there isn't a ready-made world [1981], 'Intro') | |
A reaction: I suspect the view was influenced by the anti-psychologism of Frege, and his idea that all the other concepts are mind-independent, living by their own rules in a 'third realm'. Personally I think analytic philosophy needs more psychology, not less. |
3400 | Things must have parts to intermingle [Gassendi] |
Full Idea: If you are no larger than a point, how are you joined to the whole body, which is so large? …and there can be no intermingling between things unless the parts of them can be intermingled. | |
From: Pierre Gassendi (Objections to 'Meditations' (Fifth) [1641]), quoted by Jaegwon Kim - Philosophy of Mind p.131 | |
A reaction: As Descartes says that mind is distinct from body because it is non-spatial, it doesn't seem quite right to describe it as a 'point', but the second half is a real problem. Being non-spatial is a real impediment to intermingling with spatial objects. |
17645 | An alien might think oxygen was the main cause of a forest fire [Putnam] |
Full Idea: Imagine a Venusian lands on Earth and observes a forest fire, and says 'I know what caused that - the atmosphere is saturated with oxygen!'. Thus one man's 'background condition' can easily be another man's 'cause'. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Why there isn't a ready-made world [1981], 'Causation') | |
A reaction: You can't sweep 'the' cause of a fire away so easily. There is always oxygen on Earth, but only occasional forest fires. The oxygen doesn't 'trigger' the fire (i.e. it isn't the proximate cause). |