6 ideas
21560 | Any linguistic expression may lack meaning when taken out of context [Russell] |
Full Idea: Any sentence, a single word, or a single component phrase, may often be quite devoid of meaning when separated from its context. | |
From: Bertrand Russell (Substitutional Classes and Relations [1906], p.165) | |
A reaction: Contextualism is now extremely fashionable, in philosophy of language and in epistemology. Here Russell is looking for a contextual way to define classes [so says Lackey, the editor]. |
21561 | 'The number one is bald' or 'the number one is fond of cream cheese' are meaningless [Russell] |
Full Idea: 'The number one is bald' or 'the number one is fond of cream cheese' are, I maintain, not merely silly remarks, but totally devoid of meaning. | |
From: Bertrand Russell (Substitutional Classes and Relations [1906], p.166) | |
A reaction: He connects this to paradoxes in set theory, such as the assertion that 'the class of human beings is a human being' (which is the fallacy of composition). |
18130 | Axiom of Reducibility: there is always a function of the lowest possible order in a given level [Russell, by Bostock] |
Full Idea: Russell's Axiom of Reducibility states that to any propositional function of any order in a given level, there corresponds another which is of the lowest possible order in the level. There corresponds what he calls a 'predicative' function of that level. | |
From: report of Bertrand Russell (Substitutional Classes and Relations [1906]) by David Bostock - Philosophy of Mathematics 8.2 |
21562 | There is no complexity without relations, so no propositions, and no truth [Russell] |
Full Idea: Relations in intension are of the utmost importance to philosophy and philosophical logic, since they are essential to complexity, and thence to propositions, and thence to the possibility of truth and falsehood. | |
From: Bertrand Russell (Substitutional Classes and Relations [1906], p.174) | |
A reaction: Should we able to specify the whole of reality, if we have available to us objects, properties and relations? There remains indeterminate 'stuff', when it does not compose objects. There are relations between pure ideas. |
7295 | Maybe induction is only reliable IF reality is stable [Mitchell,A] |
Full Idea: Maybe we should say that IF regularities are stable, only then is induction a reliable procedure. | |
From: Alistair Mitchell (talk [2006]), quoted by PG - Db (ideas) | |
A reaction: This seems to me a very good proposal. In a wildly unpredictable reality, it is hard to see how anyone could learn from experience, or do any reasoning about the future. Natural stability is the axiom on which induction is built. |
468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice. | |
From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |