Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Identity and Spatio-Temporal Continuity', 'Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn)' and 'Set Theory and its Logic'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 4. Later European Philosophy / b. Seventeenth century philosophy
2945 Most philosophers start with reality and then examine knowledge; Descartes put the study of knowledge first [Lehrer]
     Full Idea: Some philosophers (e.g Plato) begin with an account of reality, and then appended an account of how we can know it, ..but Descartes turned the tables, insisting that we must first decide what we can know.
     From: Keith Lehrer (Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn) [2000], I p.2)
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 4. Conceptual Analysis
2946 You cannot demand an analysis of a concept without knowing the purpose of the analysis [Lehrer]
     Full Idea: An analysis is always relative to some objective. It makes no sense to simply demand an analysis of goodness, knowledge, beauty or truth, without some indication of the purpose of the analysis.
     From: Keith Lehrer (Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn) [2000], I p.7)
     A reaction: Your dismantling of a car will go better if you know what a car is for, but you can still take it apart in ignorance.
4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 4. Axioms for Sets / p. Axiom of Reducibility
21717 Reducibility undermines type ramification, and is committed to the existence of functions [Quine, by Linsky,B]
     Full Idea: Quine charges that the axiom of Reducibility both undoes the effect of the ramification, and commits the theory to a platonist view of propositional functions (which is a theory of sets, once use/mention confusions are cleared up).
     From: report of Willard Quine (Set Theory and its Logic [1963], p.249-58) by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 6.1
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / e. Individuation by kind
13128 'Ultimate sortals' cannot explain ontological categories [Westerhoff on Wiggins]
     Full Idea: 'Ultimate sortals' are said to be non-subordinated, disjoint from one another, and uniquely paired with each object. Because of this, the ultimate sortal cannot be a satisfactory explication of the notion of an ontological category.
     From: comment on David Wiggins (Identity and Spatio-Temporal Continuity [1971], p.75) by Jan Westerhoff - Ontological Categories §26
     A reaction: My strong intuitions are that Wiggins is plain wrong, and Westerhoff gives the most promising reasons for my intuition. The simplest point is that objects can obviously belong to more than one category.