18 ideas
| 19695 | The devil was wise as an angel, and lost no knowledge when he rebelled [Whitcomb] |
| Full Idea: The devil is evil but nonetheless wise; he was a wise angel, and through no loss of knowledge, but, rather, through some sort of affective restructuring tried and failed to take over the throne. | |
| From: Dennis Whitcomb (Wisdom [2011], 'Argument') | |
| A reaction: ['affective restructuring' indeed! philosophers- don't you love 'em?] To fail at something you try to do suggests a flaw in the wisdom. And the new regime the devil wished to introduce doesn't look like a wise regime. Not convinced. |
| 17824 | The master science is physical objects divided into sets [Maddy] |
| Full Idea: The master science can be thought of as the theory of sets with the entire range of physical objects as ur-elements. | |
| From: Penelope Maddy (Sets and Numbers [1981], II) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like Quine's view, since we have to add sets to our naturalistic ontology of objects. It seems to involve unrestricted mereology to create normal objects. |
| 9038 | We must distinguish what the speaker denotes by a name, from what the name denotes [Evans] |
| Full Idea: There are two related but distinguishable questions concerning proper names: what the speaker denotes (upon an occasion), and what the name denotes. | |
| From: Gareth Evans (The Causal Theory of Names [1973], §I) | |
| A reaction: I don't think any account of language makes sense without this sort of distinction, as in my favourite example: the password is 'swordfish'. So how does language gets its own meanings, independent of what speakers intend? |
| 5824 | How can an expression be a name, if names can change their denotation? [Evans] |
| Full Idea: We need an account of what makes an expression into a name for something that will allow names to change their denotations. | |
| From: Gareth Evans (The Causal Theory of Names [1973], §II) | |
| A reaction: Presumably an example would be 'The Prime Minister is in the building'. Evans proposes to discuss communication, rather than strict meanings and descriptions. |
| 9042 | A private intention won't give a name a denotation; the practice needs it to be made public [Evans] |
| Full Idea: Intentions alone don't bring it about that a name gets a denotation; without the intention being manifest there cannot be the common knowledge required for the practice. | |
| From: Gareth Evans (The Causal Theory of Names [1973], §II) | |
| A reaction: Well, I might have a private name for some hated colleague which I mutter to myself whenever I see her. The way names, and language generally, becomes ossified is by joining the great impersonal sea of the language. ..waves of bones, |
| 9041 | The Causal Theory of Names is wrong, since the name 'Madagascar' actually changed denotation [Evans] |
| Full Idea: Change of denotation is decisive against the Causal Theory of Names. Changes of denotation actually occur: a hearsay report misunderstood by Marco Polo transferred the name 'Madagascar' from a portion of the mainland to the African island. | |
| From: Gareth Evans (The Causal Theory of Names [1973], §I) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't sound decisive, as you could give an intermediate causal account of Marco Polo's mistake. I might take the famous name Winston, and baptise my son with it. And I might have done it because I thought Winston was a German dictator. |
| 17825 | Set theory (unlike the Peano postulates) can explain why multiplication is commutative [Maddy] |
| Full Idea: If you wonder why multiplication is commutative, you could prove it from the Peano postulates, but the proof offers little towards an answer. In set theory Cartesian products match 1-1, and n.m dots when turned on its side has m.n dots, which explains it. | |
| From: Penelope Maddy (Sets and Numbers [1981], II) | |
| A reaction: 'Turning on its side' sounds more fundamental than formal set theory. I'm a fan of explanation as taking you to the heart of the problem. I suspect the world, rather than set theory, explains the commutativity. |
| 17826 | Standardly, numbers are said to be sets, which is neat ontology and epistemology [Maddy] |
| Full Idea: The standard account of the relationship between numbers and sets is that numbers simply are certain sets. This has the advantage of ontological economy, and allows numbers to be brought within the epistemology of sets. | |
| From: Penelope Maddy (Sets and Numbers [1981], III) | |
| A reaction: Maddy votes for numbers being properties of sets, rather than the sets themselves. See Yourgrau's critique. |
| 17828 | Numbers are properties of sets, just as lengths are properties of physical objects [Maddy] |
| Full Idea: I propose that ...numbers are properties of sets, analogous, for example, to lengths, which are properties of physical objects. | |
| From: Penelope Maddy (Sets and Numbers [1981], III) | |
| A reaction: Are lengths properties of physical objects? A hole in the ground can have a length. A gap can have a length. Pure space seems to contain lengths. A set seems much more abstract than its members. |
| 17827 | Sets exist where their elements are, but numbers are more like universals [Maddy] |
| Full Idea: A set of things is located where the aggregate of those things is located, ...but a number is simultaneously located at many different places (10 in my hand, and a baseball team) ...so numbers seem more like universals than particulars. | |
| From: Penelope Maddy (Sets and Numbers [1981], III) | |
| A reaction: My gut feeling is that Maddy's master idea (of naturalising sets by building them from ur-elements of natural objects) won't work. Sets can work fine in total abstraction from nature. |
| 17830 | Number theory doesn't 'reduce' to set theory, because sets have number properties [Maddy] |
| Full Idea: I am not suggesting a reduction of number theory to set theory ...There are only sets with number properties; number theory is part of the theory of finite sets. | |
| From: Penelope Maddy (Sets and Numbers [1981], V) |
| 17823 | If mathematical objects exist, how can we know them, and which objects are they? [Maddy] |
| Full Idea: The popular challenges to platonism in philosophy of mathematics are epistemological (how are we able to interact with these objects in appropriate ways) and ontological (if numbers are sets, which sets are they). | |
| From: Penelope Maddy (Sets and Numbers [1981], I) | |
| A reaction: These objections refer to Benacerraf's two famous papers - 1965 for the ontology, and 1973 for the epistemology. Though he relied too much on causal accounts of knowledge in 1973, I'm with him all the way. |
| 17829 | Number words are unusual as adjectives; we don't say 'is five', and numbers always come first [Maddy] |
| Full Idea: Number words are not like normal adjectives. For example, number words don't occur in 'is (are)...' contexts except artificially, and they must appear before all other adjectives, and so on. | |
| From: Penelope Maddy (Sets and Numbers [1981], IV) | |
| A reaction: [She is citing Benacerraf's arguments] |
| 5825 | Speakers intend to refer to items that are the source of their information [Evans] |
| Full Idea: In general, a speaker intends to refer to the item that is the dominant source of his associated body of information. | |
| From: Gareth Evans (The Causal Theory of Names [1973], §II) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a theory of reference which fully preserves the spirit of traditional empiricism. Speakers refer to ideas which connect to the source of their underlying impressions. |
| 5823 | The intended referent of a name needs to be the cause of the speaker's information about it [Evans] |
| Full Idea: A necessary (but not sufficient) condition for x's being the intended referent of S's use of a name is that x should be the source of the causal origin of the body of information that S has associated with the name. | |
| From: Gareth Evans (The Causal Theory of Names [1973], §I) | |
| A reaction: This is Evans's adaptation of Kripke's causal theory of names. This cries out for a counterexample. I say something about General Montgomery, having just listened to 'Monty's Double' give a talk, believing it was Montgomery? |
| 9039 | If descriptions are sufficient for reference, then I must accept a false reference if the descriptions fit [Evans] |
| Full Idea: The strong thesis (that descriptions are sufficient for reference) is outrageous. It would mean that if Mr X is wrongly introduced to me as Mr Y, then I truly say 'this is Mr Y' if X overwhelmingly satisfies descriptions of Y. | |
| From: Gareth Evans (The Causal Theory of Names [1973], §I) | |
| A reaction: [I omit some qualifying phrases] Evans says that probably no one ever held this view. It seems right. In the case of an electron it would seem that all the descriptions could be the same, except space-time location. Same electron as yesterday? |
| 9043 | We use expressions 'deferentially', to conform to the use of other people [Evans] |
| Full Idea: Sometimes we use expressions with the overriding intention to conform to the use made of them by some other person or persons. I shall say we use the expression 'deferentially'; examples might be 'viol' or 'minuet'. | |
| From: Gareth Evans (The Causal Theory of Names [1973], §II) | |
| A reaction: I presume Evans wasn't very musical. This label sounds useful, if you wish to connect Grice's account of meaning with Putnam's externalist account of concepts, where deference to experts is crucial. Is all linguistic usage deferential? |
| 9040 | Charity should minimize inexplicable error, rather than maximising true beliefs [Evans] |
| Full Idea: I think the Principle of Charity (maximise true beliefs) is unacceptable. The acceptable principle enjoins minimizing the attribution of inexplicable error and cannot be operated without a theory of the causation of belief for the creatures investigated. | |
| From: Gareth Evans (The Causal Theory of Names [1973], §I) | |
| A reaction: The normal principle of charity certainly seems on shaky ground if you think you have encountered a fairly normal tribe, when they in fact are in possession of the weirdest belief system on the entire planet. |