11 ideas
| 7755 | Singular terms refer, using proper names, definite descriptions, singular personal pronouns, demonstratives, etc. [Lycan] |
| Full Idea: The paradigmatic referring devices are singular terms, denoting particular items. In English these include proper names, definite descriptions, singular personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, and a few others. | |
| From: William Lycan (Philosophy of Language [2000], Ch. 1) | |
| A reaction: This list provides the agenda for twentieth century philosophy of language, since this is the point where language is supposed to hook onto the world. |
| 7783 | Bodies, properties, relations, events, numbers, sets and propositions are 'things' if they exist [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Not only material bodies but also properties, relations, events, numbers, sets, and propositions are—if they are acknowledged as existing—to be accounted ‘things’. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Things [1995]) | |
| A reaction: There might be lots of borderline cases here. Is the sky a thing? Is air a thing? How is transparency a thing? Is minus-one a thing? Is an incomplete proposition a thing? Etc. |
| 7768 | The truth conditions theory sees meaning as representation [Lycan] |
| Full Idea: The truth conditions theory sees meaning as representation. | |
| From: William Lycan (Philosophy of Language [2000], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: This suggests a nice connection to Fodor's account of intentional thinking. The whole package sounds right to me (though the representations need not be 'symbolic', or in mentalese). |
| 7766 | Meaning must be known before we can consider verification [Lycan] |
| Full Idea: How could we know whether a sentence is verifiable unless we already knew what it says? | |
| From: William Lycan (Philosophy of Language [2000], Ch. 8) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a devastating objection to verificationism. Lycan suggests that you can formulate a preliminary meaning, without accepting true meaningfulness. Maybe verification just concerns truth, and not meaning. |
| 7764 | Could I successfully use an expression, without actually understanding it? [Lycan] |
| Full Idea: Could I not know the use of an expression and fall in with it, mechanically, but without understanding it? | |
| From: William Lycan (Philosophy of Language [2000], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: In a foreign country, you might successfully recite a long complex sentence, without understanding a single word. This doesn't doom the 'use' theory, but it means that quite a lot of detail needs to be filled in. |
| 7763 | It is hard to state a rule of use for a proper name [Lycan] |
| Full Idea: Proper names pose a problem for the "use" theorist. Try stating a rule of use for the name 'William G. Lycan'. | |
| From: William Lycan (Philosophy of Language [2000], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: Presumably it is normally used in connection with a particular human being, and is typically the subject of a grammatical sentence. Any piece of language could also be used to, say, attract someone's attention. |
| 7770 | Truth conditions will come out the same for sentences with 'renate' or 'cordate' [Lycan] |
| Full Idea: A Davidsonian truth theory will not be able to distinguish the meaning of a sentence containing 'renate' from that of one containing 'cordate'. | |
| From: William Lycan (Philosophy of Language [2000], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: One might achieve the distinction by referring to truth conditions in possible worlds, if there are possible worlds where some cordates are not renate. See Idea 7773. |
| 7773 | A sentence's truth conditions is the set of possible worlds in which the sentence is true [Lycan] |
| Full Idea: A sentence's truth conditions can be taken to be the set of possible worlds in which the sentence is true. | |
| From: William Lycan (Philosophy of Language [2000], Ch.10) | |
| A reaction: Presumably the meaning can't be complete possible worlds, so this must be a supplement to the normal truth conditions view proposed by Davidson. It particularly addresses the problem seen in Idea 7770. |
| 7774 | Possible worlds explain aspects of meaning neatly - entailment, for example, is the subset relation [Lycan] |
| Full Idea: The possible worlds construal affords an elegant algebra of meaning by way of set theory: e.g. entailment between sentences is just the subset relation - S1 entails S2 if S2 is true in any world in which S1 is true. | |
| From: William Lycan (Philosophy of Language [2000], Ch.10) | |
| A reaction: We might want to separate the meanings of sentences from their entailments (though Brandom links them, see Idea 7765). |
| 21798 | To universalise 'give everything to the poor' leads to absurdity [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: If everyone gave everything to the poor, then soon there would be no more poor to give anything to, or no more persons who would have anything to give. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion [1827], III: 152), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 10 'Faith' | |
| A reaction: Matthew 5:8, 19:21. Beautifully clear. [I always believed that I had thought of this idea - but not so]. If the logic is that it is better to be poor than to be rich, then the implication is that all excess wealth should be thrown into the sea. |
| 21797 | Immortality does not come at a later time, but when pure knowing Spirit fully grasps the universal [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The immortality of the soul must not be imagined as though it first emerges into actuality at some later time; rather it is a present quality. ...As pure knowing or as thinking, Spirit has the universal for its object - this is eternity. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion [1827], III: 208), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 10 'Death' | |
| A reaction: An unusual view of immortality, which challenges orthodoxy. The idea seems to be that 'pure knowing' is a grasping of the pure reason which embodies nature, which in turn is the nature of God. You enter eternity, rather than reside in it? |