Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Commentary on 'De Anima'', 'Beitrage' and 'Conditional Assertion and Restricted Quantification'

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3 ideas

14. Science / C. Induction / 5. Paradoxes of Induction / b. Raven paradox
19000 Read 'all ravens are black' as about ravens, not as about an implication [Belnap]
     Full Idea: 'All ravens are black' might profitably be read as saying not that being a raven 'implies' being black, but rather something more like 'Consider the ravens: each one is black'.
     From: Nuel D. Belnap (Conditional Assertion and Restricted Quantification [1970], p.7), quoted by Stephen Yablo - Aboutness 04.5
     A reaction: Belnap is more interested in the logic than in the paradox of confirmation, since he evidently thinks that universal generalisations should not be read as implications. I like Belnap's suggestion.
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 2. Abstracta by Selection
9145 We form the image of a cardinal number by a double abstraction, from the elements and from their order [Cantor]
     Full Idea: We call 'cardinal number' the general concept which, by means of our active faculty of thought, arises when we make abstraction from an aggregate of its various elements, and of their order. From this double abstraction the number is an image in our mind.
     From: George Cantor (Beitrage [1915], §1), quoted by Kit Fine - Cantorian Abstraction: Recon. and Defence Intro
     A reaction: [compressed] This is the great Cantor, creator of set theory, endorsing the traditional abstractionism which Frege and his followers so despise. Fine offers a defence of it. The Frege view is platonist, because it refuses to connect numbers to the world.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / e. Death
16764 The soul conserves the body, as we see by its dissolution when the soul leaves [Toletus]
     Full Idea: Every accident of a living thing, as well as all its organs and temperaments and its dispositions are conserved by the soul. We see this from experience, since when that soul recedes, all these dissolve and become corrupted.
     From: Franciscus Toletus (Commentary on 'De Anima' [1572], II.1.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.5
     A reaction: A nice example of observing a phenemonon, but not being able to observe the dependence relation the right way round. Compare Descartes in Idea 16763.