13985
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A true proposition seems true of one fact, but a false proposition seems true of nothing at all. [Ryle]
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Full Idea:
Whereas there might be just one fact that a true proposition was like, we would have to say that a false proposition was unlike any fact. We could not speak of the fact that it was false of, so we could not speak of its being false of anything at all.
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From:
Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], 'Objections')
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A reaction:
Ryle brings out very nicely the point Russell emphasised so much, that the most illuminating studies in philosophy are of how falsehood works, rather than of how truths work. If I say 'the Queen is really a man' it is obvious what that is false of.
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13979
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Logic studies consequence, compatibility, contradiction, corroboration, necessitation, grounding.... [Ryle]
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Full Idea:
Logic studies the way in which one thing follows from another, in which one thing is compatible with another, contradicts, corroborates or necessitates another, is a special case of another or the nerve of another. And so on.
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From:
Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], IV)
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A reaction:
I presume that 'and so on' would include how one thing proves another. This is quite a nice list, which makes me think a little more widely about the nature of logic (rather than just about inference). Incompatibility isn't a process.
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8983
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If 'red' is vague, then membership of the set of red things is vague, so there is no set of red things [Sainsbury]
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Full Idea:
Sets have sharp boundaries, or are sharp objects; an object either definitely belongs to a set, or it does not. But 'red' is vague; there objects which are neither definitely red nor definitely not red. Hence there is no set of red things.
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From:
Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §2)
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A reaction:
Presumably that will entail that there IS a set of things which can be described as 'definitely red'. If we describe something as 'definitely having a hint of red about it', will that put it in a set? In fact will the applicability of 'definitely' do?
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8986
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We should abandon classifying by pigeon-holes, and classify around paradigms [Sainsbury]
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Full Idea:
We must reject the classical picture of classification by pigeon-holes, and think in other terms: classifying can be, and often is, clustering round paradigms.
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From:
Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §8)
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A reaction:
His conclusion to a discussion of the problem of vagueness, where it is identified with concepts which have no boundaries. Pigeon-holes are a nice exemplar of the Enlightenment desire to get everything right. I prefer Aristotle's categories, Idea 3311.
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8984
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If concepts are vague, people avoid boundaries, can't spot them, and don't want them [Sainsbury]
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Full Idea:
Vague concepts are boundaryless, ...and the manifestations are an unwillingness to draw any such boundaries, the impossibility of identifying such boundaries, and needlessness and even disutility of such boundaries.
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From:
Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §5)
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A reaction:
People have a very fine-tuned notion of whether the sharp boundary of a concept is worth discussing. The interesting exception are legal people, who are often forced to find precision where everyone else hates it. Who deserves to inherit the big house?
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8985
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Boundaryless concepts tend to come in pairs, such as child/adult, hot/cold [Sainsbury]
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Full Idea:
Boundaryless concepts tend to come in systems of contraries: opposed pairs like child/adult, hot/cold, weak/strong, true/false, and complex systems of colour terms. ..Only a contrast with 'adult' will show what 'child' excludes.
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From:
Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §5)
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A reaction:
This might be expected. It all comes down to the sorites problem, of when one thing turns into something else. If it won't merge into another category, then presumably the isolated concept stays applicable (until reality terminates it? End of sheep..).
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13983
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Representation assumes you know the ideas, and the reality, and the relation between the two [Ryle]
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Full Idea:
The theory of Representative Ideas begs the whole question, by assuming a) that we can know these 'Ideas', b) that we can know the realities they represent, and c) we can know a particular 'idea' to be representative of a particular reality.
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From:
Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], 'Objections')
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A reaction:
Personally I regard the ideas as immediate (rather than acquired by some knowledge process), and I am dimly hoping that they represent reality (or I'm in deep trouble), and I am struggling to piece together the reality they represent. I'm happy with that.
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13981
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Several people can believe one thing, or make the same mistake, or share one delusion [Ryle]
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Full Idea:
We ordinarily find no difficulty in saying of a given thing that several people believe it and so, if they think it false, 'make the same mistake' or 'labour under the same delusion'.
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From:
Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], IV)
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A reaction:
Ryle is playing devil's advocate, but this (like 13980) strikes me as quite good support for propositions. I suppose you can describe these phenomena as assent to sentences, but they might be very different sentences to express the same delusion.
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13989
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There are no propositions; they are just sentences, used for thinking, which link to facts in a certain way [Ryle]
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Full Idea:
There are no substantial propositions...There is just a relation between grammatical structure and the logical structure of facts. 'Proposition' denotes the same as 'sentence' or 'statement'. A proposition is not what I think, but what I think or talk in.
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From:
Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], 'Conclusions')
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A reaction:
The conclusion of Ryle's discussion, but I found his support for propositions much more convincing than his critique of them, or his attempt at an alternative linguistic account. He never mentioned animals, so he self-evidently hasn't grasped the problem.
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13982
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If we accept true propositions, it is hard to reject false ones, and even nonsensical ones [Ryle]
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Full Idea:
All the arguments for the subsistence of true propositions seem to hold good for the subsistence of false ones. We might even have to find room for absurd or nonsensical ones like 'some round squares are not red-headed'.
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From:
Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], 'Objections')
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A reaction:
A particularly nice example of a Category Mistake from the man who made them famous. Why can't we just make belief a proposition attitude, so I equally believe 'sea is blue', 'grass is pink' and 'trees are bifocal', but the status of my belief varies?
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