Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Reply to Foucher', 'Vagueness: a global approach' and 'fragments/reports'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts


15 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 6. Classical Logic
Indeterminacy is in conflict with classical logic [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: I now believe that the existence of indeterminacy is in conflict with classical logic.
     From: Kit Fine (Vagueness: a global approach [2020], 3)
     A reaction: I think that prior to this Fine had defended classical logic. Presumably the difficulty is over Bivalence. Nietzsche spotted this problem, despite not being a logician. Logic has to simplify the world. Hence philosophy is quite different from logic.
5. Theory of Logic / I. Semantics of Logic / 1. Semantics of Logic
Classical semantics has referents for names, extensions for predicates, and T or F for sentences [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: A precise language is often assigned a classical semantics, in which the semantic value of a name is its referent, the semantic value of a predicate is its extension (the objects of which it is true), and the value of a sentence is True or False.
     From: Kit Fine (Vagueness: a global approach [2020], 1)
     A reaction: Helpful to have this clear statement of how predicates are treated. This extensionalism in logic causes trouble when it creeps into philosophy, and people say that 'red' just means all the red things. No it doesn't.
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 5. The Infinite / d. Actual infinite
I strongly believe in the actual infinite, which indicates the perfections of its author [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: I am so much for the actual infinite that instead of admitting that nature abhors it, as is commonly said, I hold that it affects nature everywhere in order to indicate the perfections of its author.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Reply to Foucher [1693], p.99)
     A reaction: I would have thought that, for Leibniz, while infinities indicate the perfections of their author, that is not the reason why they exist. God wasn't, presumably, showing off. Leibniz does not think we can actually know these infinities.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / a. Problem of vagueness
Local indeterminacy concerns a single object, and global indeterminacy covers a range [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: Vagueness concerns 'local' indeterminacy, such as whether one man in the lineup is bald, and 'global' indeterminacy, applying to a range of cases, as when it is indeterminate how 'bald' applies to the lineup. But how do these relate?
     From: Kit Fine (Vagueness: a global approach [2020], 1)
     A reaction: This puts the focus either on objects or on predicates which are vague.
Conjoining two indefinites by related sentences seems to produce a contradiction [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: If 'P is red' and 'P is orange' are indefinite, then 'P is red and P is orange' seems false, because red and orange are exclusive. But if two conjoined indefinite sentences are false, that makes 'P is red and P is red' false, when it should be indefinite.
     From: Kit Fine (Vagueness: a global approach [2020], 1)
     A reaction: [compressed] This is the problem of 'penumbral connection', where two indefinite values are still logically related, by excluding one another. Presumably 'P is red and P is of indefinite shape' can be true? Doubtful about this argument.
Standardly vagueness involves borderline cases, and a higher standpoint from which they can be seen [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: Standard notions of vagueness all accept borderline cases, and presuppose a higher standpoint from which a judgement of being borderline F, rather than simply being F or being not F, can be made.
     From: Kit Fine (Vagueness: a global approach [2020], 3)
     A reaction: He says that the concept of borderline cases is an impediment to understanding vagueness. Proposing a third group when you are struggling to separate two other groups doesn't seem helpful, come to think of it. Limbo cases.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / c. Vagueness as ignorance
Identifying vagueness with ignorance is the common mistake of confusing symptoms with cause [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: We can see Epistemicism [vagueness as ignorance] as a common and misguided tendency to identify a cause with its symptoms. We are unsure how to characterise vagueness, and identify it with the resulting ignorance, instead of explaining it.
     From: Kit Fine (Vagueness: a global approach [2020], 1)
     A reaction: Love it. This echoes my repeated plea in these reactions to stop identifying features of reality with the functions which embody them or the patterns they create. We need to explain them, and must dig deeper.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / f. Supervaluation for vagueness
Supervaluation can give no answer to 'who is the last bald man' [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: Under supervaluation there should always be someone who is the last bald man in the sequence, but there is always an acceptable way to make some other man the last bald man.
     From: Kit Fine (Vagueness: a global approach [2020], 1)
     A reaction: Fine seems to take this as a conclusive refutation of the supervaluation approach. Fine says (p.41) that supervaluation says there is a precisification for every instance.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / e. Vague objects
We do not have an intelligible concept of a borderline case [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: We simply have no intelligible notion of local indeterminacy or of a borderline case.
     From: Kit Fine (Vagueness: a global approach [2020], 2)
     A reaction: He mentions cases which are near a borderline, and cases which are hard to decide, but denies that these are intrinsically borderline. If there are borderline cases between red and orange, what are the outer boundaries of the border?
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 10. Impossibility
From the necessity of the past we can infer the impossibility of what never happens [Diod.Cronus, by White,MJ]
     Full Idea: Diodorus' Master Argument inferred that since what is past (i.e. true in the past) is necessary, and the impossible cannot follow from the possible, that therefore if something neither is nor ever will be the case, then it is impossible.
     From: report of Diodorus Cronus (fragments/reports [c.300 BCE]) by Michael J. White - Diodorus Cronus
     A reaction: The argument is, apparently, no longer fully clear, but it seems to imply determinism, or at least a rejection of the idea that free will and determinism are compatible. (Epictetus 2.19)
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 1. Possibility
The Master Argument seems to prove that only what will happen is possible [Diod.Cronus, by Epictetus]
     Full Idea: The Master Argument: these conflict 1) what is past and true is necessary, 2) the impossible does not follow from the possible, 3) something possible neither is nor will be true. Hence only that which is or will be true is possible.
     From: report of Diodorus Cronus (fragments/reports [c.300 BCE]) by Epictetus - The Discourses 2.19.1
     A reaction: [Epictetus goes on to discuss views about which of the three should be given up] It is possible there will be a sea fight tomorrow; tomorrow comes, and no sea fight; so there was necessarily no sea fight; so the impossible followed from the possible.
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / d. Non-truthfunction conditionals
Conditionals are true when the antecedent is true, and the consequent has to be true [Diod.Cronus]
     Full Idea: The connected (proposition) is true when it begins with true and neither could nor can end with false.
     From: Diodorus Cronus (fragments/reports [c.300 BCE]), quoted by Stephen Mumford - Dispositions 03.4
     A reaction: [Mumford got the quote from Bochenski] This differs from the truth-functional account because it says nothing about when the antecedent is false, which fits in also with the 'supposition' view, where A is presumed. This idea adds necessity.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / b. Self as mental continuity
It seems absurd that there is no identity of any kind between two objects which involve survival [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: Pace Parfit and others, it boggles the mind that survival could be independent of any relation of identity between the currently existing object and the objects that subsequently exist.
     From: Kit Fine (Vagueness: a global approach [2020], 3)
     A reaction: Yes. If the self or mind just consists of a diachronic trail of memories such that the two ends of the trail have no connection at all, that isn't the kind of survival that any of us want. I want to live my life, not a life.
19. Language / D. Propositions / 4. Mental Propositions
Thought is unambiguous, and you should stick to what the speaker thinks they are saying [Diod.Cronus, by Gellius]
     Full Idea: No one says or thinks anything ambiguous, and nothing should be held to be being said beyond what the speaker thinks he is saying.
     From: report of Diodorus Cronus (fragments/reports [c.300 BCE]) by Aulus Gellius - Noctes Atticae 11.12.2
     A reaction: A key argument in favour of propositions, implied in this remark, is that propositions are never ambiguous, though the sentences expressing them may be
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 4. Regularities / a. Regularity theory
We identify laws with regularities because we mistakenly identify causes with their symptoms [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: There is a common tendency to identify a cause with its symptoms. Hence we are not sure how to characterise a law, and so we identify it with the regularities to which it gives rise.
     From: Kit Fine (Vagueness: a global approach [2020], 1)
     A reaction: A lovely clear identification of my pet hate, which is superficial accounts of things, which claim to be the last word, but actually explain nothing.