6 ideas
| 13639 | Quine says higher-order items are intensional, and lack a clearly defined identity relation [Quine, by Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Quine (in 1941) attacked 'Principia Mathematica' because the items in the range of higher-order variables (attributes etc) are intensional and thus do not have a clearly defined identity relation. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Whitehead and the Rise of Modern Logic [1941]) by Stewart Shapiro - Foundations without Foundationalism 1.3 |
| 21557 | Russell confused use and mention, and reduced classes to properties, not to language [Quine, by Lackey] |
| Full Idea: Quine (1941) said that Russell had confused use and mention, and thus thought he had reduced classes to linguistic entities, while in fact he reduced them only to Platonic properties. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Whitehead and the Rise of Modern Logic [1941]) by Douglas Lackey - Intros to Russell's 'Essays in Analysis' p.133 | |
| A reaction: This is cited as the 'orthodox critical interpretation' of Russell and Whitehead. Confusion of use and mention was a favourite charge of Quine's. |
| 19400 | Possibles demand existence, so as many of them as possible must actually exist [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: From the conflict of all the possibles demanding existence, this at once follows, that there exists that series of things by which as many of them as possible exist. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Exigency to Exist in Essences [1690], p.91) | |
| A reaction: I'm in tune with a lot of Leibniz, but my head swims with this one. He seems to be a Lewisian about possible worlds - that they are concrete existing entities (with appetites!). Could Lewis include Leibniz's idea in his system? |
| 19401 | God's sufficient reason for choosing reality is in the fitness or perfection of possibilities [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The sufficient reason for God's choice can be found only in the fitness (convenance) or in the degree of perfection that the several worlds possess. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Exigency to Exist in Essences [1690], p.92) | |
| A reaction: The 'fitness' of a world and its 'perfection' seem very different things. A piece of a jigsaw can have wonderful fitness, without perfection. Occasionally you get that sinking feeling with metaphysicians that they just make it up. |
| 19402 | The actual universe is the richest composite of what is possible [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The actual universe is the collection of the possibles which forms the richest composite. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Exigency to Exist in Essences [1690], p.92) | |
| A reaction: 'Richest' for Leibniz means a maximum combination of existence, order and variety. It's rather like picking the best starting team from a squad of footballers. |
| 14080 | Are causal descriptions part of the causal theory of reference, or are they just metasemantic? [Kaplan, by Schaffer,J] |
| Full Idea: Kaplan notes that the causal theory of reference can be understood in two quite different ways, as part of the semantics (involving descriptions of causal processes), or as metasemantics, explaining why a term has the referent it does. | |
| From: report of David Kaplan (Dthat [1970]) by Jonathan Schaffer - Deflationary Metaontology of Thomasson 1 | |
| A reaction: [Kaplan 'Afterthought' 1989] The theory tends to be labelled as 'direct' rather than as 'causal' these days, but causal chains are still at the heart of the story (even if more diffused socially). Nice question. Kaplan takes the meta- version as orthodox. |