6 ideas
8447 | In 'Etna is higher than Vesuvius' the whole of Etna, including all the lava, can't be the reference [Frege] |
Full Idea: The reference of 'Etna' cannot be Mount Etna itself, because each piece of frozen lava which is part of Mount Etna would then also be part of the thought that Etna is higher than Vesuvius. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Letters to Jourdain [1910], p.43) | |
A reaction: This seems to be a straight challenge to Kripke's baptismal account of reference. I think I side with Kripke. Frege is allergic to psychological accounts, but the mind only has the capacity to think of the aspect of Etna that is relevant. |
8448 | Any object can have many different names, each with a distinct sense [Frege] |
Full Idea: An object can be determined in different ways, and every one of these ways of determining it can give rise to a special name, and these different names then have different senses. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Letters to Jourdain [1910], p.44) | |
A reaction: This seems right. No name is an entirely neutral designator. Imagine asking a death-camp survivor their name, and they give you their prison number. Sense clearly intrudes into names. But picking out the object is what really matters. |
8446 | We understand new propositions by constructing their sense from the words [Frege] |
Full Idea: The possibility of our understanding propositions which we have never heard before rests on the fact that we construct the sense of a proposition out of parts that correspond to words. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Letters to Jourdain [1910], p.43) | |
A reaction: This is the classic statement of the principle of compositionality, which seems to me so obviously correct that I cannot understand anyone opposing it. Which comes first, the thought or the word, may be a futile debate. |
8449 | Senses can't be subjective, because propositions would be private, and disagreement impossible [Frege] |
Full Idea: If the sense of a name was subjective, then the proposition and the thought would be subjective; the thought one man connects with this proposition would be different from that of another man. One man could not then contradict another. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Letters to Jourdain [1910], p.44) | |
A reaction: This is an implicit argument for the identity of 'proposition' and 'thought'. This argument resembles Plato's argument for universals (Idea 223). See also Kant on existence as a predicate (Idea 4475). But people do misunderstand one another. |
16570 | Elements are found last in dismantling bodies, and first in generating them [Albert of Saxony] |
Full Idea: On one possible description, an element is what is found last when bodies are taken apart, and what is found first when bodies are generated. | |
From: Albert of Saxony (On 'Generation and Corruption' [1356], II.3), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 2.1 |
19384 | Space and time are the order of all possibilities, and don't just relate to what is actual [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Space and time taken together constitute the order of possibilities of the one entire universe, so that these orders relate not only to what actually is, but also to anything that could be put in its place. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Reply to 'Rorarius' 2nd ed [1702], GP iv 568), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 7 'Space and Time' | |
A reaction: A very nice idea. Rather like the 'space of reasons', where all rational thought must exist, space and time are the 'space of existence and action'. Their concepts involve more than relations between what actually exists. |