25 ideas
| 18806 | Frege thought traditional categories had psychological and linguistic impurities [Frege, by Rumfitt] |
| Full Idea: Frege rejected the traditional categories as importing psychological and linguistic impurities into logic. | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (Function and Concept [1891]) by Ian Rumfitt - The Boundary Stones of Thought 1.2 | |
| A reaction: Resisting such impurities is the main motivation for making logic entirely symbolic, but it doesn't follow that the traditional categories have to be dropped. |
| 8490 | First-level functions have objects as arguments; second-level functions take functions as arguments [Frege] |
| Full Idea: Just as functions are fundamentally different from objects, so also functions whose arguments are and must be functions are fundamentally different from functions whose arguments are objects. The latter are first-level, the former second-level, functions. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Function and Concept [1891], p.38) | |
| A reaction: In 1884 he called it 'second-order'. This is the standard distinction between first- and second-order logic. The first quantifies over objects, the second over intensional entities such as properties and propositions. |
| 8492 | Relations are functions with two arguments [Frege] |
| Full Idea: Functions of one argument are concepts; functions of two arguments are relations. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Function and Concept [1891], p.39) | |
| A reaction: Nowadays we would say 'two or more'. Another interesting move in the aim of analytic philosophy to reduce the puzzling features of the world to mathematical logic. There is, of course, rather more to some relations than being two-argument functions. |
| 8487 | Arithmetic is a development of logic, so arithmetical symbolism must expand into logical symbolism [Frege] |
| Full Idea: I am of the opinion that arithmetic is a further development of logic, which leads to the requirement that the symbolic language of arithmetic must be expanded into a logical symbolism. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Function and Concept [1891], p.30) | |
| A reaction: This may the the one key idea at the heart of modern analytic philosophy (even though logicism may be a total mistake!). Logic and arithmetical foundations become the master of ontology, instead of the servant. The jury is out on the whole enterprise. |
| 18899 | Frege takes the existence of horses to be part of their concept [Frege, by Sommers] |
| Full Idea: Frege regarded the existence of horses as a property of the concept 'horse'. | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (Function and Concept [1891]) by Fred Sommers - Intellectual Autobiography 'Realism' |
| 4028 | Frege allows either too few properties (as extensions) or too many (as predicates) [Mellor/Oliver on Frege] |
| Full Idea: Frege's theory of properties (which he calls 'concepts') yields too few properties, by identifying coextensive properties, and also too many, by letting every predicate express a property. | |
| From: comment on Gottlob Frege (Function and Concept [1891]) by DH Mellor / A Oliver - Introduction to 'Properties' §2 | |
| A reaction: Seems right; one extension may have two properties (have heart/kidneys), two predicates might express the same property. 'Cutting nature at the joints' covers properties as well as objects. |
| 8489 | The concept 'object' is too simple for analysis; unlike a function, it is an expression with no empty place [Frege] |
| Full Idea: I regard a regular definition of 'object' as impossible, since it is too simple to admit of logical analysis. Briefly: an object is anything that is not a function, so that an expression for it does not contain any empty place. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Function and Concept [1891], p.32) | |
| A reaction: Here is the core of the programme for deriving our ontology from our logic and language, followed through by Russell and Quine. Once we extend objects beyond the physical, it becomes incredibly hard to individuate them. |
| 2176 | There is only a problem of free will if you think the notion of 'voluntary' can be metaphysically deepened [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: There is a problem of free will only for those who think that the notion of voluntary can be metaphysically deepened. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], III - p.68) | |
| A reaction: Years later, I now see that his refers to a pet hate of mine in discussions of free will, which is the idea that a person can have something called 'ultimate' responsibility for an action (which is the 'deep' version of 'you did it'). |
| 2181 | It is an absurd Kantian idea that at the limit rationality and freedom coincide [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: There is a deluded Kantian idea that at the limit rationality and freedom will totally coincide. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], VI - p.158) |
| 7388 | McGinn invites surrender, by saying it is hopeless trying to imagine conscious machines [Dennett on McGinn] |
| Full Idea: McGinn invites his readers to join him in surrender: It's just impossible to imagine how software could make a conscious robot. Don't even try, he says. Other philosophical experiments (involving China) "work" by dissuading readers from imagining. | |
| From: comment on Colin McGinn (The Problem of Consciousness [1991]) by Daniel C. Dennett - Consciousness Explained 14.1 | |
| A reaction: I agree with Dennett. If you don't try to imagine how robots might do it, you are also denied the right to try to imagine how brains might manage it. Admittedly this is hard, but good imagination needs study, effort, discussion, time, information... |
| 3185 | Multiple realisability rules out hidden essences and experts as the source of water- and gold-concepts [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: The multiple realisability emphasised by functionalists rules out the hidden essences (and the 'deferential' move in semantics) that one finds in the cases, for example, of "water" and "gold" emphasised by Kripke and Putnam. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (The Problem of Consciousness [1991], p.132) | |
| A reaction: Presumably if they are 'hidden', then the people to whom we 'defer' for our concepts can't actually know about the essences we are supposed to be discussing. You can mean essences without knowing them. Cf. Loch Ness Monster. |
| 9947 | Concepts are the ontological counterparts of predicative expressions [Frege, by George/Velleman] |
| Full Idea: Concepts, for Frege, are the ontological counterparts of predicative expressions. | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (Function and Concept [1891]) by A.George / D.J.Velleman - Philosophies of Mathematics Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: That sounds awfully like what many philosophers call 'universals'. Frege, as a platonist (at least about numbers), I would take to be in sympathy with that. At least we can say that concepts seem to be properties. |
| 10319 | An assertion about the concept 'horse' must indirectly speak of an object [Frege, by Hale] |
| Full Idea: Frege had a notorious difficulty over the concept 'horse', when he suggests that if we wish to assert something about a concept, we are obliged to proceed indirectly by speaking of an object that represents it. | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (Function and Concept [1891], Ch.2.II) by Bob Hale - Abstract Objects | |
| A reaction: This sounds like the thin end of a wedge. The great champion of objects is forced to accept them here as a façon de parler, when elsewhere they have ontological status. |
| 8488 | A concept is a function whose value is always a truth-value [Frege] |
| Full Idea: A concept in logic is closely connected with what we call a function. Indeed, we may say at once: a concept is a function whose value is always a truth-value. ..I give the name 'function' to what is meant by the 'unsaturated' part. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Function and Concept [1891], p.30) | |
| A reaction: So a function becomes a concept when the variable takes a value. Problems arise when the value is vague, or the truth-value is indeterminable. |
| 9948 | Unlike objects, concepts are inherently incomplete [Frege, by George/Velleman] |
| Full Idea: For Frege, concepts differ from objects in being inherently incomplete in nature. | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (Function and Concept [1891]) by A.George / D.J.Velleman - Philosophies of Mathematics Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This is because they are 'unsaturated', needing a quantified variable to complete the sentence. This could be a pointer towards Quine's view of properties, as simply an intrinsic feature of predication about objects, with no separate identity. |
| 4972 | I may regard a thought about Phosphorus as true, and the same thought about Hesperus as false [Frege] |
| Full Idea: From sameness of meaning there does not follow sameness of thought expressed. A fact about the Morning Star may express something different from a fact about the Evening Star, as someone may regard one as true and the other false. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Function and Concept [1891], p.14) | |
| A reaction: This all gets clearer if we distinguish internalist and externalist theories of content. Why take sides on this? Why not just ask 'what is in the speaker's head?', 'what does the sentence mean in the community?', and 'what is the corresponding situation?' |
| 4317 | We judge weakness of will by an assessment after the event is concluded [Williams,B, by Cottingham] |
| Full Idea: Williams has shown that whether an action was weakness of will depends on an evaluation after the event, as in the question of whether Gauguin was right to abandon his family to pursue his art. | |
| From: report of Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993]) by John Cottingham - Reason, Emotions and Good Life p.1 | |
| A reaction: The 'Gauguin Problem' is that Gauguin's actions only become weakness of will if the pictures are no good, and he can't know that till he's painted them. Good point. |
| 2174 | Responsibility involves cause, intention, state of mind, and response after the event [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: The four elements of any conception of responsibility are cause, intention, state of mind, and response after the event. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], III - p.53) |
| 2178 | In bad actions, guilt points towards victims, and shame to the agent [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: In what I have done, the guilt points in one direction towards what has happened to others, and the shame in another direction to what I am. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], IV - p.92) | |
| A reaction: Not convinced. I think shame has the fear of being observed as an inescapable component. Even when alone shame involves imagining what others might think. |
| 2169 | Greek moral progress came when 'virtue' was freed from social status [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: There was moral progress in the ancient Greek world, notably to the extent that the idea of areté, human excellence, was freed to some extent from determination by social position. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], I - p.7) |
| 2172 | The modern idea of duty is unknown in archaic Greece [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Duty in some abstract modern sense is largely unknown to the Greeks, in particular to archaic Greeks. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], II - p.41) |
| 2180 | If reason cannot lead people to good, we must hope they have an internal voice [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: If we think the power of reason is not enough by itself to distinguish good and bad, then we would hope that people have limited autonomy, that there is an internalised other in them that carries some social weight. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], IV - p.100) |
| 2179 | If the moral self is seen as characterless, then other people have a very limited role in our moral lives [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: The conception of the moral self as characterless leaves only a limited positive role to other people in one's moral life. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], IV - p.95) |
| 8491 | The Ontological Argument fallaciously treats existence as a first-level concept [Frege] |
| Full Idea: The ontological proof of God's existence suffers from the fallacy of treating existence as a first-level concept. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Function and Concept [1891], p.38 n) | |
| A reaction: [See Idea 8490 for first- and second-order functions] This is usually summarised as the idea that existence is a quantifier rather than a predicate. |
| 2175 | There is a problem of evil only if you expect the world to be good [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: There is a "problem of evil" only for those who expect the world to be good. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], III - p.68) |