56 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. |
4098 | The theory of descriptions supports internalism, since they are thinkable when the object is non-existent [Crane] |
Full Idea: The theory of descriptions gives a model of internalist intentionality, in that it describes cases where the thinkability of a belief does not depend on the existence of a specific object. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 4.36) | |
A reaction: So what do externalists say about the theory? Surely a reference to 'water' can't entail the existence of water? |
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' |
4077 | Aesthetic properties of thing supervene on their physical properties [Crane] |
Full Idea: It is sometimes said that the aesthetic properties of a thing supervene on its physical properties. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.16) | |
A reaction: A confusing example, as aesthetic properties only exist if there is an observer. Is 'supervenience' just an empty locution which tries to avoid reduction? |
4078 | Constitution (as in a statue constituted by its marble) is supervenience without identity [Crane] |
Full Idea: A statue is constituted by the marble that makes it up. It is plausible to say that constitution is not the same as identity - since identity is symmetrical and identity is not - but nonetheless constitution is a supervenience relation. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.16) | |
A reaction: So what makes it a statue, as opposed to a piece of marble? It may well be an abstraction which only exists relative to observers. |
4083 | If mental properties are emergent they add a new type of causation, and physics is not complete [Crane] |
Full Idea: Whatever the causal process is, it remains true that if emergentism is true, the completeness of physics is false; there are some effects which would not have come about if mental things were absent from the world. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.18) | |
A reaction: Emergentism looks to me like an incoherent concept, unless it is another word for dualism. |
4082 | The distinction between 'resultant' properties (weight) and 'emergent' properties is a bit vague [Crane] |
Full Idea: The distinction between 'resultant' properties like weight, and 'emergent' properties like colour, seems intuitive enough, but on examination it is very hard to make precise. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.18) | |
A reaction: It is no coincidence that the examples are of primary and secondary qualities. If 'the physical entails the mental' then all mental properties are resultant. |
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. |
4079 | Properties are causes [Crane] |
Full Idea: Properties are causes. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.17) | |
A reaction: We can't detect properties if they lack causal powers. This may be a deep confusion. Properties are what make causal powers possible, but that isn't what properties are? |
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. |
4068 | Traditional substance is separate from properties and capable of independent existence [Crane] |
Full Idea: The traditional concept of substance says substances bear properties which are distinct from them, and substances are capable of independent existence. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.9) | |
A reaction: Put like that, it sounds ridiculous as a physical theory. It is hard to dislodge substance, though, from a priori human metaphysics. |
13858 | The truth-functional account of conditionals is right, if the antecedent is really acceptable [Jackson, by Edgington] |
Full Idea: Jackson defends the truth-functional account by saying that for a conditional to be assertable, it must not only be believed that its truth-conditions are satisfied, but the belief must be robust or resilient with respect to the antecedent. | |
From: report of Frank Jackson (Conditionals and Possibilia [1981]) by Dorothy Edgington - Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? 4 | |
A reaction: ..That is, one would not abandon the conditional if one believed the antecedent to be true. |
4097 | Maybe there are two kinds of belief - 'de re' beliefs and 'de dicto' beliefs [Crane] |
Full Idea: Some philosophers have claimed that there are two kinds of belief, 'de re' belief and 'de dicto' belief. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 4.35) | |
A reaction: Interesting, though it may only distinguish two objects of belief, not two types. Internalist and externalist views are implied. |
4096 | Maybe beliefs don't need to be conscious, if you are not conscious of the beliefs guiding your actions [Crane] |
Full Idea: The beliefs that are currently guiding your actions do not need to be in your stream of consciousness, which suggests that beliefs do not need to be conscious at all. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 4.31) | |
A reaction: Too bold, I think. Presumably this would eliminate all the other propositional attitudes from consciousness. There would only be qualia left! |
4093 | Many cases of knowing how can be expressed in propositional terms (like how to get somewhere) [Crane] |
Full Idea: There are plenty of cases of knowing how to do something, where that knowledge can also be expressed - without remainder, as it were - in propositional terms (such as knowing how to get to the Albert Hall). | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 3.28) | |
A reaction: Presumably all knowing how could be expressed propositionally by God. |
4108 | Phenol-thio-urea tastes bitter to three-quarters of people, but to the rest it is tasteless, so which is it? [Crane] |
Full Idea: Phenol-thio-urea tastes bitter to three-quarters of people, but to the rest it is tasteless. Is it really bitter, or really tasteless? | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 5.44) | |
A reaction: A nice reinforcement of a classic Greek question. Good support for the primary/secondary distinction. Common sense, really. |
4105 | The traditional supports for the sense datum theory were seeing double and specks before one's eyes [Crane] |
Full Idea: The traditional examples used to support the sense datum theory were seeing double and specks before one's eyes. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 5.43) | |
A reaction: Presumably, though, direct realists can move one eye, or having something wrong with a retina. |
4104 | One can taste that the wine is sour, and one can also taste the sourness of the wine [Crane] |
Full Idea: One can taste that the wine is sour, and one can also taste the sourness of the wine. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 5.42) | |
A reaction: …so sense data are optional? We create sense data by objectifying them, but animals just taste the wine, and are direct realists. Tasting the sourness seems to be a case of abstraction. |
4101 | If we smell something we are aware of the smell separately, but we don't perceive a 'look' when we see [Crane] |
Full Idea: Visual perception seems to differ from some of the other senses; when we become aware of burning toast, we become aware of the smell, ...but we don't see a garden by seeing a 'look' of the garden. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 5.40) | |
A reaction: Interesting. Do blind people transfer this more direct perception to a different sense (e.g. the one they rely on most)? |
4102 | The problems of perception disappear if it is a relation to an intentional state, not to an object or sense datum [Crane] |
Full Idea: The solution to the problem of perception is to deny that it is related to real objects (things or sense-data); rather, perception is an intentional state (with a subject, mode and content), a relation to the intentional content. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 5.42) | |
A reaction: Not clear. This definition makes it sound like a propositional attitude. |
4109 | If perception is much richer than our powers of description, this suggests that it is non-conceptual [Crane] |
Full Idea: The richness in information of perceptual experience outruns our modes of description of it, which has led some philosophers to claim that the content of perceptual experience is non-conceptual. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 5.45) | |
A reaction: It certainly implies that it can't be entirely conceptual, but it still may be that in humans concepts are always involved. Not when I'm waking up in the morning, though. |
4103 | The adverbial theory of perceptions says it is the experiences which have properties, not the objects [Crane] |
Full Idea: The Adverbial Theory of perception holds that the predicates which other theories take as picking out the properties of objects are really adverbs of the perceptual verb; ..instead of strange objects, we just have properties of experiences. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 5.42) | |
A reaction: Promising. It fits secondary qualities all right, but what about primary? I 'see bluely', but can I 'see squarely'? |
4065 | Is knowledge just a state of mind, or does it also involve the existence of external things? [Crane] |
Full Idea: It is controversial whether knowledge is a state of mind, or a composite state involving a thought about something, plus its existence. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 1.5) | |
A reaction: Pinpoints the internalism/externalism problem. Knowledge is a special type of belief (but maybe belief with external links!). Tricky. I vote for internalism. |
4092 | The core of the consciousness problem is the case of Mary, zombies, and the Hard Question [Crane] |
Full Idea: The three arguments that have been used to articulate the problem of consciousness are the knowledge argument ('Mary'), the possibility of 'zombies' (creatures like us but lacking phenomenal consciousness), and the explanatory gap (the Hard Question). | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 3.26) | |
A reaction: All of these push towards the implausible claim that there could never be a physical explanation of why we experience things. Zombies are impossible, in my opinion. |
4087 | Intentionalism does not require that all mental states be propositional attitudes [Crane] |
Full Idea: Intentionalism (the doctrine that all mental states are intentional) need not be the thesis that all mental states are propositional attitudes. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 3.22) | |
A reaction: This points to the requirement for an intentionalist to prove that so-called 'qualia' states are essentially intentional, which is not implausible. |
4095 | Object-directed attitudes like love are just as significant as propositional attitudes [Crane] |
Full Idea: Love, hate, and the other object-directed attitudes have as much of a role in explaining behaviour as the propositional attitudes. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 4.34) | |
A reaction: A good clarification of the range of intentional states. Objects seem to be external, where propositions are clearly internal. |
4106 | If someone removes their glasses the content of experience remains, but the quality changes [Crane] |
Full Idea: There is a phenomenal difference between a short-sighted person wearing glasses and not; they do not judge that the world is different, but the properties of the experience (the qualia) have changed. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 5.43) | |
A reaction: Could be challenged. If a notice becomes unreadable, that is more than the qualia changing. |
4089 | Pains have a region of the body as their intentional content, not some pain object [Crane] |
Full Idea: The intentional object of a pain-state is a part or region of the body, not a pain-object. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 3.24) | |
A reaction: Plausible. Has anyone ever suffered from pain without some sense of what part of the body is actually in pain? |
4090 | Weak intentionalism says qualia are extra properties; strong intentionalism says they are intentional [Crane] |
Full Idea: Weak intentionalism says all mental states are intentional, but qualia are higher-order properties of these states. ..Strong intentionalists say the phenomenal character of a sensation consists purely in that state's intentionality. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 3.25) | |
A reaction: The weak version sounds better. Asking 'how could a thought have a quality of experience just by being about something?' is a restatement of the traditional problem, which won't go away. The Hard Question. |
4107 | With inverted qualia a person's experiences would change, but their beliefs remain the same [Crane] |
Full Idea: The right thing to say about inverted qualia is that the person's experiences are different from other people's, but their beliefs are the same. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 5.44) | |
A reaction: Right - which reinforces the idea that all beliefs are the result of judgement, and none come directly from perception. |
4069 | Descartes did not think of minds as made of a substance, because they are not divisible [Crane] |
Full Idea: It would be wrong to represent Descartes' view as the idea that bodies are made of one kind of stuff and minds of another; he did not think minds are made of stuff at all, because then they would be divisible. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.10) | |
A reaction: I'm not convinced. It could be an indivisible substance. Without a mental substance, Descartes may have to say the mind is an abstraction, perhaps a pattern of Platonic forms. |
4074 | Functionalism defines mental states by their causal properties, which rules out epiphenomenalism [Crane] |
Full Idea: Functionalism holds that it is in the nature of certain mental states to have certain effects; therefore there can be no mental epiphenomena. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.14) | |
A reaction: I strongly resist the idea that a thing's identity is its function. Functionalism may not say that. Mind is an abstraction referring to a causal nexus of unknowable components. |
4091 | The problems of misrepresentation and error have dogged physicalist reductions of intentionality [Crane] |
Full Idea: The fundamental problems of misrepresentation and error have dogged physicalist reductions of intentionality. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 3.26) | |
A reaction: If footprints or tree-rings are the model for reductions of intentionality, there doesn't seem much scope in them for giving false information, except by some freak event. |
4070 | Properties dualism says mental properties are distinct from physical, despite a single underlying substance [Crane] |
Full Idea: According to property dualism, mental properties are distinct from physical properties, even though they are properties of one substance. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.10) | |
A reaction: Two properties may be phenomenologically different (transparent and magnetic), but that doesn't put them in different ontological categories. |
4084 | Non-reductive physicalism seeks an explanation of supervenience, but emergentists accept it as basic [Crane] |
Full Idea: While the non-reductive physicalist believes that mental/physical supervenience must be explained, the emergentist is willing to accept it as a fact of nature. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.18) | |
A reaction: A good reason not to be an emergentist. No philosopher should abandon the principle of sufficient reason. |
4080 | If mental supervenes on the physical, then every physical cause will be accompanied by a mental one [Crane] |
Full Idea: If the mental supervenes on the physical, then whenever a physical cause brings about some effect, a mental cause comes along for the ride. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.17) | |
A reaction: This is why supervenience seems to imply epiphenomenalism. The very concept of supervenience is dubious. |
4085 | Physicalism may be the source of the mind-body problem, rather than its solution [Crane] |
Full Idea: Physicalism may be the source of the mind-body problem, rather than its solution. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.19) | |
A reaction: Certainly if the physical is seen as just a pile of atoms, it is hard to see how they could ever think (see idea 1909). |
4075 | Identity theory is either of particular events, or of properties, depending on your theory of causation [Crane] |
Full Idea: If causation concerns events, then we have an identity theory of mental and physical events (particulars) [Davidson]. If causation is by properties, then it is mental and physical properties which are identical [Lewis and Armstrong]. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.14) | |
A reaction: Events are tokens, and properties are types. Tricky. Events are dynamic, but properties can be static. |
4073 | Overdetermination occurs if two events cause an effect, when each would have caused it alone [Crane] |
Full Idea: Causal overdetermination is when an effect has more than one cause, and each event would have caused the effect if the other one had not done so. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.13) | |
A reaction: Overdetermination is a symptom that an explanation is questionable, but it can occur. Two strong people can join to push over a light hatstand. |
4072 | The completeness of physics must be an essential component of any physicalist view of mind [Crane] |
Full Idea: I claim that the completeness of physics must be an essential component of any physicalist view of mind. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.12) | |
A reaction: He does not convince me of this. The mind may be within physics, but why should we say a priori that no exceptions to physical law will ever be discovered. Crane is setting up straw men. |
4094 | Experience teaches us propositions, because we can reason about our phenomenal experience [Crane] |
Full Idea: In experience we learn propositions, since someone can reason using the sentence 'Red looks like this' (e.g. 'If red looks like this, then either it looks like this to dogs or it doesn't'). | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 3.28) | |
A reaction: The fact that we can create propositions about experiences doesn't prove that experience is inherently propositional. |
4100 | The Twin Earth argument depends on reference being determined by content, which may be false. [Crane] |
Full Idea: The Twin Earth argument does not refute internalism, since it depends on the 'Content-Determines-Reference' principle, which internalists can reject. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 4.37) | |
A reaction: The idea is that content should be understood in a context (e.g. on a particular planet). Indexicals count against a totally narrow view of content (Twins thinking 'I am here'). |
4067 | Broad content entails the existence of the object of the thought [Crane] |
Full Idea: If a mental state is broad, then the existence of the mental state entails the existence of its object. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 1.7) | |
A reaction: Hence thinking of non-existent things like unicorns is problematic for externalists. However, externalists can think about numbers or Platonic ideals. |
4063 | In intensional contexts, truth depends on how extensions are conceived. [Crane] |
Full Idea: Intensional contexts are those where truth or falsehood depends on the way the extensions are conceived. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 1.4) | |
A reaction: An important distinction for anyone defending an internalist view of concepts or of knowledge |
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?' |
4071 | Causation can be seen in counterfactual terms, or as increased probability, or as energy flow [Crane] |
Full Idea: A theory of causation might say 'If A had not existed, B would not have existed' (counterfactual theory), or 'B is more likely if A occurs' (probabilistic), or 'energy flows from A to B'. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.11) | |
A reaction: As always, it is vital to separate epistemology from ontology. Energy won't cover agents. Whisper "Fire!" in a theatre. |
4076 | Causes are properties, not events, because properties are what make a difference in a situation [Crane] |
Full Idea: My view is that causes are properties (not events); when we look for causes, we look for the aspect of a situation which made a difference, and aspects are properties or qualities. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.14) | |
A reaction: He is talking about explanations, which may not be causes, or at least they have a different emphasis. Don't events 'make a difference'? Events are ontologically weird |
4066 | It seems that 'exists' could sometimes be a predicate [Crane] |
Full Idea: The view that 'exists' is never a predicate is not plausible. | |
From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 1.7) | |
A reaction: He doesn't enlarge. Russell says 'exists' is a quantifier. 'Your very existence offends me - I hope it is confiscated'. |
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. |