27 ideas
| 2352 | The job of the philosopher is to distinguish facts about the world from conventions [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: It is the job of the philosopher to distinguish what is fact and what is convention in our theorising about the world. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §7 p.112) | |
| A reaction: This may well be the entire truth about philosophy. It begins with the Nomos-Physis debate in ancient Athens, and it turns out to be the key issue in almost every area of metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics and morality. |
| 2345 | Semantic notions do not occur in Tarski's definitions, but assessing their correctness involves translation [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Although no semantic notions are used in Tarski's truth definitions themselves, they are used in deciding when such a definition is correct, namely the notion of translation. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §4 p.66) |
| 2347 | Asserting the truth of an indexical statement is not the same as uttering the statement [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: If you say "I am going to drive this car", and I say "That's true", that is very different from my saying "I am going to drive this car". | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §4 p.68) |
| 10245 | One geometry cannot be more true than another [Poincaré] |
| Full Idea: One geometry cannot be more true than another; it can only be more convenient. | |
| From: Henri Poincaré (Science and Method [1908], p.65), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics | |
| A reaction: This is the culminating view after new geometries were developed by tinkering with Euclid's parallels postulate. |
| 2349 | Realists believe truth is correspondence, independent of humans, is bivalent, and is unique [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysical realism about truth is a bundle of ideas: that it is a matter of Correspondence, that it exhibits Independence (of humans), Bivalence, and Uniqueness (there is only one ultimate truth). | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §7 p.107) |
| 8967 | Not all predicates can be properties - 'is non-self-exemplifying', for example [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: We cannot assume that every meaningful predicate necessarily expresses a property that some entity could possess. The predicate 'is non-self-exemplifying' is meaningful, yet it would be contradictory for there to be any such property. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Individuation [2003]) | |
| A reaction: This clinches what I would take to be a foregone conclusion - that you can't know what the world contains just by examining the predicates of the English language. However, I suppose predicates are needed to know properties. |
| 2351 | Aristotle says an object (e.g. a lamp) has identity if its parts stay together when it is moved [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: The parts of a lamp stay together when it is moved (which is one of Aristotle's criteria for objecthood). | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §7 p.110) | |
| A reaction: Metaphysics 1052a26 (just after the cross-reference) says a thing may be unified 'if its movement is single'. |
| 8965 | Neither mere matter nor pure form can individuate a sphere, so it must be a combination [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: A sphere's matter could not be what makes it one sphere, since matter lacks intrinsic unity, ..and the form cannot make it that very sphere, since an identical sphere may exemplify that universal. So it is a combination of form and matter. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Individuation [2003], 5) | |
| A reaction: But how do two aspects of the sphere, neither of which has the power to individuate, achieve individuation when they are combined? Like parents, I suppose. Two totally identical spheres can only be individuated by location. |
| 8968 | If the flagpole causally explains the shadow, the shadow cannot explain the flagpole [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Two distinct entities cannot explain each other, in the same sense of 'explain'. If the height of the flagpole causally explains the length of the shadow, the shadow cannot explain the flagpole, though it may predict the latter. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Individuation [2003], 12) | |
| A reaction: This seems related to the question of the direction of time/causation. Some explanations can be benignly circular, as when a married couple have a passion for chinese food. [S.Bromberger 1966 invented the flagpole case]. |
| 8966 | Properties are facets of objects, only discussable separately by an act of abstraction [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: In no sense is a property a 'constituent' of an object: it is merely a 'facet' or 'aspect' of an object - something which we can talk about or think of separately from that object only by an act of abstraction. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Individuation [2003], 8) | |
| A reaction: This appears to be in tune with traditional abstractionism, even though Lowe is committed to the reality of universals. To what do I refer when I say 'I like your car, apart from its colour'? |
| 2331 | Functionalism says robots and people are the same at one level of abstraction [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: My "functionalism" insisted that a robot, a human being, a silicon creature and a disembodied spirit could all work much the same way when described at the relevant level of abstraction, and it is wrong to think the essence of mind is hardware. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], Int p.xii) | |
| A reaction: This is the key point about the theory - that it is an abstract theory of mind, saying nothing about substances. It drew, however, some misguided criticisms suggesting silly implementations. |
| 2071 | If concepts have external meaning, computational states won't explain psychology [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Computational models of the brain/mind will not suffice for cognitive psychology. We cannot individuate concepts and beliefs without reference to the environment. Meanings aren't "in the head". | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], p.73) | |
| A reaction: Mr Functionalism quits! |
| 2332 | Functionalism can't explain reference and truth, which are needed for logic [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Functionalism has as much trouble with physical accounts of reference as of meaning. Reference is the main tool used in formal theories of truth. But 'truth' isn't folk psychology, it is central to logic, which everyone wants. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], Int p.xiv) | |
| A reaction: All logic is defined in terms of truth and falsehood resulting from reasoning, but it could be that 'true' and 'false' have no more content that 1 and 0 in binary electronics. They are distinct, but empty. |
| 2348 | Is there just one computational state for each specific belief? [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: The idea that there is one computational state that every being who believes that there are lots of cats in the neighbourhood is in must be false. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §5 p.84) | |
| A reaction: It is tempting to say that the mental states of such people must have SOMETHING in common, until you realise that all you can specify is that all their states are about cats. |
| 2344 | If we are going to eliminate folk psychology, we must also eliminate folk logic [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Why don't the eliminationists speak of "folk logic" as well as "folk psychology"? | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §4 p.60) | |
| A reaction: I think Putnam considers that if you can prove 'truth' to be a necessary feature of mental life, that connects mind and world, but marking a sentence as 'T' doesn't make any connections. |
| 2074 | Can we give a scientific, computational account of folk psychology? [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: The desire that grips Fodor, as it once gripped me, is the desire to make belief-desire psychology "scientific" by simply identifying it outright with computational psychology. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], p.7) | |
| A reaction: An "outright" identification looks very implausible. It seems that we should accept that belief-desire psychology is a very good guide to normal brain events, but a bad guide to unusual brain events. See Ideas 2987 and 7519. |
| 2343 | Reference may be different while mental representation is the same [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: The 'mental representations' of Earth speakers and Twin Earth speakers were not in any way different; the reference was different because the substances were different. Reference is fixed by the environment itself. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §2 p.32) | |
| A reaction: There seems to be an elementary distinction here between what you think you are referring to, and what you are in fact referring to. "That man is the Prince of Wales" (pointing at the butler). |
| 2346 | Meaning and translation (which are needed to define truth) both presuppose the notion of reference [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: The notion of meaning, and hence of translation (needed to define truth), presupposes the notion of reference. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §4 p.67) | |
| A reaction: It is plausible to see reference as the fundamental notion of language. With no anchors in reality, language would be 'private', in LW's sense. |
| 2354 | "Meaning is use" is not a definition of meaning [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: "Meaning is use" is not a definition of meaning. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §7 p.119) | |
| A reaction: I agree. It probably fails to define meaning because it is false. A corkscrew is not the action of opening a wine bottle. |
| 2336 | Holism seems to make fixed definition more or less impossible [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Holism immediately suggests that most terms cannot be defined, at least not in a way that is fixed once and for all. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §1 p.09) | |
| A reaction: Perhaps there exists a single perfect definition for each holistic system, only graspable by a transcendent intellect. Or why can't there be a matching holistic system of definitions? |
| 2334 | Meaning holism tried to show that you can't get fixed meanings built out of observation terms [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine of Quine called "meaning holism" offered arguments refuting logical positivist attempts to show that every term we can understand can be defined using a limited group of "observation terms". | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §1 p.08) | |
| A reaction: To seems a rather large jump from saying that sentences come in groups to full-blown 'holism' (involving every sentence). |
| 2335 | Understanding a sentence involves background knowledge and can't be done in isolation [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: If I say "Hawks fly", I do not intend my hearer to deduce that a hawk with a broken wing will fly. What we expect depends on the whole network of belief. Language describes experience as a network, not sentence by sentence. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §1 p.09) | |
| A reaction: The shortcut through this is 'exactly what did you mean when you said "Hawks fly"?'. That is, get me closer to your proposition. |
| 2340 | We should separate how the reference of 'gold' is fixed from its conceptual content [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: The effect of my account, as of Kripke's, is to separate the question of how the reference of terms such as 'gold' is fixed from the question of their conceptual content. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §2 p.38) | |
| A reaction: Too simple. 'Gold' isn't a proper name, like 'Hilary', which needs no more content than a serial number. Baptising a gold sample needs much more information than baptising a person. |
| 2341 | Like names, natural kind terms have their meaning fixed by extension and reference [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: It seems that the dominant "component" of natural kind words is the extension. The referential factor does almost all the work, and natural kind terms resemble names. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §3 p.49) | |
| A reaction: My concept of 'tiger' does not mainly consist of the tigers. Does the concept contract as the tiger population dwindles? Prototypes, exemplars etc. See 'Concepts' |
| 2338 | Reference (say to 'elms') is a social phenomenon which we can leave to experts [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Reference is a social phenomenon. Individual speakers do not have to know how to distinguish robins, or elms, or aluminium. They can always rely on experts to do this for them. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §2 p.22) | |
| A reaction: It can't just be a social phenomenon. The experts don't just enquire about standard usage, or defer to Hilary Putnam. |
| 2339 | Aristotle implies that we have the complete concepts of a language in our heads, but we don't [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: What is wrong with the Aristotelian picture (of meaning and reference based on concepts) is that it suggest that everything that is necessary for the use of language is stored in each individual mind, but no individual language works this way. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §2 p.25) | |
| A reaction: Languages must partly work that way. You can't talk without a conceptual storehouse. In a small society I would expect every adult to know the full vocabulary. |
| 2342 | "Water" is a natural kind term, but "H2O" is a description [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: "Water" functions as a natural kind term, but "H2O" is a description, synonymous with an account of its atoms. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §3 p.50) |