Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Science and Method', 'Ethics of Ambiguity' and 'On the Reduction of Necessity to Essence'

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4 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / a. Logical connectives
The nature of each logical concept is given by a collection of inference rules [Correia]
     Full Idea: The view presented here presupposes that each logical concept is associated with some fixed and well defined collection of rules of inference which characterize its basic logical nature.
     From: Fabrice Correia (On the Reduction of Necessity to Essence [2012], 4)
     A reaction: [He gives Fine's 'Senses of Essences' 57-8 as a source] He seems to have in mind natural deduction, where the rules are for the introduction and elimination of the concepts.
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 2. Geometry
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.
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 6. Logical Necessity
Explain logical necessity by logical consequence, or the other way around? [Correia]
     Full Idea: One view is that logical consequence is to be understood in terms of logical necessity (some proposition holds necessarily, if some group of other propositions holds). Alternatively, logical necessity is a logical consequence of the empty set.
     From: Fabrice Correia (On the Reduction of Necessity to Essence [2012], 3)
     A reaction: I think my Finean preference is for all necessities to have a 'necessitator', so logical necessity results from logic in some way, perhaps from logical consequence, or from the essences of the connectives and operators.
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 3. Angst
If existence is absurd it can never have a meaning [Beauvoir]
     Full Idea: To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning; to say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed.
     From: Simone de Beauvoir (Ethics of Ambiguity [1948], p.129), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 6 'Bad'
     A reaction: Absurdity precludes meaning, but being meaningless doesn't entail absurdity. Asteroids are meaningless. Presumably if existence is meaningless now (as in a depression), but it might possibly become meaningful, then it can't qualify as 'absurd'.