Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Things' and 'Meaning and Necessity'

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3 ideas

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 2. Abstract Objects / c. Modern abstracta
Bodies, properties, relations, events, numbers, sets and propositions are 'things' if they exist [Lowe]
     Full Idea: Not only material bodies but also properties, relations, events, numbers, sets, and propositions are—if they are acknowledged as existing—to be accounted ‘things’.
     From: E.J. Lowe (Things [1995])
     A reaction: There might be lots of borderline cases here. Is the sky a thing? Is air a thing? How is transparency a thing? Is minus-one a thing? Is an incomplete proposition a thing? Etc.
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 2. Knowledge as Convention
By nature people are close to one another, but culture drives them apart [Hippias]
     Full Idea: I regard you all as relatives - by nature, not by convention. By nature like is akin to like, but convention is a tyrant over humankind and often constrains people to act contrary to nature.
     From: Hippias (fragments/reports [c.430 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Protagoras 337c8
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 8. Possible Worlds Semantics
The intension of a sentence is the set of all possible worlds in which it is true [Carnap, by Kaplan]
     Full Idea: Carnap's proposal is to understand the category of intensions appropriate to sentences (his 'propositions') as sets of possible worlds. The intension of the sentence is taken as the set of all possible worlds in which the sentence is true.
     From: report of Rudolph Carnap (Meaning and Necessity [1947]) by David Kaplan - Transworld Heir Lines p.90
     A reaction: [reference?] This extension of the truth-conditions view of meaning strikes me as being very attractive. Except that whole worlds hardly seem to be relevant to my remark about how lunch might have been improved.