Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Modes of Extension: comment on Fine' and 'The Web of Belief'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 1. Nature of Analysis

8460	Philosophers have given precise senses to deduction, probability, computability etc [Quine/Ullian]
	Full Idea: Successful explications (giving a precise sense to a term) have been found for the concepts of deduction, probability and computability, to name just three.
	From: W Quine / J Ullian (The Web of Belief [1970], 65), quoted by Alex Orenstein - W.V. Quine Ch.3
	A reaction: Quine also cites the concept of an 'ordered pair'. Orenstein adds Tarski's definition of truth, Russell's definite descriptions, and the explication of existence in terms of quantifications. Cf. Idea 2958.

13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 2. Knowledge as Convention

1556	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

18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 7. Abstracta by Equivalence

18883	Any equivalence relation among similar things allows the creation of an abstractum [Simons]
	Full Idea: Whenever we have an equivalence relation among things - such as similarity in a certain respect - we can abstract under the equivalence and consider the abstractum.
	From: Peter Simons (Modes of Extension: comment on Fine [2008], p.19)
	A reaction: This strikes me as dressing up old-fashioned psychological abstractionism in the respectable clothing of Fregean equivalences (such as 'directions'). We can actually do what Simons wants without the precision of partitioned equivalence classes.

18884	Abstraction is usually seen as producing universals and numbers, but it can do more [Simons]
	Full Idea: Abstraction as a cognitive tool has been associated predominantly with the metaphysics of universals and of mathematical objects such as numbers. But it is more widely applicable beyond this standard range. I commend its judicious use.
	From: Peter Simons (Modes of Extension: comment on Fine [2008], p.21)
	A reaction: Personally I think our view of the world is founded on three psychological principles: abstraction, idealisation and generalisation. You can try to give them rigour, as 'equivalence classes', or 'universal quantifications', if it makes you feel better.