32 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) |
| 18739 | Three stages of philosophical logic: syntactic (1905-55), possible worlds (1963-85), widening (1990-) [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| Full Idea: Three periods can be distinguished in philosophical logic: the syntactic stage, from Russell's definite descriptions to the 1950s, the dominance of possible world semantics from the 50s to 80s, and a current widening of the subject. | |
| From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 1) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] I've read elsewhere that the arrival of Tarski's account of truth in 1933, taking things beyond the syntactic, was also a landmark. |
| 18741 | Logical formalization makes concepts precise, and also shows their interrelation [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| Full Idea: Logical formalization forces the investigator to make the central philosophical concepts precise. It can also show how some philosophical concepts and objects can be defined in terms of others. | |
| From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 2) | |
| A reaction: This is the main rationale of the highly formal and mathematical approach to such things. The downside is when you impose 'precision' on language that was never intended to be precise. |
| 18744 | Models are sets with functions and relations, and truth built up from the components [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| Full Idea: A (logical) model is a set with functions and relations defined on it that specify the denotation of the non-logical vocabulary. A series of recursive clauses explicate how truth values of complex sentences are compositionally determined from the parts. | |
| From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 3) | |
| A reaction: See the ideas on 'Functions in logic' and 'Relations in logic' (in the alphabetical list) to expand this important idea. |
| 18740 | If 'exist' doesn't express a property, we can hardly ask for its essence [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| Full Idea: If there is indeed no property of existence that is expressed by the word 'exist', then it makes no sense to ask for its essence. | |
| From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 2) | |
| A reaction: As far as I can tell, this was exactly Aristotle's conclusion, so he skirted round the question of 'being qua being', and focused on the nature of objects instead. Grand continental talk of 'Being' doesn't sound very interesting. |
| 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) | |
| A reaction: It requires robust truth, but not correspondence (which is too strict, and too imprecise). Not sure about bivalence, which seems an unwarranted imposition. The other two seem fine, to me. |
| 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'. |
| 18745 | A Tarskian model can be seen as a possible state of affairs [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| Full Idea: A Tarskian model can in a sense be seen as a model of a possible state of affairs. | |
| From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 3) | |
| A reaction: I include this remark to show how possible worlds semantics built on the arrival of model theory. |
| 18747 | The 'spheres model' was added to possible worlds, to cope with counterfactuals [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| Full Idea: The notion of a possible worlds model was extended (resulting in the concept of a 'spheres model') in order to obtain a satisfactory logical treatment of counterfactual conditional sentences. | |
| From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 4) | |
| A reaction: Thus we add 'centred' worlds, and an 'actual' world, to the loose original model. It is important to remember when we discuss 'close' worlds that we are then committed to these presuppositions. |
| 18748 | Epistemic logic introduced impossible worlds [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| Full Idea: The idea of 'impossible worlds' was introduced into epistemic logic. | |
| From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 4) | |
| A reaction: Nathan Salmon seems interested in their role in metaphysics (presumably in relation to Meinongian impossible objects, like circular squares, which must necessarily be circular). |
| 18746 | Possible worlds models contain sets of possible worlds; this is a large metaphysical commitment [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| Full Idea: Each possible worlds model contains a set of possible worlds. For this reason, possible worlds semantics is often charged with smuggling in heavy metaphysical commitments. | |
| From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 3) | |
| A reaction: To a beginner it looks very odd that you should try to explain possibility by constructing a model of it in terms of 'possible' worlds. |
| 18750 | Using possible worlds for knowledge and morality may be a step too far [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| Full Idea: When the possible worlds semantics were further extended to model notions of knowledge and of moral obligation, the application was beginning to look distinctly forced and artificial. | |
| From: Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R (Mathematical Methods in Philosophy [2014], 5) | |
| A reaction: They accept lots of successes in modelling necessity and time. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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! |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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? |
| 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' |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 5319 | Avoid punishment, then get rewards, avoid rejection, avoid guilt, accept contracts, follow conscience [Kohlberg, by Wilson,EO] |
| Full Idea: Kohlberg's six stages of ethical development are: 1) avoid punishment, 2) obtain rewards, 3) avoid rejection, 4) avoid censure and guilt, 5) recognise contracts, 6) individual conscience. | |
| From: report of Lawrence Kohlberg (works [1969]) by Edmund O. Wilson - On Human Nature p.166 | |
| A reaction: This doesn't throw much light on philosophical problems, but the order of the six stages is interesting. Beware of oversimplification, because a situation can put pressure on any one of these six aspects of morality. |
| 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) |