Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Logic of Boundaryless Concepts', 'Attack Upon Christendom' and 'Meaning and Necessity'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

4 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 3. Value of Logic

9390	Logic guides thinking, but it isn't a substitute for it [Rumfitt]
	Full Idea: Logic is part of a normative theory of thinking, not a substitute for thinking.
	From: Ian Rumfitt (The Logic of Boundaryless Concepts [2007], p.13)
	A reaction: There is some sort of logicians' dream, going back to Leibniz, of a reasoning engine, which accepts propositions and outputs inferences. I agree with this idea. People who excel at logic are often, it seems to me, modest at philosophy.

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / e. Vague objects

9389	Vague membership of sets is possible if the set is defined by its concept, not its members [Rumfitt]
	Full Idea: Vagueness in respect of membership is consistency with determinacy of the set's identity, so long as a set's identity is taken to consist, not in its having such-and-such members, but in its being the extension of a concept.
	From: Ian Rumfitt (The Logic of Boundaryless Concepts [2007], p.5)
	A reaction: I find this view of sets much more appealing than the one that identifies a set with its members. The empty set is less of a problem, as well as non-existents. Logicians prefer the extensional view because it is tidy.

19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 8. Possible Worlds Semantics

11968	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.

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 5. Democracy / d. Representative democracy

16009	When we seek our own 'freedom' we are just trying to avoid responsibility [Kierkegaard]
	Full Idea: In all our own 'freedom' we actually seek one thing: to be able to live without responsibility.
	From: Søren Kierkegaard (Attack Upon Christendom [1855], p.290)
	A reaction: That's the plan when I win the lottery. [SY]