|
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.
|
|
22132
|
Species and genera are individual concepts which naturally signify many individuals [William of Ockham]
|
|
Full Idea:
In his mature nominalism, species and genera are identified with certain mental qualities called concepts or intentions of the mind. Ontologically they are individuals too, like everthing else, ...but they naturally signify many different individuals.
|
|
From:
William of Ockham (works [1335]), quoted by Claude Panaccio - William of Ockham p.1056
|
|
A reaction:
'Naturally' is the key word, because the concepts are not fictions, but natural responses to encountering individuals in the world. I am an Ockhamist.
|
|
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.
|
|
19381
|
The past has ceased to exist, and the future does not yet exist, so time does not exist [William of Ockham]
|
|
Full Idea:
Time is composed of non-entities, because it is composed of the past which does not exist now, although it did exist, and of the future, which does not yet exist; therefore time does not exist.
|
|
From:
William of Ockham (works [1335], 6:496), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 7 'Nominalist'
|
|
A reaction:
I've a lot of sympathy with this! I favour Presentism, so the past is gone and the future is yet to arrive. But we have no coherent concept of a present moment of any duration to contain reality. We are just completely bogglificated by it all.
|