7 ideas
| 18261 | A simplification which is complete constitutes a definition [Kant] |
| Full Idea: By dissection I can make the concept distinct only by making the marks it contains clear. That is what analysis does. If this analysis is complete ...and in addition there are not so many marks, then it is precise and so constitutes a definition. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Wiener Logik [1795], p.455), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 1 'Conc' | |
| A reaction: I think Aristotle would approve of this. We need to grasp that a philosophical definition is quite different from a lexicographical definition. 'Completeness' may involve quite a lot. |
| 22275 | Logic gives us the necessary rules which show us how we ought to think [Kant] |
| Full Idea: In logic the question is not one of contingent but of necessary rules, not how to think, but how we ought to think. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Wiener Logik [1795], p.16), quoted by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 02 'Trans' | |
| A reaction: Presumably it aspires to the objectivity of a single correct account of how we all ought to think. I'm sympathetic to that, rather than modern cultural relativism about reason. Logic is rooted in nature, not in arbitrary convention. |
| 7771 | We need 'events' to explain adverbs, which are adjectival predicates of events [Davidson, by Lycan] |
| Full Idea: To deal with the truth conditions for some adverbs, Davidson introduced a domain of 'events', and made adverbs into adjectival predicates of events. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (The Logical Form of Action Sentences [1967]) by William Lycan - Philosophy of Language Ch.9 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a striking case of a procedure of which I heartily disapprove - deriving you ontology from your semantics. Do all languages have adverbs? |
| 8860 | Language-learning is not good enough evidence for the existence of events [Yablo on Davidson] |
| Full Idea: One needs a better reason for believing in events than the help they provide with language-learning. | |
| From: comment on Donald Davidson (The Logical Form of Action Sentences [1967], §8) by Stephen Yablo - Apriority and Existence §8 | |
| A reaction: I can almost believe in micro-events at the quantum level, but I cannot believe that the Renaissance (made of events within events within events) is an event, even though I may 'quantify over it', and discuss its causes and effects. |
| 15002 | If the best theory of adverbs refers to events, then our ontology should include events [Davidson, by Sider] |
| Full Idea: Davidson argued that the best linguistic theory of adverbial modification assigns truth-conditions quantifying over events; thus we must embrace an ontology of events. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (The Logical Form of Action Sentences [1967]) by Theodore Sider - Writing the Book of the World 07.8 | |
| A reaction: Sider is critical and I agree. This is just the sort of linguistic manoeuvre that gets philosophy a bad name. As Yablo remarks, we have a terrible tendency to want to thingify everything. |
| 18260 | If we knew what we know, we would be astonished [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If we only know what we know ...we would be astonished by the treasures contained in our knowledge. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Wiener Logik [1795], p.843), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 1 'Conc' | |
| A reaction: Nice remark. He doesn't require immediat recall of knowledge. You can't be required to know that you know something. That doesn't imply externalism, though. I believe in securely founded internal knowledge which is hard to recall. |
| 4800 | Natural laws result from eliminative induction, where enumerative induction gives generalisations [Cohen,LJ, by Psillos] |
| Full Idea: Cohen contends that statements that express laws of nature are the products of eliminative induction, where accidentally true generalisations are the products of enumerative induction. | |
| From: report of L. Jonathan Cohen (The Problem of Natural Laws [1980], p.222) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §7.1 | |
| A reaction: The idea is that enumerative induction only offers the support of positive instances, where eliminative induction involves attempts to falsify a range of hypotheses. This still bases laws on observed regularities, rather than essences or mechanisms. |