16 ideas
| 7306 | If the only property of a name was its reference, we couldn't explain bearerless names [Miller,A] |
| Full Idea: If having a reference were the only semantic property in terms of which we could explain the functioning of names, we would be in trouble with respect to names that simply have no bearer. | |
| From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 2.1.1) | |
| A reaction: (Miller is discussing Frege) 'Odysseus' is given as an example. Instead of switching to a bundle of descriptions, we could say that we just imagine an object which is stamped with the name. Names always try to refer. |
| 10369 | How fine-grained Kim's events are depends on how finely properties are individuated [Kim, by Schaffer,J] |
| Full Idea: How fine-grained Kim's events are depends on how finely properties are individuated. | |
| From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 1.2 | |
| A reaction: I don't actually buy the idea that an event could just be an 'exemplification'. Change seems to be required, and processes, or something like them, must be mentioned. Degrees of fine-graining sound good, though, for processes too. |
| 8976 | If events are ordered triples of items, such things seem to be sets, and hence abstract [Simons on Kim] |
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Full Idea:
If Kim's events are just the ordered triple of |
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| From: comment on Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 2.1 | |
| A reaction: You might reply that the object, and maybe the attribute, are concrete, and the time is natural, but the combination really is an abstraction, even though it is located (like the equator). Where is the set of my books located? |
| 8975 | Events cannot be merely ordered triples, but must specify the link between the elements [Kim, by Simons] |
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Full Idea:
Kim's events cannot just be the ordered triple of |
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| From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 2.1 | |
| A reaction: Why should they even be in that particular order? This requirement rather messes up Kim's plan for a very streamlined, Ockhamised ontology. Circles have symmetry at all times. Is 'near Trafalgar Square' a property? |
| 8974 | Events are composed of an object with an attribute at a time [Kim, by Simons] |
| Full Idea: Kim's events are exemplifications by an object of an attribute at a time...It does not make events basic entities, as the three constituents are more basic, but it gives identity conditions (two events are the same if object, attribute and time the same). | |
| From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 2.1 | |
| A reaction: [Aristotle is said to be behind this] I am more sympathetic to this view than the claim that events are primitive. If a pebble is ellipsoid for a million years, is that an event? I think the concept of a 'process' is the most fruitful one to investigate. |
| 8977 | Since properties like self-identity and being 2+2=4 are timeless, Kim must restrict his properties [Simons on Kim] |
| Full Idea: Since some tautologously universal properties such as self-identity or being such that 2+2=4 apply to all things at all times, that is stretching Kim's events too far. Candidate properties need to be realistically restricted, and it is unclear how. | |
| From: comment on Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 2.1 | |
| A reaction: You could deploy Schoemaker's concept of natural properties in terms of the source of causal powers, but the problem would be that you were probably hoping to then use Kim's events to define causation. Answer: treat causation as the primitive. |
| 8980 | Kim's theory results in too many events [Simons on Kim] |
| Full Idea: The criticism most frequently levelled against Kim's theory is that it results in an unacceptable plurality of finely differentiated events, because of the requirement for identity of the constituent property. | |
| From: comment on Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 4.4 | |
| A reaction: This may mean that the Battle of Waterloo was several trillion events, which seems daft to the historian, but it doesn't to the physicist. A cannon firing is indeed an accumulation of lots of little events. |
| 19261 | Understanding is seeing coherent relationships in the relevant information [Kvanvig] |
| Full Idea: What is distinctive about understanding (after truth is satisfied) is the internal seeing or appreciating of explanatory and other coherence-inducing relationships in a body of information that is crucial for understanding. | |
| From: Jonathan Kvanvig (The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding [2003], 198), quoted by Anand Vaidya - Understanding and Essence 'Distinction' | |
| A reaction: For me this ticks exactly the right boxes. Coherent explanations are what we want. The hardest part is the ensure their truth. Kvanvig claims this is internal, so we can understand even if, Gettier-style, our external connections are lucky. |
| 7322 | Constitutive scepticism is about facts, and epistemological scepticism about our ability to know them [Miller,A] |
| Full Idea: We should distinguish 'constitutive scepticism' (about the existence of certain sorts of facts) from the traditional 'epistemological scepticism' (which concedes that the sort of fact in question exists, but questions our right to claim knowledge of it). | |
| From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 4.7) | |
| A reaction: I would be inclined to call the first type 'ontological scepticism'. Miller is discussing Quine's scepticism about meaning. Atheists fall into the first group, and agnostics into the second. An important, and nicely simple, distinction. |
| 7325 | Dispositions say what we will do, not what we ought to do, so can't explain normativity [Miller,A] |
| Full Idea: Dispositional facts are facts about what we will do, not about what we ought to do, and as such cannot capture the normativity of meaning. | |
| From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: Miller is discussing language, but this raises a nice question for all behaviourist accounts of mental events. Perhaps there is a disposition to behave in a guilty way if you do something you think you shouldn't do. (Er, isn't 'guilt' a mental event?) |
| 7324 | Explain meaning by propositional attitudes, or vice versa, or together? [Miller,A] |
| Full Idea: Grice wants to explain linguistic meaning in terms of the content of propositional attitudes, Dummett has championed the view that propositional attitudes must be explained by linguistic meaning, while Davidson says they must be explained together. | |
| From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: A useful map. My intuition says propositional attitudes come first, for evolutionary reasons. We are animals first, and speakers second. Thought precedes language. A highly social animal flourishes if it can communicate. |
| 7323 | If truth is deflationary, sentence truth-conditions just need good declarative syntax [Miller,A] |
| Full Idea: On a deflationary concept of truth, for a sentence to possess truth-conditions it is sufficient that it be disciplined by norms of correct usage, and that it possess the syntax distinctive of declarative sentences. | |
| From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: Idea 6337 gives the basic deflationary claim. He mentions Boghossian as source of this point. So much the worse for the deflationary concept of truth, say I. What are the truth-conditions of "Truth rotates"? |
| 7315 | 'Jones is a married bachelor' does not have the logical form of a contradiction [Miller,A] |
| Full Idea: The syntactic notion of contradiction (p and not-p) is well understood, but is no help in explaining analyticity, since "Jones is a married bachelor" is not of that syntactic form. | |
| From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: This point is based on Quine. This means we cannot define analytic sentences as those whose denial is a contradiction, even though that seems to be true of them. Both the Kantian and the modern logical versions of analyticity are in trouble. |
| 7328 | The principle of charity is holistic, saying we must hold most of someone's system of beliefs to be true [Miller,A] |
| Full Idea: Properly construed, the principle of charity is a holistic constraint applying, not to individual beliefs, but rather to systems of belief: we must interpret a speaker so that most of the beliefs in his system are, by our lights, true. | |
| From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 8.7) | |
| A reaction: This is a lot more plausible than applying the principle to individual sentences, particularly if you are in the company of habitual ironists or constitutional liars. |
| 7329 | Maybe we should interpret speakers as intelligible, rather than speaking truth [Miller,A] |
| Full Idea: A more sophisticated version of the principle of charity holds that we interpret speakers not as necessarily having beliefs that are true by our own lights, but as having beliefs that are intelligible by our own lights. | |
| From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 8.7) | |
| A reaction: Consider Idea 4161 in the light of this. Presumably this means that we treat them as having a coherent set of beliefs, even if they seem to us to fail to correspond to reality. I prefer the stronger version that there has to be some proper truth in there. |
| 7333 | The Frege-Geach problem is that I can discuss the wrongness of murder without disapproval [Miller,A] |
| Full Idea: The main problem faced by non-cognitivism is known as the Frege-Geach problem: if I say "If murder is wrong, then getting your brother to murder people is wrong", that is an unasserted context, and I don't necessarily express disapproval of murder. | |
| From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 9.2) | |
| A reaction: The emotivist or non-cognitivist might mount a defence by saying there is some second-order or deep-buried emotion involved. Could a robot without feelings even understand what humans meant when they said "It is morally wrong"? |