Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'God and Human Attributes', 'There are no ordinary things' and 'Assertion'

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

---

5 ideas

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / d. Vagueness as linguistic

9052	Vague predicates lack application; there are no borderline cases; vague F is not F [Unger, by Keefe/Smith]
	Full Idea: In a slogan, Unger's thesis is that all vague predicates lack application ('nihilism', says Williamson). Classical logic can be retained in its entirety. There are no borderline cases: for vague F, everything is not F; nothing is either F or borderline F.
	From: report of Peter Unger (There are no ordinary things [1979]) by R Keefe / P Smith - Intro: Theories of Vagueness §1
	A reaction: Vague F could be translated as 'I'm quite tempted to apply F', in which case Unger is right. This would go with Russell's view. Logic and reason need precise concepts. The only strategy with vagueness is to reason hypothetically.

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Simples

16070	There are no objects with proper parts; there are only mereological simples [Unger, by Wasserman]
	Full Idea: Eliminativism is often associated with Unger, who defends 'mereological nihilism', that there are no composite objects (objects with proper parts); there are only mereological simples (with no proper parts). The nihilist denies statues and ships.
	From: report of Peter Unger (There are no ordinary things [1979]) by Ryan Wasserman - Material Constitution 4
	A reaction: The puzzle here is that he has a very clear notion of identity for the simples, but somehow bars combinations from having identity. So identity is simplicity? 'Complex identity' doesn't sound like an oxymoron. We're stuck if there are no simples.

19. Language / F. Communication / 2. Assertion

18052	An assertion aims to add to the content of a context [Stalnaker, by Magidor]
	Full Idea: Stalnaker starts with the general thesis that the role of a successful assertion of s is to update the context by adding to it the content of s.
	From: report of Robert C. Stalnaker (Assertion [1978]) by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 5.3.2
	A reaction: This is to be compared with criteria of meaningfulness, such as verificationism, and with Grice's rules of conversational implicature. Presumably if you assert what the context presupposes, you fail to assert, without being meaningless.

19. Language / F. Communication / 5. Pragmatics / b. Implicature

14718	An assertion is an attempt to rule out certain possibilities, narrowing things down for good planning [Stalnaker, by Schroeter]
	Full Idea: Stalnaker's guiding idea is that in making an assertion the speaker is trying to get the audience to rule out certain possibilities. ....If all goes well, further planning will proceed on the basis of a smaller and more accurate range of possibilities.
	From: report of Robert C. Stalnaker (Assertion [1978]) by Laura Schroeter - Two-Dimensional Semantics
	A reaction: This sounds intuitively rather plausible, and is a nice original thought. This is what we pay clever chaps like Stalnaker to come up with. It seems to imply some notion of verisimilitude (qv. under 'truth'), depending on how much narrowing happens.

28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / c. Moral Argument

20713	God must be fit for worship, but worship abandons morally autonomy, but there is no God [Rachels, by Davies,B]
	Full Idea: Rachels argues 1) If any being is God, he must be a fitting object of worship, 2) No being could be a fitting object of worship, since worship requires the abandonment of one's role as an autonomous moral agent, so 3) There cannot be a being who is God.
	From: report of James Rachels (God and Human Attributes [1971], 7 p.334) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 9 'd morality'
	A reaction: Presumably Lionel Messi can be a fitting object of worship without being God. Since the problem is with being worshipful, rather than with being God, should I infer that Messi doesn't exist?