Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Letters to Edward Stillingfleet', 'Intro to I: Classical Logic' and 'Frege on Knowing the Third Realm'

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4 ideas

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

13479	Given that thinking aims at truth, logic gives universal rules for how to do it [Burge]
	Full Idea: The laws of logic - which are constituted by atemporal thoughts and atemporal subject matter - provide universal prescriptions of how one ought to think, given that one's thinking has the function of attaining truth.
	From: Tyler Burge (Frege on Knowing the Third Realm [1992], p.316)
	A reaction: Burge is giving, and endorsing, Frege's view. Burge is fighting a rearguard action, when logical systems keep proliferating. See Idea 10282. I sympathise with the dream of Burge and Frege.

5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 6. Classical Logic

9463	Classical logic is bivalent, has excluded middle, and only quantifies over existent objects [Jacquette]
	Full Idea: Classical logic (of Whitehead, Russell, Gödel, Church) is a two-valued system of propositional and predicate logic, in which all propositions are exclusively true or false, and quantification and predication are over existent objects only.
	From: Dale Jacquette (Intro to I: Classical Logic [2002], p.9)
	A reaction: All of these get challenged at some point, though the existence requirement is the one I find dubious.

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences

15990	Every individual thing which exists has an essence, which is its internal constitution [Locke]
	Full Idea: I take essences to be in everything that internal constitution or frame for the modification of substance, which God in his wisdom gives to every particular creature, when he gives it a being; and such essences I grant there are in all things that exist.
	From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 1), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
	A reaction: This is the clearest statement I have found of Locke's commitment to essences, for all his doubts about whether we can know such things. Alexander says (ch.13) Locke was reacting against scholastic essence, as pertaining to species.

11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 1. Certainty

15994	If it is knowledge, it is certain; if it isn't certain, it isn't knowledge [Locke]
	Full Idea: What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty; and what comes short of certainty, I think cannot be knowledge.
	From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 2), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
	A reaction: I much prefer that fallibilist approach offered by the pragmatists. Knowledge is well-supported belief which seems (and is agreed) to be true, but there is a small shadow of doubt hanging over all of it.