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All the ideas for 'Metaphysics: the logical approach', 'Principia Mathematica' and 'Wittgenstein'

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53 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 1. Nature of Metaphysics
Metaphysics focuses on Platonism, essentialism, materialism and anti-realism [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: In contemporary metaphysics the major areas of discussion are Platonism, essentialism, materialism and anti-realism.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], After)
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 5. Linguistic Analysis
There are the 'is' of predication (a function), the 'is' of identity (equals), and the 'is' of existence (quantifier) [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: At least since Russell, one has routinely distinguished between the 'is' of predication ('Socrates is wise', Fx), the 'is' of identity ('Morning Star is Evening Star', =), and the 'is' of existence ('the cat is under the bed', Ex).
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 7)
     A reaction: This seems horribly nitpicking to many people, but I love it - because it is just true, and it is a truth right at the basis of the confusions in our talk. Analytic philosophy forever! [P.S. 'Tiddles is a cat' - the 'is' membership]
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 7. Limitations of Analysis
Analytical philosophy analyses separate concepts successfully, but lacks a synoptic vision of the results [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: Analytical philosophy excels in the piecemeal analysis of causation, perception, knowledge and so on, but there is a striking poverty of any synoptic vision of these independent studies.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.22)
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 1. Aims of Science
Presumably the statements of science are true, but should they be taken literally or not? [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: As our bible, the Book of Science is presumed to contain only true sentences, but it is less clear how they are to be construed, which literally and which non-literally.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.13)
4. Formal Logic / B. Propositional Logic PL / 2. Tools of Propositional Logic / e. Axioms of PL
The best known axiomatization of PL is Whitehead/Russell, with four axioms and two rules [Russell/Whitehead, by Hughes/Cresswell]
     Full Idea: The best known axiomatization of PL is Whitehead/Russell. There are four axioms: (p∨p)→p, q→(p∨q), (p→q)→(q∨p), and (q→r)→((p∨q)→(p∨r)), plus Substitution and Modus Ponens rules.
     From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by GE Hughes/M Cresswell - An Introduction to Modal Logic Ch.1
4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 1. Set Theory
Set theory attempts to reduce the 'is' of predication to mathematics [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: Set theory offers the promise of a complete mathematization of the 'is' of predication.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.13)
The set of Greeks is included in the set of men, but isn't a member of it [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: Set inclusion is sharply distinguished from set membership (as the set of Greeks is found to be included in, but not a member of, the set of men).
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.13)
4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 4. Axioms for Sets / a. Axioms for sets
The standard Z-F Intuition version of set theory has about ten agreed axioms [Benardete,JA, by PG]
     Full Idea: Zermelo proposed seven axioms for set theory, with Fraenkel adding others, to produce the standard Z-F Intuition.
     From: report of José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.17) by PG - Db (ideas)
4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 4. Axioms for Sets / p. Axiom of Reducibility
Russell saw Reducibility as legitimate for reducing classes to logic [Linsky,B on Russell/Whitehead]
     Full Idea: The axiom of Reducibility ...is crucial in the reduction of classes to logic, ...and seems to be a quite legitimate logical notion for Russell.
     From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 6.4
     A reaction: This is an unusual defence of the axiom, which is usually presumed to have been kicked into the long grass by Quine. If one could reduce classes to logic, that would destroy the opposition to logicism in a single neat coup.
4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 8. Critique of Set Theory
Russell denies extensional sets, because the null can't be a collection, and the singleton is just its element [Russell/Whitehead, by Shapiro]
     Full Idea: Russell adduces two reasons against the extensional view of classes, namely the existence of the null class (which cannot very well be a collection), and the unit classes (which would have to be identical with their single elements).
     From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Stewart Shapiro - Structure and Ontology p.459
     A reaction: Gödel believes in the reality of classes. I have great sympathy with Russell, when people start to claim that sets are not just conveniences to help us think about things, but actual abstract entities. Is the singleton of my pencil is on this table?
We regard classes as mere symbolic or linguistic conveniences [Russell/Whitehead]
     Full Idea: Classes, so far as we introduce them, are merely symbolic or linguistic conveniences, not genuine objects.
     From: B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.72), quoted by Penelope Maddy - Naturalism in Mathematics III.2
5. Theory of Logic / B. Logical Consequence / 7. Strict Implication
Lewis's 'strict implication' preserved Russell's confusion of 'if...then' with implication [Quine on Russell/Whitehead]
     Full Idea: Russell call 'if...then' implication, when the material conditional is a much better account; C.I.Lewis (in founding modern modal logic) preserved Russell's confusion by creating 'strict implication', and called that implication.
     From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Willard Quine - Reply to Professor Marcus p.177
     A reaction: [A compession of Quine's paragraph]. All of this assumes that logicians can give an accurate account of what if...then means, when ordinary usage is broad and vague. Strict implication seems to drain all the normal meaning out of 'if...then'.
Russell's implication means that random sentences imply one another [Lewis,CI on Russell/Whitehead]
     Full Idea: In Mr Russell's idea of implication, if twenty random sentences from a newspaper were put in a hat, and two of them drawn at random, one will certainly imply the other, and it is an even bet the implication will be mutual.
     From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by C.I. Lewis - A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori p.366
     A reaction: This sort of lament leads modern logicians to suggest 'relevance' as an important criterion. It certainly seems odd that so-called 'classical logic' should contain a principle so at variance with everyday reasoning.
5. Theory of Logic / C. Ontology of Logic / 1. Ontology of Logic
Russell unusually saw logic as 'interpreted' (though very general, and neutral) [Russell/Whitehead, by Linsky,B]
     Full Idea: Russell did not view logic as an uninterpreted calculus awaiting interpretations [the modern view]. Rather, logic is a single 'interpreted' body of a priori truths, of propositions rather than sentence forms - but maximally general and topic neutral.
     From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 1
     A reaction: This is the view which Wittgenstein challenged, saying logic is just conventional. Linsky claims that Russell's logicism is much more plausible, once you understand his view of logic.
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 6. Relations in Logic
In 'Principia' a new abstract theory of relations appeared, and was applied [Russell/Whitehead, by Gödel]
     Full Idea: In 'Principia' a young science was enriched with a new abstract theory of relations, ..and not only Cantor's set theory but also ordinary arithmetic and the theory of measurement are treated from this abstract relational standpoint.
     From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Kurt Gödel - Russell's Mathematical Logic p.448
     A reaction: I presume this is accounting for relations in terms of ordered sets.
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 2. Geometry
Greeks saw the science of proportion as the link between geometry and arithmetic [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: The Greeks saw the independent science of proportion as the link between geometry and arithmetic.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.15)
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / b. Types of number
Negatives, rationals, irrationals and imaginaries are all postulated to solve baffling equations [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: The Negative numbers are postulated (magic word) to solve x=5-8, Rationals postulated to solve 2x=3, Irrationals for x-squared=2, and Imaginaries for x-squared=-1. (…and Zero for x=5-5) …and x/0 remains eternally open.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.14)
Natural numbers are seen in terms of either their ordinality (Peano), or cardinality (set theory) [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: One approaches the natural numbers in terms of either their ordinality (Peano), or cardinality (set theory).
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.17)
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / i. Reals from cuts
A real number is the class of rationals less than the number [Russell/Whitehead, by Shapiro]
     Full Idea: For Russell the real number 2 is the class of rationals less than 2 (i.e. 2/1). ...Notice that on this definition, real numbers are classes of rational numbers.
     From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Stewart Shapiro - Thinking About Mathematics 5.2
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 5. Definitions of Number / a. Defining numbers
Russell takes numbers to be classes, but then reduces the classes to numerical quantifiers [Russell/Whitehead, by Bostock]
     Full Idea: Although Russell takes numbers to be certain classes, his 'no-class' theory then eliminates all mention of classes in favour of the 'propositional functions' that define them; and in the case of the numbers these just are the numerical quantifiers.
     From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by David Bostock - Philosophy of Mathematics 9.B.4
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 6. Logicism / a. Early logicism
'Principia' lacks a precise statement of the syntax [Gödel on Russell/Whitehead]
     Full Idea: What is missing, above all, in 'Principia', is a precise statement of the syntax of the formalism.
     From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Kurt Gödel - Russell's Mathematical Logic p.448
Russell and Whitehead took arithmetic to be higher-order logic [Russell/Whitehead, by Hodes]
     Full Idea: Russell and Whitehead took arithmetic to be higher-order logic, ..and came close to identifying numbers with numerical quantifiers.
     From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Harold Hodes - Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic p.148
     A reaction: The point here is 'higher-order'.
Russell and Whitehead were not realists, but embraced nearly all of maths in logic [Russell/Whitehead, by Friend]
     Full Idea: Unlike Frege, Russell and Whitehead were not realists about mathematical objects, and whereas Frege thought that only arithmetic and analysis are branches of logic, they think the vast majority of mathematics (including geometry) is essentially logical.
     From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 3.1
     A reaction: If, in essence, Descartes reduced geometry to algebra (by inventing co-ordinates), then geometry ought to be included. It is characteristic of Russell's hubris to want to embrace everything.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 6. Logicism / b. Type theory
The ramified theory of types used propositional functions, and covered bound variables [Russell/Whitehead, by George/Velleman]
     Full Idea: Russell and Whitehead's ramified theory of types worked not with sets, but with propositional functions (similar to Frege's concepts), with a more restrictive assignment of variables, insisting that bound, as well as free, variables be of lower type.
     From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by A.George / D.J.Velleman - Philosophies of Mathematics Ch.3
     A reaction: I don't fully understand this (and no one seems much interested any more), but I think variables are a key notion, and there is something interesting going on here. I am intrigued by ordinary language which behaves like variables.
The Russell/Whitehead type theory was limited, and was not really logic [Friend on Russell/Whitehead]
     Full Idea: The Russell/Whitehead type theory reduces mathematics to a consistent founding discipline, but is criticised for not really being logic. They could not prove the existence of infinite sets, and introduced a non-logical 'axiom of reducibility'.
     From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 3.6
     A reaction: To have reduced most of mathematics to a founding discipline sounds like quite an achievement, and its failure to be based in pure logic doesn't sound too bad. However, it seems to reduce some maths to just other maths.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 6. Logicism / d. Logicism critique
In 'Principia Mathematica', logic is exceeded in the axioms of infinity and reducibility, and in the domains [Bernays on Russell/Whitehead]
     Full Idea: In the system of 'Principia Mathematica', it is not only the axioms of infinity and reducibility which go beyond pure logic, but also the initial conception of a universal domain of individuals and of a domain of predicates.
     From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.267) by Paul Bernays - On Platonism in Mathematics p.267
     A reaction: This sort of criticism seems to be the real collapse of the logicist programme, rather than Russell's paradox, or Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems. It just became impossible to stick strictly to logic in the reduction of arithmetic.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 10. Constructivism / a. Constructivism
Russell and Whitehead consider the paradoxes to indicate that we create mathematical reality [Russell/Whitehead, by Friend]
     Full Idea: Russell and Whitehead are particularly careful to avoid paradox, and consider the paradoxes to indicate that we create mathematical reality.
     From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 3.1
     A reaction: This strikes me as quite a good argument. It is certainly counterintuitive that reality, and abstractions from reality, would contain contradictions. The realist view would be that we have paradoxes because we have misdescribed the facts.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 10. Constructivism / d. Predicativism
To avoid vicious circularity Russell produced ramified type theory, but Ramsey simplified it [Russell/Whitehead, by Shapiro]
     Full Idea: Russell insisted on the vicious circle principle, and thus rejected impredicative definitions, which resulted in an unwieldy ramified type theory, with the ad hoc axiom of reducibility. Ramsey's simpler theory was impredicative and avoided the axiom.
     From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Stewart Shapiro - Thinking About Mathematics 5.2
     A reaction: Nowadays the theory of types seems to have been given up, possibly because it has no real attraction if it lacks the strict character which Russell aspired to.
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / a. Nature of events
If slowness is a property of walking rather than the walker, we must allow that events exist [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: Once we conceded that Tom can walk slowly or quickly, and that the slowness and quickness is a property of the walking and not of Tom, we can hardly refrain from quantifying over events (such as 'a walking') in our ontology.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 6)
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 8. Stuff / a. Pure stuff
Early pre-Socratics had a mass-noun ontology, which was replaced by count-nouns [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: With their 'mass-noun' ontologies, the early pre-Socratics were blind to plurality ...but the count-noun ontologists came to dominate the field forever after.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 6)
     A reaction: The mass-nouns are such things as earth, air, fire and water. This is a very interesting historical observation (cited by Laycock). Our obsession with identity seems tied to formal logic. There is a whole other worldview waiting out there.
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 6. Platonic Forms / d. Forms critiques
If there is no causal interaction with transcendent Platonic objects, how can you learn about them? [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: How can you learn of the existence of transcendent Platonic objects if there is no causal interaction with them?
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.22)
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 5. Composition of an Object
Why should packed-together particles be a thing (Mt Everest), but not scattered ones? [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: Why suppose these particles packed together constitute a macro-entity (namely, Mt Everest), whereas those, of equal number, scattered around, fail to add up to anything beyond themselves?
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 2)
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 6. Essence as Unifier
Could a horse lose the essential property of being a horse, and yet continue to exist? [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: Is being a horse an essential property of a horse? Can we so much as conceive the abstract possibility of a horse's ceasing to be a horse even while continuing to exist?
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.20)
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 2. Objects that Change
If a soldier continues to exist after serving as a soldier, does the wind cease to exist after it ceases to blow? [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: If a soldier need not cease to exist merely because he ceases to be a soldier, there is room to doubt that the wind ceases to exist when it ceases to be a wind.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 6)
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 8. Continuity of Rivers
One can step into the same river twice, but not into the same water [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: One can step into the same river twice, but one must not expect to step into the same water.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.21)
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 5. Self-Identity
Absolutists might accept that to exist is relative, but relative to what? How about relative to itself? [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: With the thesis that to be as such is to be relative, the absolutist may be found to concur, but the issue turns on what it might be that a thing is supposed to be relative to. Why not itself?
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 8)
Maybe self-identity isn't existence, if Pegasus can be self-identical but non-existent [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: 'Existence' can't be glossed as self-identical (critics say) because Pegasus, even while being self-identical, fails to exist.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.11)
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 7. Indiscernible Objects
An object is identical with itself, and no different indiscernible object can share that [Russell/Whitehead, by Adams,RM]
     Full Idea: Trivially, the Identity of Indiscernibles says that two individuals, Castor and Pollux, cannot have all properties in common. For Castor must have the properties of being identical with Castor and not being identical with Pollux, which Pollux can't share.
     From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], I p.57) by Robert Merrihew Adams - Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity 2
     A reaction: I suspect that either the property of being identical with itself is quite vacuous, or it is parasytic on primitive identity, or it is the criterion which is actually used to define identity. Either way, I don't find this claim very illuminating.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 1. Nature of the A Priori
The clearest a priori knowledge is proving non-existence through contradiction [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: One proves non-existence (e.g. of round squares) by using logic to derive a contradiction from the concept; it is precisely here, in such proofs, that we find the clearest example of a priori knowledge.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 4)
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 5. A Priori Synthetic
If we know truths about prime numbers, we seem to have synthetic a priori knowledge of Platonic objects [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: Assume that we know to be true propositions of the form 'There are exactly x prime numbers between y and z', and synthetic a priori truths about Platonic objects are delivered to us on a silver platter.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.18)
Logical positivism amounts to no more than 'there is no synthetic a priori' [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: Logical positivism has been concisely summarised as 'there is no synthetic a priori'.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.18)
Assertions about existence beyond experience can only be a priori synthetic [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: No one thinks that the proposition that something exists that transcends all possible experience harbours a logical inconsistency. Its denial cannot therefore be an analytic proposition, so it must be synthetic, though only knowable on a priori grounds.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.18)
Appeals to intuition seem to imply synthetic a priori knowledge [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: Appeals to intuition - no matter how informal - can hardly fail to smack of the synthetic a priori.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.18)
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 2. Intuition
Russell showed, through the paradoxes, that our basic logical intuitions are self-contradictory [Russell/Whitehead, by Gödel]
     Full Idea: By analyzing the paradoxes to which Cantor's set theory had led, ..Russell brought to light the amazing fact that our logical intuitions (concerning such notions as truth, concept, being, class) are self-contradictory.
     From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Kurt Gödel - Russell's Mathematical Logic p.452
     A reaction: The main intuition that failed was, I take it, that every concept has an extension, that is, there are always objects which will or could fall under the concept.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / d. Other minds by analogy
The argument from analogy is not a strong inference, since the other being might be an actor or a robot [Grayling]
     Full Idea: The argument from analogy is a weak one, because it does not logically guarantee the inference I draw to the other's inner states, for he might be dissimulating or acting, or may even be a cleverly contrived robot which feels nothing.
     From: A.C. Grayling (Wittgenstein [1988], Ch.3)
     A reaction: This gives the impression that for an argument to be strong it must logically guarantee its inference. It strikes me that analogy is a good reason for believing in other minds, but that is because I am looking for the best explanation, not logical proof.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 6. Judgement / a. Nature of Judgement
The multiple relations theory says assertions about propositions are about their ingredients [Russell/Whitehead, by Linsky,B]
     Full Idea: The multiple relations theory of judgement proposes that assertions about propositions are dependent upon genuine facts involving belief and other attitude relations, subjects of those attitudes, and the constituents of the belief.
     From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 7.2
     A reaction: This seems to require a commitment to universals (especially relations) with which we can be directly acquainted. I prefer propositions, but as mental entities, not platonic entities.
A judgement is a complex entity, of mind and various objects [Russell/Whitehead]
     Full Idea: When a judgement occurs, there is a certain complex entity, composed of the mind and the various objects of the judgement.
     From: B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.44)
     A reaction: This is Russell's multiple-relation theory of judgement, which replaced his earlier belief in unified propositions (now 'false abstractions'). He seems to have accepted Locke's view, that the act of judgement produces the unity.
The meaning of 'Socrates is human' is completed by a judgement [Russell/Whitehead]
     Full Idea: When I judge 'Socrates is human', the meaning is completed by the act of judging.
     From: B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.44), quoted by Michael Morris - Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus
     A reaction: Morris says this is Russell's multiple-relations theory of judgement. The theory accompanies the rejection of the concept of the unified proposition. When I hear 'Socrates had a mole on his shoulder' I get the meaning without judging.
The multiple relation theory of judgement couldn't explain the unity of sentences [Morris,M on Russell/Whitehead]
     Full Idea: When Russell moved to his multiple relation theory of judgement …he then faced difficulties making sense of the unity of sentences.
     From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.44) by Michael Morris - Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus 3A
     A reaction: Roughly, he seems committed to saying that there is only unity if you think there is unity; there is no unity in a sentence prior to the act of judgement.
Only the act of judging completes the meaning of a statement [Russell/Whitehead]
     Full Idea: When I judge 'Socrates is human', the meaning is completed by the act of judging, and we no longer have an incomplete symbol.
     From: B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.44), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap
     A reaction: Personally I would have thought that you needed to know the meaning properly before you could make the judgement, but then he is Bertrand Russell and I'm not.
19. Language / D. Propositions / 3. Concrete Propositions
Propositions as objects of judgement don't exist, because we judge several objects, not one [Russell/Whitehead]
     Full Idea: A 'proposition', in the sense in which a proposition is supposed to be the object of a judgement, is a false abstraction, because a judgement has several objects, not one.
     From: B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.44), quoted by Michael Morris - Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus 2E
     A reaction: This is the rejection of the 'Russellian' theory of propositions, in favour of his multiple-relations theory of judgement. But why don't the related objects add up to a proposition about a state of affairs?
27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 3. Points in Space
Rationalists see points as fundamental, but empiricists prefer regions [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: Rationalists have been happier with an ontology of points, and empiricists with an ontology of regions.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.16)
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / a. Ontological Proof
In the ontological argument a full understanding of the concept of God implies a contradiction in 'There is no God' [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: In the ontological argument a deep enough understanding of the very concept of God allows one to derive by logic a contradiction from the statement 'There is no God'.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 4)