Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Two Problems of Epistemology', 'Substitutional Classes and Relations' and 'On the Reality of Accidents'

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6 ideas

2. Reason / D. Definition / 7. Contextual Definition

21560	Any linguistic expression may lack meaning when taken out of context [Russell]
	Full Idea: Any sentence, a single word, or a single component phrase, may often be quite devoid of meaning when separated from its context.
	From: Bertrand Russell (Substitutional Classes and Relations [1906], p.165)
	A reaction: Contextualism is now extremely fashionable, in philosophy of language and in epistemology. Here Russell is looking for a contextual way to define classes [so says Lackey, the editor].

2. Reason / F. Fallacies / 8. Category Mistake / a. Category mistakes

21561	'The number one is bald' or 'the number one is fond of cream cheese' are meaningless [Russell]
	Full Idea: 'The number one is bald' or 'the number one is fond of cream cheese' are, I maintain, not merely silly remarks, but totally devoid of meaning.
	From: Bertrand Russell (Substitutional Classes and Relations [1906], p.166)
	A reaction: He connects this to paradoxes in set theory, such as the assertion that 'the class of human beings is a human being' (which is the fallacy of composition).

4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 4. Axioms for Sets / p. Axiom of Reducibility

18130	Axiom of Reducibility: there is always a function of the lowest possible order in a given level [Russell, by Bostock]
	Full Idea: Russell's Axiom of Reducibility states that to any propositional function of any order in a given level, there corresponds another which is of the lowest possible order in the level. There corresponds what he calls a 'predicative' function of that level.
	From: report of Bertrand Russell (Substitutional Classes and Relations [1906]) by David Bostock - Philosophy of Mathematics 8.2

8. Modes of Existence / A. Relations / 1. Nature of Relations

21562	There is no complexity without relations, so no propositions, and no truth [Russell]
	Full Idea: Relations in intension are of the utmost importance to philosophy and philosophical logic, since they are essential to complexity, and thence to propositions, and thence to the possibility of truth and falsehood.
	From: Bertrand Russell (Substitutional Classes and Relations [1906], p.174)
	A reaction: Should we able to specify the whole of reality, if we have available to us objects, properties and relations? There remains indeterminate 'stuff', when it does not compose objects. There are relations between pure ideas.

8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 4. Concept Nominalism

19382	Abstracta are abbreviated ways of talking; there are just substances, and truths about them [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: I consider abstracta not as real things but as abbreviated ways of talking ...and to that extent I am a nominalist, at least provisionally ...It suffices to posit only substances as real things, and, to assert truths about these.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (On the Reality of Accidents [1688]), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz
	A reaction: I am a modern nominalist, in my hostility to a serious ontological commitment to abstracta. You get into trouble, though, if you say there are only objects or substances. Physics says reality may all be 'fields', or something.... 'Truths' is good.

14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 6. Falsification

18284	Particulars can be verified or falsified, but general statements can only be falsified (conclusively) [Popper]
	Full Idea: Whereas particular reality statements are in principle completely verifiable or falsifiable, things are different for general reality statements: they can indeed be conclusively falsified, they can acquire a negative truth value, but not a positive one.
	From: Karl Popper (Two Problems of Epistemology [1932], p.256), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 18 'Laws'
	A reaction: This sounds like a logician's approach to science, but I prefer to look at coherence, where very little is actually conclusive, and one tinkers with the theory instead.