Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Problem of Empty Names', 'Explanation: the state of play' and 'Assertion'

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6 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / e. Empty names

18946	Unreflectively, we all assume there are nonexistents, and we can refer to them [Reimer]
	Full Idea: As speakers of the language, we unreflectively assume that there are nonexistents, and that reference to them is possible.
	From: Marga Reimer (The Problem of Empty Names [2001], p.499), quoted by Sarah Sawyer - Empty Names 4
	A reaction: Sarah Swoyer quotes this as a good solution to the problem of empty names, and I like it. It introduces a two-tier picture of our understanding of the world, as 'unreflective' and 'reflective', but that seems good. We accept numbers 'unreflectively'.

14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / b. Aims of explanation

12314	Audience-relative explanation, or metaphysical explanation based on information? [Stanford]
	Full Idea: Rather than an 'interest-relative' notion of explanation (Putnam), it can be informational content which makes an explanation, which is an 'audience-invariant' contraint, which is not pragmatic, but mainly epistemological and also partly metaphysical.
	From: Michael Stanford (Explanation: the state of play [1991], p.172)
	A reaction: [compressed summary of Ruben 1990] Examples given are that Rome burning explains Nero fiddling, even if no one ever says so, and learning that George III had porphyria explains his madness.

12313	Explanation is for curiosity, control, understanding, to make meaningful, or to give authority [Stanford]
	Full Idea: There are a number of reasons why we explain: out of sheer curiosity, to increase our control of a situation, to help understanding by simplifying or making familiar, to confer meaning or significance, and to give scientific authority to some statement.
	From: Michael Stanford (Explanation: the state of play [1991], p.172)

14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction

12315	We can explain by showing constitution, as well as showing causes [Stanford]
	Full Idea: The powerful engine of my car can be explained by an examination of each of its parts, but it is not caused by them. They do not cause the engine; they constitute it.
	From: Michael Stanford (Explanation: the state of play [1991], p.174)
	A reaction: [example from Ruben 1990:221] This could be challenged, since there is clearly a causal connection between the constitution and the whole. We distinguish engine parts which contribute to the power from those which do not.

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.