10 ideas
| 10735 | Abstraction from objects won't reveal an operation's being performed 'so many times' [Geach] |
| Full Idea: For an understanding of arithmetic the grasp of an operation's being performed 'so many times' is quite indispensable; and abstraction of a feature from groups of nuts cannot give us this grasp. | |
| From: Peter Geach (Abstraction Reconsidered [1983], p.170) | |
| A reaction: I end up defending the empirical approach to arithmetic because remarks like this are so patently false. Geach seems to think we arrive ready-made in the world, just raring to get on with some counting. He lacks the evolutionary perspective. |
| 13768 | Validity can preserve certainty in mathematics, but conditionals about contingents are another matter [Edgington] |
| Full Idea: If your interest in logic is confined to applications to mathematics or other a priori matters, it is fine for validity to preserve certainty, ..but if you use conditionals when arguing about contingent matters, then great caution will be required. | |
| From: Dorothy Edgington (Conditionals [2001], 17.2.1) |
| 13770 | There are many different conditional mental states, and different conditional speech acts [Edgington] |
| Full Idea: As well as conditional beliefs, there are conditional desires, hopes, fears etc. As well as conditional statements, there are conditional commands, questions, offers, promises, bets etc. | |
| From: Dorothy Edgington (Conditionals [2001], 17.3.4) |
| 13764 | Are conditionals truth-functional - do the truth values of A and B determine the truth value of 'If A, B'? [Edgington] |
| Full Idea: Are conditionals truth-functional - do the truth values of A and B determine the truth value of 'If A, B'? Are they non-truth-functional, like 'because' or 'before'? Do the values of A and B, in some cases, leave open the value of 'If A,B'? | |
| From: Dorothy Edgington (Conditionals [2001], 17.1) | |
| A reaction: I would say they are not truth-functional, because the 'if' asserts some further dependency relation that goes beyond the truth or falsity of A and B. Logical ifs, causal ifs, psychological ifs... The material conditional ⊃ is truth-functional. |
| 13765 | 'If A,B' must entail ¬(A & ¬B); otherwise we could have A true, B false, and If A,B true, invalidating modus ponens [Edgington] |
| Full Idea: If it were possible to have A true, B false, and If A,B true, it would be unsafe to infer B from A and If A,B: modus ponens would thus be invalid. Hence 'If A,B' must entail ¬(A & ¬B). | |
| From: Dorothy Edgington (Conditionals [2001], 17.1) | |
| A reaction: This is a firm defence of part of the truth-functional view of conditionals, and seems unassailable. The other parts of the truth table are open to question, though, if A is false, or they are both true. |
| 10732 | If concepts are just recognitional, then general judgements would be impossible [Geach] |
| Full Idea: If concepts were nothing but recognitional capacities, then it is unintelligible that I can judge that cats eat mice when neither of them are present. | |
| From: Peter Geach (Abstraction Reconsidered [1983], p.164) | |
| A reaction: Having observed the importance of recognition for the abstractionist (Idea 10731), he then seems to assume that there is nothing more to their concepts. Geach fails to grasp levels of abstraction, and cross-reference, and generalisation. |
| 10731 | For abstractionists, concepts are capacities to recognise recurrent features of the world [Geach] |
| Full Idea: For abstractionists, concepts are essentially capacities for recognizing recurrent features of the world. | |
| From: Peter Geach (Abstraction Reconsidered [1983], p.163) | |
| A reaction: Recognition certainly strikes me as central to thought (and revelatory of memory, since we continually recognise what we cannot actually recall). Geach dislikes this view, but I see it as crucial to an evolutionary view of thought. |
| 10733 | The abstractionist cannot explain 'some' and 'not' [Geach] |
| Full Idea: The abstractionist cannot give a logically coherent account of the features that are supposed to be reached by discriminative attention, corresponding to the words 'some' and 'not'. | |
| From: Peter Geach (Abstraction Reconsidered [1983], p.167) | |
| A reaction: I understand 'some' in terms of mereology, because that connects to experience, and 'not' I take to derive more from psychological experience than from the physical world, building on thwarted expectation, which even animals experience. |
| 10734 | Only a judgement can distinguish 'striking' from 'being struck' [Geach] |
| Full Idea: To understand the verb 'to strike' we must see that 'striking' and 'being struck' are different, but necessarily go together in event and thought; only in the context of a judgment can they be distinguished, when we think of both together. | |
| From: Peter Geach (Abstraction Reconsidered [1983], p.168) | |
| A reaction: Geach seems to have a strange notion that judgements are pure events which can precede all experience, and are the only ways we can come to understand experience. He needs to start from animals (or 'brutes', as he still calls them!). |
| 7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
| Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
| From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
| A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate'). |