10 ideas
22246 | A train of reasoning must be treated as all happening simultaneously [Recanati] |
Full Idea: For logic purposes, a train of reasoning has to be construed as synchronic. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 5.2) | |
A reaction: If we are looking for a gulf between logic and the real world this is a factor to be considered, along with Nietzsche's observation about necessary simplification. [ref to Kaplan 'Afterthoughts' 1989, 584-5] |
22247 | Indexicality is not just a feature of language; examples show it also occurs in thought [Recanati] |
Full Idea: People once took indexicality to be exclusively a property of language, ....but a series of examples seemed to establish that the thought expressed by uttering an indexical sentence is itself indexical (and is thus 'essential'). | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 6.1) | |
A reaction: Perry's example of not realising it is him leaking the sugar in a supermarket is the best known example. Was this a key moment for realising that philosophy of thought is (pace Dummett) more important than philosophy of language? |
22248 | How can we communicate indexical thoughts to people not in the right context? [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Indexical thoughts create an obvious problem with regard to communication. How can we manage to communicate such thoughts to those who are not in the right context? | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 7.1) | |
A reaction: One answer is that you often cannot communicate them. If I write on a wall 'I am here now', that doesn't tell the next passer-by very much. But 'it's raining here' said in a telephone call works fine - if you know the location of the caller. |
22242 | Mental files are concepts, which are either collections or (better) containers [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Mental files are entries in the mental encyclopedia, that is, concepts. Some, following Grice, say they are information collections, but I think of them as containers. Collections are determined by their elements, but containers have independent identity. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], Pref) | |
A reaction: [compressed] [Grice reference is 'Vacuous Names' (1969)] I agree with Recanati. The point is that you can invoke a file by a label, even when you don't know what the content is. |
22243 | The Frege case of believing a thing is both F and not-F is explained by separate mental files [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Frege's Constraint says if a subject believes an object is both F and not-F (as in 'Frege cases'), then the subject thinks of that object under distinct modes of presentation. Having distinct mental files of the object is sufficient to generate this. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], Pref) | |
A reaction: [compressed] When you look at how many semantic puzzles (notably from Frege and Kripke) are solved by the existence of labelled mental files, the case for them is overwhelming. |
22245 | A linguistic expression refers to what its associated mental file refers to [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Mental files determine the reference of linguistic expressions: an expression refers to what the mental file associated with it refers to (at the time of tokening). | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 5) | |
A reaction: Invites the question of how mental files manage to refer, prior to the arrival of a linguistic expression. A mental file is usually fully of descriptions, but it might be no more than a label. |
22250 | There are speakers' thoughts and hearers' thoughts, but no further thought attached to the utterance [Recanati] |
Full Idea: There is the speaker's thought and the thought formed by the hearer. That is all there is. We don't need an additional entity, the thought expressed by the utterance. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 7.2) | |
A reaction: This fits my view of propositions nicely. They are the two 'thoughts'. The notion of some further abstract 'proposition' with its own mode of independent existence strikes me as ontologically absurd. |
22249 | The Naive view of communication is that hearers acquire exactly the thoughts of the speaker [Recanati] |
Full Idea: The Naive Conception of Communication rests on the idea that communication is the replication of thoughts: the thought the hearer entertains when he understands what the speaker is saying is the very thought which the speaker expressed. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 7.1) | |
A reaction: It is hard to believe that any modern thinker would believe such a view, given holistic views of language etc. |
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'). |
22001 | The real will of the cooperative will replace the 'will of the people' [Marx] |
Full Idea: Under collective property, the so called will of the people disappears in order to make way for the real will of the cooperative. | |
From: Karl Marx (Grundrisse [1876], p.563), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 10 | |
A reaction: [from an 1874 note on Bakunin's 'Statism and Anarchy'] So how do you settle on the 'real' will of a cooperative? The travesty is when a ruling elite decide that, without consultation. An institution is needed. This is still a social contract. |