15 ideas
| 9148 | I think of variables as objects rather than as signs [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It is natural nowadays to think of variables as a certain kind of sign, but I wish to think of them as a certain kind of object. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Cantorian Abstraction: Recon. and Defence [1998], §2) | |
| A reaction: Fine has a theory based on 'arbitrary objects', which is a rather charming idea. The cell of a spreadsheet is a kind of object, I suppose. A variable might be analogous to a point in space, where objects can locate themselves. |
| 18890 | Putnam smuggles essentialism about liquids into his proof that water must be H2O [Salmon,N on Putnam] |
| Full Idea: In the full exposition of Putnam's mechanism for generating the necessary truth that water is H2O, we find that the mechanism employs a certain nontrivial general principle of essentialism concerning liquid substances as a crucial premise. | |
| From: comment on Hilary Putnam (The Meaning of 'Meaning' [1975]) by Nathan Salmon - Reference and Essence (1st edn) 6.23.1 | |
| A reaction: This charge, that Kripke and Putnam smuggle the essentialism into their semantics, rather than deriving it, is the nub of Salmon's criticism of them. It seems to me that a new world view emerged while those two where revising the semantics. |
| 7705 | The Twin Earth theory suggests that intentionality is independent of qualia [Jacquette on Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Putnam's Twin Earth thought experiment suggests that two thinkers can have identical qualia, despite intending different objects on Earth and Twin Earth, and hence that qualia and intentionality must be logically independent of one another. | |
| From: comment on Hilary Putnam (The Meaning of 'Meaning' [1975]) by Dale Jacquette - Ontology Ch.10 | |
| A reaction: [See Idea 4099, Idea 3208, Idea 7612 for Twin Earth]. Presumably my thought of 'the smallest prime number above 10000' would be a bit thin on qualia too. Does that make them 'logically' independent? Depends what we reduce qualia or intentionality to. |
| 9152 | If green is abstracted from a thing, it is only seen as a type if it is common to many things [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: In traditional abstraction, the colour green merely has the intrinsic property of being green, other properties of things being abstracted away. But why should that be regarded as a type? It must be because the property is common to the instances. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Cantorian Abstraction: Recon. and Defence [1998], §5) | |
| A reaction: A nice question which shows that the much-derided single act of abstraction is not sufficient to arrive at a concept, so that abstraction is a more complex matter (perhaps even a rational one) than simple empiricists believe. |
| 4099 | If Twins talking about 'water' and 'XYZ' have different thoughts but identical heads, then thoughts aren't in the head [Putnam, by Crane] |
| Full Idea: Putnam claims that the Twins have different thoughts even though their heads are the same, so their thoughts (about 'water' or 'XYZ') cannot be in their heads. | |
| From: report of Hilary Putnam (The Meaning of 'Meaning' [1975]) by Tim Crane - Elements of Mind 4.37 | |
| A reaction: Is Putnam guilty of a simple confusion of de re and de dicto reference? |
| 12026 | We say ice and steam are different forms of water, but not that they are different forms of H2O [Forbes,G on Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Putnam presumes it is correct to say that ice and steam are forms of water, rather than that ice, water and steam are three forms of H2O. If we allow the latter, then 'water is H2O' is not an identity, but elliptical for 'water is H2O in liquid state'. | |
| From: comment on Hilary Putnam (The Meaning of 'Meaning' [1975]) by Graeme Forbes - The Metaphysics of Modality 8.2 | |
| A reaction: This nice observation seems to reveal that the word 'water' is ambiguous. I presume the ambiguity preceded the discovery of its chemical construction. Shakespeare would have hesitated over whether to say 'water is ice'. Context would matter. |
| 3208 | Does 'water' mean a particular substance that was 'dubbed'? [Putnam, by Rey] |
| Full Idea: Putnam argued that "water" refers to H2O by virtue of causal chains extending from present use back to early dubbing uses of it that were in fact dubbings of the substance H2O (although, of course, the original users of the word didn't know this). | |
| From: report of Hilary Putnam (The Meaning of 'Meaning' [1975]) by Georges Rey - Contemporary Philosophy of Mind 9.2.1 | |
| A reaction: This is the basic idea of the Causal Theory of Reference. Nice conclusion: most of us don't know what we are talking about. Maybe the experts on H2O are also wrong... |
| 9149 | To obtain the number 2 by abstraction, we only want to abstract the distinctness of a pair of objects [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: In abstracting from the elements of a doubleton to obtain 2, we do not wish to abstract away from all features of the objects. We wish to take account of the fact that the two objects are distinct; this alone should be preserved under abstraction. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Cantorian Abstraction: Recon. and Defence [1998], §3) | |
| A reaction: This is Fine's strategy for meeting Frege's objection to abstraction, summarised in Idea 9146. It seems to use the common sense idea that abstraction is not all-or-nothing. Abstraction has degrees (and levels). |
| 9150 | We should define abstraction in general, with number abstraction taken as a special case [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Number abstraction can be taken to be a special case of abstraction in general, which can then be defined without recourse to the concept of number. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Cantorian Abstraction: Recon. and Defence [1998], §3) | |
| A reaction: At last, a mathematical logician recognising that they don't have a monopoly on abstraction. It is perfectly obvious that abstractions of simple daily concepts must be chronologically and logically prior to number abstraction. Number of what? |
| 9146 | After abstraction all numbers seem identical, so only 0 and 1 will exist! [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: In Cantor's abstractionist account there can only be two numbers, 0 and 1. For abs(Socrates) = abs(Plato), since their numbers are the same. So the number of {Socrates,Plato} is {abs(Soc),abs(Plato)}, which is the same number as {Socrates}! | |
| From: Kit Fine (Cantorian Abstraction: Recon. and Defence [1998], §1) | |
| A reaction: Fine tries to answer this objection, which arises from §45 of Frege's Grundlagen. Fine summarises that "indistinguishability without identity appears to be impossible". Maybe we should drop talk of numbers in terms of sets. |
| 3893 | Often reference determines sense, and not (as Frege thought) vice versa [Putnam, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Putnam argues that, Frege notwithstanding, it is often the case that reference determines sense, and not vice versa. | |
| From: report of Hilary Putnam (The Meaning of 'Meaning' [1975]) by Roger Scruton - Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey 19.6 | |
| A reaction: Does this say anything more than that once you have established a reference, you can begin to collect information about the referent? |
| 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'). |
| 11191 | The hidden structure of a natural kind determines membership in all possible worlds [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: If there is a hidden structure, then generally it determines what it is to be a member of the natural kind, ...in all possible worlds. Put another way, it determines what we can and cannot counterfactually suppose about the natural kind. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (The Meaning of 'Meaning' [1975], p.241) | |
| A reaction: This is the arrival of the bold new view of natural kinds (which is actually the original view - see Idea 8153). One must be careful of the necessity here. There is causal context, vagueness etc. |
| 11192 | If causes are the essence of diseases, then disease is an example of a relational essence [Putnam, by Williams,NE] |
| Full Idea: Putnam takes causes to be the essence of disease kinds, and they are distinct from the diseases they cause, both in identity and in proper parthood. These are relational properties, so Putnam gives examples of natural kinds with relational essences. | |
| From: report of Hilary Putnam (The Meaning of 'Meaning' [1975]) by Neil E. Williams - Putnam's Traditional Neo-Essentialism §4 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a nice point, since scientific essentialism invariable takes itself to be pursuing instrinsic properties when it unravels the essences of natural kinds. Probably the best response is the Putnam has got muddled. |
| 11190 | Archimedes meant by 'gold' the hidden structure or essence of the stuff [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: When Archimedes asserted that something was gold, he was not just saying that it had the superficial characteristics of gold; he was saying that it had the same general hidden structure (the same 'essence', so to speak) as any normal piece of local gold. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (The Meaning of 'Meaning' [1975], p.235) | |
| A reaction: This is one of the key announcements of the new scientific essentialism, and seems to me to be totally correct. Obviously Archimedes could say 'this is really gold, even if it no way appears to be gold'. |