37 ideas
| 5784 | In its primary and formal sense, 'true' applies to propositions, not beliefs [Russell] |
| Full Idea: We call a belief true when it is belief in a true proposition, ..but it is to propositions that the primary formal meanings of 'truth' and 'falsehood' apply. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (On Propositions: What they are, and Meaning [1919], §IV) | |
| A reaction: I think this is wrong. A proposition such as 'it is raining' would need a date-and-time stamp to be a candidate for truth, and an indexical statement such as 'I am ill' would need to be asserted by a person. Of course, books can contain unread truths. |
| 5777 | The truth or falsehood of a belief depends upon a fact to which the belief 'refers' [Russell] |
| Full Idea: I take it as evident that the truth or falsehood of a belief depends upon a fact to which the belief 'refers'. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (On Propositions: What they are, and Meaning [1919], p.285) | |
| A reaction: A nice bold commitment to a controversial idea. The traditional objection is to ask how you are going to formulate the 'facts' except in terms of more beliefs, so you ending up comparing beliefs. Facts are a metaphysical commitment, not an acquaintance. |
| 5783 | Propositions of existence, generalities, disjunctions and hypotheticals make correspondence tricky [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The correspondence of proposition and fact grows increasingly complicated as we pass to more complicated types of propositions: existence-propositions, general propositions, disjunctive and hypothetical propositions, and so on. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (On Propositions: What they are, and Meaning [1919], §IV) | |
| A reaction: An important point. Truth must not just work for 'it is raining', but also for maths, logic, tautologies, laws etc. This is why so many modern philosophers have retreated to deflationary and minimal accounts of truth, which will cover all cases. |
| 14684 | A world is 'accessible' to another iff the first is possible according to the second [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: A world w' is accessible to a consistent world w if and only if w' is possible in w. Being 'inaccessible to' or 'possible relative to' a consistent world is simply being possible according to that world, nothing more and nothing less. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], IV) | |
| A reaction: More illuminating than just saying that w can 'see' w'. Accessibility is internal to worIds. It gives some connection to why we spend time examining modal logic. There is no more important metaphysical notion than what is possible according to actuality. |
| 14669 | For metaphysics, T may be the only correct system of modal logic [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: Insofar as modal logic is concerned exclusively with the logic of metaphysical modality, ..T may well be the one and only (strongest) correct system of (first-order) propositional logic. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This contrasts sharply with the orthodox view, that S5 (or at the very least S4) is the correct system for metaphysics. |
| 14667 | System B has not been justified as fallacy-free for reasoning on what might have been [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: Even the conventionally accepted system B, which is weaker than S5 and independent of S4, has not been adequately justified as a fallacy-free system of reasoning about what might have been. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], Intro) |
| 14668 | In B it seems logically possible to have both p true and p is necessarily possibly false [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: The characteristic of B has the form φ⊃□◊φ. ...Even if these axioms are necessarily true, it seems logically possible for p to be true while the proposition that p is necessarily possible is at the same time false. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], Intro) |
| 14692 | System B implies that possibly-being-realized is an essential property of the world [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: Friends of B modal logic commit themselves to the loaded claim that it is logically true that the property of possibly being realized (or being a way things might have been) is an essential property of the world. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], V) | |
| A reaction: I think this 'loaded' formulation captures quite nicely the dispositional view I favour, that the possibilities of the actual world are built into the actual world, and define its nature just as much as the 'categorial' facts do. |
| 14671 | What is necessary is not always necessarily necessary, so S4 is fallacious [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: We can say of a wooden table that it would have been possible for it to have originated from some different matter, even though it is not actually possible. So what is necessary fails to be necessarily necessary, and S4 modal logic is fallacious. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], I) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] |
| 14686 | S5 modal logic ignores accessibility altogether [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: When we ignore accessibility altogether, we have finally zeroed in on S5 modal logic. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], IV) |
| 14691 | S5 believers say that-things-might-have-been-that-way is essential to ways things might have been [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: Believers in S5 as a correct system of propositional reasoning about what might have been must claim that it is an essential property of any way things might have been that things might have been that way. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], V) | |
| A reaction: Salmon is working in a view where you are probably safe to substitute 'necessary' for 'essential' without loss of meaning. |
| 14693 | The unsatisfactory counterpart-theory allows the retention of S5 [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: Counterpart-theoretic modal semantics allows for the retention of S5 modal propositional logic, at a considerable cost. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], V n18) | |
| A reaction: See the other ideas in this paper by Salmon for his general attack on S5 as the appropriate system for metaphysical necessity. He favours the very modest System T. |
| 14670 | Metaphysical (alethic) modal logic concerns simple necessity and possibility (not physical, epistemic..) [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysical modal logic concerns metaphysical (or alethic) necessity and metaphysical (alethic) possibility, or necessity and possibility tout court - as opposed to such other types of modality as physical necessity, epistemic necessity etc. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], Intro n2) |
| 14678 | Any property is attached to anything in some possible world, so I am a radical anti-essentialist [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: By admitting possible worlds of unlimited variation and recombination, I simply abandon true metaphysical essentialism. By my lights, any property is attached to anything in some possible world or other. I am a closet radical anti-essentialist. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], II) | |
| A reaction: Salmon includes impossible worlds within his scheme of understanding. It strikes me that this is metaphysical system which tells us nothing about how things are: it is sort of 'logical idealist'. Later he talks of 'we essentialists'. |
| 14680 | Logical possibility contains metaphysical possibility, which contains nomological possibility [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: Just as nomological possibility is a special kind of metaphysical possibility, so metaphysical possibility is a special kind of logical possibility. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], III) | |
| A reaction: This is the standard view of how the three types of necessity are nested. He gives a possible counterexample in footnote 7. |
| 14690 | In the S5 account, nested modalities may be unseen, but they are still there [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: The S5 theorist's miscontrual of English (in the meaning of 'possibly possible') makes nested modality unseen, but it does not make nested modality vanish. Inaccessible worlds are still worlds. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], IV) |
| 14677 | Metaphysical necessity is said to be unrestricted necessity, true in every world whatsoever [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: It is held that it is the hallmark of metaphysical necessity is that it is completely unrestricted, the limiting case of restricted necessity, with no restrictions whatever. A proposition is necessary only if it is true in absolutely every world whatever. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], II) | |
| A reaction: This is the standard picture which leads to the claim that S5 modal logic is appropriate for metaphysical necessity, because there are no restrictions on accessibility. Salmon raises objections to this conventional view. |
| 14679 | Bizarre identities are logically but not metaphysically possible, so metaphysical modality is restricted [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: Though there is a way things logically could be according to which I am a credit card account, there is no way things metaphysically might be according to which I am a credit card account. This illustrates the restricted nature of metaphysical modality. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], III) | |
| A reaction: His drift is that metaphyical modality is restricted, but expressing it in S5 modal logic (where all worlds see one another) makes it unrestricted, so S5 logic is wrong for metaphysics. I'm impressed by his arguments. |
| 14688 | Without impossible worlds, the unrestricted modality that is metaphysical has S5 logic [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: If one confines one's sights to genuinely possible worlds, disavowing the impossible worlds, then metaphysical modality emerges as the limiting case - the 'unrestricted' modality that takes account of 'every' world - and S5 emerges as its proper logic. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], IV) | |
| A reaction: He observes that this makes metaphysical modality 'restricted' simply because you have restricted what 'all worlds' means. Could there be non-maximal worlds? Are logical and metaphysical modality coextensive? I think I like the S5 view. |
| 14685 | Metaphysical necessity is NOT truth in all (unrestricted) worlds; necessity comes first, and is restricted [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: A mythology gave us the idea that metaphysical necessity is truth in every world whatsoever, without restriction. But the notion of metaphysical modality comes first, and, like every notion of modality, it is restricted. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], IV) |
| 14681 | Logical necessity is free of constraints, and may accommodate all of S5 logic [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: With its freedom from the constraint of metaphysical possibility, logical necessity may be construed as accommodating all the axioms and rules of S5. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], III) | |
| A reaction: He goes on to raise problems for this simple thought. The big question: what are the limits of what is actually possible? Compare: what are the limits of what is imaginable? what are the limits of what is meaningfully sayable? |
| 14676 | Nomological necessity is expressed with intransitive relations in modal semantics [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: Intransitive relations are introduced into modal semantics for the purposes of interpreting various 'real' or restricted types of modalities, such as nomological necessity. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], II) | |
| A reaction: The point here is that the (so-called) 'laws of nature' are held to change from world to world, so necessity in one could peter out in some more remote world, rather than being carried over everywhere. A very Humean view of such things. |
| 14689 | Necessity and possibility are not just necessity and possibility according to the actual world [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: The real meanings of the simple modal terms 'necessary' and 'possible' are not the same as the concepts of actual necessity and actual possibility, necessity and possibility according to the actual world. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], IV) | |
| A reaction: If you were an 'actualist' (who denies everything except the actual world) then you are unlikely to agree with this. In unrestricted possible worlds, being true in one world makes it possible in all worlds. So actual necessity is possible everywhere. |
| 14674 | Impossible worlds are also ways for things to be [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: Total ways things cannot be are also 'worlds', or maximal ways for things to be. They are impossible worlds. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], I) | |
| A reaction: This unorthodox view doesn't sound too plausible to me. To think of a circular square as a 'way things could be' sounds pretty empty, and mere playing with words. The number 7 could be the Emperor of China? |
| 14682 | Denial of impossible worlds involves two different confusions [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: Every argument I am aware of against impossible worlds confuses ways for things to be with ways things might have been, or worse, confuses ways things cannot be with ways for things to be that cannot exist - or worse yet, commits both errors. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], III) | |
| A reaction: He is claiming that 'ways for things to be' allows impossible worlds, whereas 'ways things might have been' appears not to. (I think! Read the paragraph yourself!) |
| 14687 | Without impossible worlds, how things might have been is the only way for things to be [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: If one ignores impossible worlds, then ways things might have been are the only ways for things to be that are left. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], IV) | |
| A reaction: Impossible worlds are included in 'ways for things to be', but excluded from 'ways things might have been'. I struggle with a circle being square as a 'way for circles to be'. I suppose being the greatest philosopher is a way for me to be. |
| 14683 | Possible worlds rely on what might have been, so they can' be used to define or analyse modality [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: On my conception, the notions of metaphysical necessity and possibility are not defined or analyzed in terms of the apparatus of possible worlds. The order of analysis is just the reverse: possible worlds rely on the notion of what might have been. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], IV) | |
| A reaction: This view seems to be becoming the new orthodoxy, and I certainly agree with it. I have no idea how you can begin to talk about possible worlds if you don't already have some idea of what 'possible' means. |
| 14672 | Possible worlds are maximal abstract ways that things might have been [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: I conceive of possible worlds as certain sorts of maximal abstract entities according to which certain things (facts, states of affairs) obtain and certain other things do not obtain. They are total ways things might have been. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], I) |
| 14675 | Possible worlds just have to be 'maximal', but they don't have to be consistent [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: As far as I can tell, worlds need not be logically consistent. The only restriction on worlds is that they must be (in some sense) 'maximal' ways for things to be. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], I) | |
| A reaction: The normal idea of a maximal model is that it must contain either p or ¬p, and not both, so I don't think I understand this thought, but I pass it on. |
| 14673 | You can't define worlds as sets of propositions, and then define propositions using worlds [Salmon,N] |
| Full Idea: It is not a good idea to think of possible worlds as sets of propositions, and at the same time to think of propositions as sets of possible worlds. | |
| From: Nathan Salmon (The Logic of What Might Have Been [1989], I n3) | |
| A reaction: Salmon favours thinking of worlds as sets of propositions, and hence rejects the account of propositions as sets of worlds. He favours the 'Russellian' view of propositions, which seem to me to be the same as 'facts'. |
| 5780 | The three questions about belief are its contents, its success, and its character [Russell] |
| Full Idea: There are three issues about belief: 1) the content which is believed, 2) the relation of the content to its 'objective' - the fact which makes it true or false, and 3) the element which is belief, as opposed to consideration or doubt or desire. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (On Propositions: What they are, and Meaning [1919], §III) | |
| A reaction: The correct answers to the questions (trust me) are that propositions are the contents, the relation aimed at is truth, which is a 'metaphysical ideal' of correspondence to facts, and belief itself is an indefinable feeling. See Hume, Idea 2208. |
| 5778 | If we object to all data which is 'introspective' we will cease to believe in toothaches [Russell] |
| Full Idea: If privacy is the main objection to introspective data, we shall have to include among such data all sensations; a toothache, for example, is essentially private; a dentist may see the bad condition of your tooth, but does not feel your ache. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (On Propositions: What they are, and Meaning [1919], §II) | |
| A reaction: Russell was perhaps the first to see why eliminative behaviourism is a non-starter as a theory of mind. Mental states are clearly a cause of behaviour, so they can't be the same thing. We might 'eliminate' mental states by reducing them, though. |
| 5779 | There are distinct sets of psychological and physical causal laws [Russell] |
| Full Idea: There do seem to be psychological and physical causal laws which are distinct from each other. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (On Propositions: What they are, and Meaning [1919], §II) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like the essence of 'property dualism'. Reductive physicalists (like myself) say there is no distinction. Davidson, usually considered a property dualist, claims there are no psycho-physical laws. Russell notes that reduction may be possible. |
| 5781 | Our important beliefs all, if put into words, take the form of propositions [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The important beliefs, even if they are not the only ones, are those which, if rendered into explicit words, take the form of a proposition. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (On Propositions: What they are, and Meaning [1919], §III) | |
| A reaction: This assertion is close to the heart of the twentieth century linking of ontology and epistemology to language. It is open to challenges. Why is non-propositional belief unimportant? Do dogs have important beliefs? Can propositions exist non-verbally? |
| 5782 | A proposition expressed in words is a 'word-proposition', and one of images an 'image-proposition' [Russell] |
| Full Idea: I shall distinguish a proposition expressed in words as a 'word-proposition', and one consisting of images as an 'image-proposition'. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (On Propositions: What they are, and Meaning [1919], §III) | |
| A reaction: This, I think, is good, though it raises the question of what exactly an 'image' is when it is non-visual, as when a dog believes its owner called. This distinction prevents us from regarding all knowledge and ontology as verbal in form. |
| 5776 | A proposition is what we believe when we believe truly or falsely [Russell] |
| Full Idea: A proposition may be defined as: what we believe when we believe truly or falsely. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (On Propositions: What they are, and Meaning [1919], p.285) | |
| A reaction: If we define belief as 'commitment to truth', Russell's last six words become redundant. "Propositions are the contents of beliefs", it being beliefs which are candidates for truth, not propositions. (Russell agrees, on p.308!) |
| 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'). |