17 ideas
13939 | No possible evidence could decide the reality of numbers, so it is a pseudo-question [Carnap] |
Full Idea: I cannot think of any possible evidence that would be regarded as relevant by both nominalists and realists about numbers, and would decide the controversy, or make one side more probable. Hence I regard the external questions as pseudo-questions. | |
From: Rudolph Carnap (Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology [1950], 4) |
13936 | Questions about numbers are answered by analysis, and are analytic, and hence logically true [Carnap] |
Full Idea: For the internal question like 'is there a prime number greater than a hundred?' the answers are found by logical analysis based on the rules for the new expressions. The answers here are analytic, i.e., logically true. | |
From: Rudolph Carnap (Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology [1950], 2) |
8748 | Logical positivists incorporated geometry into logicism, saying axioms are just definitions [Carnap, by Shapiro] |
Full Idea: The logical positivists brought geometry into the fold of logicism. The axioms of, say, Euclidean geometry are simply definitions of primitive terms like 'point' and 'line'. | |
From: report of Rudolph Carnap (Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology [1950]) by Stewart Shapiro - Thinking About Mathematics 5.3 | |
A reaction: If the concept of 'line' is actually created by its definition, then we need to know exactly what (say) 'shortest' means. If we are merely describing a line, then our definition can be 'impredicative', using other accepted concepts. |
8960 | Internal questions about abstractions are trivial, and external ones deeply problematic [Carnap, by Szabó] |
Full Idea: Carnap's verdict is that questions regarding the existence of abstracta tend to be trivial when taken as internal and deeply problematic when taken as external. | |
From: report of Rudolph Carnap (Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology [1950]) by Zoltán Gendler Szabó - Nominalism 6 | |
A reaction: If the internal aspect of the problem is 'trivial', this would put Carnap in league with fictionalists, who are only committed to entities while playing the current game. What is the status of the theory? Carnap wanted flowers to bloom. |
13933 | Existence questions are 'internal' (within a framework) or 'external' (concerning the whole framework) [Carnap] |
Full Idea: We distinguish two kinds of existence questions: first, entities of a new kind within the framework; we call them 'internal questions'. Second, 'external questions', concerning the existence or reality of the system of entities as a whole. | |
From: Rudolph Carnap (Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology [1950], 2) | |
A reaction: This nicely disposes of many ontological difficulties, but at the price of labelling most external questions as meaningless, so that the internal answers have very little commitment, and the external (big) questions are now banned. Not for me. |
13934 | To be 'real' is to be an element of a system, so we cannot ask reality questions about the system itself [Carnap] |
Full Idea: To be real in the scientific sense means to be an element of the system; hence this concept cannot be meaningfully applied to the system itself. | |
From: Rudolph Carnap (Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology [1950], 2) |
13938 | A linguistic framework involves commitment to entities, so only commitment to the framework is in question [Carnap] |
Full Idea: If someone accepts a framework for a kind of entities, then he must admit the entities as possible designata. Thus the question of the admissibility of entities is reduced to the question of the acceptability of the linguistic framework for the entities. | |
From: Rudolph Carnap (Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology [1950], 4) | |
A reaction: Despite the many differences of opinion between Quine and Carnap, this appears to be a straight endorsement by Carnap of the Quinean conception of ontological commitment. |
13935 | We only accept 'things' within a language with formation, testing and acceptance rules [Carnap] |
Full Idea: To accept the thing world means nothing more than to accept a certain form of language, in other words, to accept rules for forming statements and for testing, accepting, or rejecting them. | |
From: Rudolph Carnap (Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology [1950], 2) | |
A reaction: If you derive your metaphysics from your language, then objects are linguistic conventions. But why do we accept conventions about objects? |
13932 | Empiricists tend to reject abstract entities, and to feel sympathy with nominalism [Carnap] |
Full Idea: Empiricists are in general rather suspicious with respect to any kind of abstract entities like properties, classes, relations, numbers, propositions etc. They usually feel more sympathy with nominalists than with realists (in the medieval sense). | |
From: Rudolph Carnap (Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology [1950], 1) | |
A reaction: The obvious reason is that you can't have sense experiences of abstract entities. I like the question 'what are they made of?' rather than the question 'how can I experience them?'. |
13937 | New linguistic claims about entities are not true or false, but just expedient, fruitful or successful [Carnap] |
Full Idea: The acceptance of new linguistic forms about entities cannot be judged as being either true or false because it is not an assertion. It can only be judged as being more or less expedient, fruitful, conducive to the aim for which the language is intended. | |
From: Rudolph Carnap (Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology [1950], 3) | |
A reaction: The obvious problem seems to be that a complete pack of lies might be successful for a very long time, if it plugged a critical hole in a major theory. Is success judged financially? How do we judge success without mentioning truth? |
13940 | All linguistic forms in science are merely judged by their efficiency as instruments [Carnap] |
Full Idea: The acceptance or rejection of abstract (or any other) linguistic forms in any branch of science will finally be decided by their efficiency as instruments. | |
From: Rudolph Carnap (Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology [1950], 5) |
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'). |
21733 | The right-wing conception of freedom is based on the idea of self-ownership [Cohen,GA] |
Full Idea: The right-wing conception of freedom is, I think, founded on the idea that each person is the morally rightful owner of himself, even if existing legal systems do not acknowledge it. Let us call that the 'self-ownership' thesis. | |
From: G.A. Cohen (Are Freedom and Equality Compatible? [1986], 1) | |
A reaction: He cites Nozick as articulating this view. At the end Cohen rejects self-ownership, though he agrees that no one would accept that the state could be the owner of your eyes. Do I own my hair after it is cut? |
21739 | Plenty of people have self-ownership, but still lack autonomy [Cohen,GA] |
Full Idea: Universal self-ownership fails to ensure autonomy, since it tends to produce proletarians, who lack it. | |
From: G.A. Cohen (Are Freedom and Equality Compatible? [1986], 3) | |
A reaction: The implication is that autonomy is not a property of individuals but a social phenomenon. Self-owning people can still be imprisoned. What about autonomy without self-ownership? A bright slave who is given extensive responsibility? |
21736 | It is doubtful whether any private property was originally acquired legitimately [Cohen,GA] |
Full Idea: It is easy to doubt that much actually existing private property was formed in what anyone could think was a legitimating way. | |
From: G.A. Cohen (Are Freedom and Equality Compatible? [1986], 2) | |
A reaction: What if I created an artificial island out of unwanted raw materials? What about the first humans to reach some remote territory? |
21734 | It is plausible that no one has an initial right to own land and natural resources [Cohen,GA] |
Full Idea: One may plausibly say of external things in their initial state, of raw land and natural resources, that no person has a greater right to them than any other does. | |
From: G.A. Cohen (Are Freedom and Equality Compatible? [1986], 1) | |
A reaction: How about if your group has lived on that plot for fifty generations, and some interlopers arrive and claim part of it. No one thought of 'owning' it till the interlopers arrived. Native Americans and Australians. |
21735 | Every thing which is now private started out as unowned [Cohen,GA] |
Full Idea: In the prehistory of anything that is now private property there was at least one moment at which something privately unowned was taken into private ownership. | |
From: G.A. Cohen (Are Freedom and Equality Compatible? [1986], 2) | |
A reaction: He is obviously talking about land and natural resources. Presumably a table which I made and own was always private property, although the land where the trees were grown was not. Though in some communities what I make could be automatically communal. |