8 ideas
19271 | No rule can be fully explained [Kripke] |
Full Idea: Every explanation of a rule could conceivably be misunderstood. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language [1982], 3) | |
A reaction: This is Kripke's summary of what he takes to be Wittgenstein's scepticism about rules. |
19269 | 'Quus' means the same as 'plus' if the ingredients are less than 57; otherwise it just produces 5 [Kripke] |
Full Idea: I will define 'quus' by x-quus-y = x + y, if x, y < 57, and otherwise it equals 5. Who is to say that this is not the function I previously meant by '+'? | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language [1982], 2) | |
A reaction: Kripke's famous example, to illustrate the big new scepticism introduced by Wittgenstein's questions about the rationality of following a rule. I suspect that you have to delve into psychology to understand rule-following, rather than logic. |
7305 | Kripke's Wittgenstein says meaning 'vanishes into thin air' [Kripke, by Miller,A] |
Full Idea: Quine and Kripke's Wittgenstein attempt to argue that there are no facts about meaning, that the notion of meaning, as Kripke puts it, 'vanishes into thin air'. | |
From: report of Saul A. Kripke (Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language [1982]) by Alexander Miller - Philosophy of Language Pref | |
A reaction: A tempting solution to the problem. If, though, it is possible for someone to say something that is self-evidently meaningless, or to accuse someone of speaking (deep down) without meaning, then that needs explaining. |
19270 | If you ask what is in your mind for following the addition rule, meaning just seems to vanish [Kripke] |
Full Idea: What can there be in my mind that I make use of when I follow a general rule to add in the future? It seems that the entire idea of meaning vanishes into thin air. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language [1982], 2) | |
A reaction: Introspection probably isn't the best way to investigate the phenomenon of meaning. Indeed it seems rather old-fashioned and Cartesian. Kripke says, though, that seeking 'tacit' rules is even worse [end of note 22]. |
21650 | No language is semantically referential; it all occurs at the level of thought or utterance [Pietroski, by Hofweber] |
Full Idea: For Paul Pietroski no expression in natural language is semantically referential. ....Reference to objects occurs not at the level of semantics, but at the level of thought or utterance. | |
From: report of Paul M. Pietroski (Events and Semantic Architecture [2004]) by Thomas Hofweber - Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics 07.2 | |
A reaction: Love this. It has always struck me that reference is what speakers do. Try taking any supposedly referential description and sticking 'so-called' in front of it. That seems to leave you with the reference even though you have denied the description. |
11076 | Community implies assertability-conditions rather than truth-conditions semantics [Kripke, by Hanna] |
Full Idea: If we take account of the fact that a speaker is in a community, then we must adopt an assertability-conditions semantics (based on what is legitimately assertible), and reject truth-conditional semantics (based on correspondence to the facts). | |
From: report of Saul A. Kripke (Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language [1982]) by Robert Hanna - Rationality and Logic 6.1 | |
A reaction: [Part of Hanna's full summary of Kripke's argument] This sounds wrong to me. There are conditions where it is agreed that a lie should be told. Two people can be guilty of the same malapropism. |
11075 | The sceptical rule-following paradox is the basis of the private language argument [Kripke, by Hanna] |
Full Idea: Kripke argues that the 'rule-following paradox' is essential to the more controversial private language argument, and introduces a radically new form of scepticism. | |
From: report of Saul A. Kripke (Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language [1982]) by Robert Hanna - Rationality and Logic 6.1 | |
A reaction: It certainly seems that Kripke is right to emphasise the separateness of the two, as the paradox is quite persuasive, but the private language argument seems less so. |
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'). |