6 ideas
| 18439 | Because things can share attributes, we cannot individuate attributes clearly [Quine] |
| Full Idea: No two classes have exactly the same members, but two different attributes may be attributes of exactly the same things. Classes are identical when their members are identical. ...On the other hand, attributes have no clear principle of individuation. | |
| From: Willard Quine (On the Individuation of Attributes [1975], p.100) |
| 18442 | You only know an attribute if you know what things have it [Quine] |
| Full Idea: May we not say that you know an attribute only insofar as you know what things have it? | |
| From: Willard Quine (On the Individuation of Attributes [1975], p.106) | |
| A reaction: Simple, and the best defence of class nominalism (a very implausible theory) which I have encountered. Do I have to know all the things? Do I not know 'red' if I don't know tomatoes have it? |
| 18441 | No entity without identity (which requires a principle of individuation) [Quine] |
| Full Idea: We have an acceptable notion of class, or physical object, or attribute, or any other sort of object, only insofar as we have an acceptable principle of individuation for that sort of object. There is no entity without identity. | |
| From: Willard Quine (On the Individuation of Attributes [1975], p.102) | |
| A reaction: Note that this is his criterion for an 'acceptable' notion. Presumably that is for science. It permits less acceptable notions which don't come up to the standard. And presumably true things can be said about the less acceptable entities. |
| 18440 | Identity of physical objects is just being coextensive [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Physical objects are identical if and only if coextensive. | |
| From: Willard Quine (On the Individuation of Attributes [1975], p.101) | |
| A reaction: The supposed counterexample to this is the statue and the clay it is made of, which are said to have different modal properties (destroying the statue doesn't destroy the clay). |
| 11968 | The intension of a sentence is the set of all possible worlds in which it is true [Carnap, by Kaplan] |
| Full Idea: Carnap's proposal is to understand the category of intensions appropriate to sentences (his 'propositions') as sets of possible worlds. The intension of the sentence is taken as the set of all possible worlds in which the sentence is true. | |
| From: report of Rudolph Carnap (Meaning and Necessity [1947]) by David Kaplan - Transworld Heir Lines p.90 | |
| A reaction: [reference?] This extension of the truth-conditions view of meaning strikes me as being very attractive. Except that whole worlds hardly seem to be relevant to my remark about how lunch might have been improved. |
| 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'). |