18 ideas
| 9108 | From an impossibility anything follows [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: From an impossibility anything follows ('quod ex impossibili sequitur quodlibet'). | |
| From: William of Ockham (Summa totius logicae [1323], III.c.xxxvi) | |
| A reaction: The hallmark of a true logician, I suspect, is that this opinion is really meaningful and important to them. They yearn to follow the logic wherever it leads. Common sense would seem to say that absolutely nothing follows from an impossibility. |
| 9107 | A proposition is true if its subject and predicate stand for the same thing [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: If in the proposition 'This is an angel' subject and predicate stand for the same thing, the proposition is true. | |
| From: William of Ockham (Summa totius logicae [1323], II.c.ii) | |
| A reaction: An interesting statement of what looks like a correspondence theory, employing the idea that both the subject and the predicate have a reference. I think Frege would say that 'x is an angel' is unsaturated, and so lacks reference. |
| 16300 | Ockham had an early axiomatic account of truth [William of Ockham, by Halbach] |
| Full Idea: Theories structurally very similar to axiomatic compositional theories of truth can be found in Ockham's 'Summa Logicae'. | |
| From: report of William of Ockham (Summa totius logicae [1323]) by Volker Halbach - Axiomatic Theories of Truth 3 |
| 7760 | Russell only uses descriptions attributively, and Strawson only referentially [Donnellan, by Lycan] |
| Full Idea: Donnellan objects that Russell's theory of definite descriptions overlooks the referential use (Russell writes as if all descriptions are used attributively), and that Strawson assumes they are all used referentially, to draw attention to things. | |
| From: report of Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966]) by William Lycan - Philosophy of Language Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: This seems like a nice little success for analytical philosophy - clarifying a horrible mess by making a simple distinction that leaves everyone happy. |
| 5811 | A definite description can have a non-referential use [Donnellan] |
| Full Idea: A definite description may also be used non-referentially, even as it occurs in one and the same sentence. | |
| From: Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966], §I) | |
| A reaction: Donnellan says we have to know about the particular occasion on which the description is used, as in itself it will not achieve reference. "Will the last person out switch off the lights" achieves its reference at the end of each day. |
| 5812 | Definite descriptions are 'attributive' if they say something about x, and 'referential' if they pick x out [Donnellan] |
| Full Idea: A speaker who uses a definite description 'attributively' in an assertion states something about whoever or whatever is the so-and-so; a speaker who uses it 'referentially' enables his audience to pick out whom or what he is talking about. | |
| From: Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966], §III) | |
| A reaction: "Smith's murderer is insane" exemplifies the first use before he is caught, and the second use afterwards. The gist is that reference is not a purely linguistic activity, but is closer to pointing at something. This seems right. |
| 5814 | 'The x is F' only presumes that x exists; it does not actually entail the existence [Donnellan] |
| Full Idea: For Russell there is a logical entailment: 'the x is F' entails 'there exists one and only one x'. Whether or not this is true of the attributive use of definite descriptions, it does not seem true of the referential use. The existence is a presumption. | |
| From: Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966], §VI) | |
| A reaction: Can we say 'x does not exist, but x is F'? Strictly, that sounds to me more like a contradiction than a surprising rejection of a presumption. However, 'Father Xmas does not exist, but he has a red coat'. |
| 9106 | The word 'every' only signifies when added to a term such as 'man', referring to all men [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: The syncategorematic word 'every' does not signify any fixed thing, but when added to 'man' it makes the term 'man' stand for all men actually. | |
| From: William of Ockham (Summa totius logicae [1323], I.c.iv) | |
| A reaction: Although quantifiers may have become a part of formal logic with Frege, their importance is seen from Aristotle onwards, and it is clearly a key part of William's understanding of logic. |
| 9113 | Just as unity is not a property of a single thing, so numbers are not properties of many things [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: Number is nothing but the actual numbered things themselves. Hence just as unity is not an accident added to the thing which is one, so number is not an accident of the things which are numbered. | |
| From: William of Ockham (Summa totius logicae [1323], I.c.xliv) | |
| A reaction: [William does not necessarily agree with this view] It strikes me as a key point here that any account of the numbers had better work for 'one', though 'zero' might be treated differently. Some people seem to think unity is a property of things. |
| 9110 | The words 'thing' and 'to be' assert the same idea, as a noun and as a verb [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: The words 'thing' and 'to be' (esse) signify one and the same thing, but the one in the manner of a noun and the other in the manner of a verb. | |
| From: William of Ockham (Summa totius logicae [1323], III,II,c,xxvii) | |
| A reaction: Well said - as you would expect from a thoroughgoing nominalist. I would have thought that this was the last word on the subject of Being, thus rendering any need for me to read Heidegger quite superfluous. Or am I missing something? |
| 15388 | Universals are single things, and only universal in what they signify [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: Every universal is one particular thing and it is not a universal except in its signification, in its signifying many thing. | |
| From: William of Ockham (Summa totius logicae [1323]), quoted by Claude Panaccio - Medieval Problem of Universals 'William' | |
| A reaction: Sounds as if William might have liked tropes. It seems to leave the problem unanswered (the 'ostrich' problem?). How are they able to signify in this universal way, if each thing is just distinct and particular? |
| 9109 | If essence and existence were two things, one could exist without the other, which is impossible [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: If essence and existence were two things, then no contradiction would be involved if God preserved the essence of a thing in the world without its existence, or vice versa, its existence without its essence; both of which are impossible. | |
| From: William of Ockham (Summa totius logicae [1323], III,II,c,xxvii) | |
| A reaction: Not that William is using the concept of a supreme mind as a tool in argument. His denial of essence as something separable is presumably his denial of the Aristotelian view of universals, as well as of the Platonic view. |
| 10435 | A definite description 'the F' is referential if the speaker could thereby be referring to something not-F [Donnellan, by Sainsbury] |
| Full Idea: Donnellan argued that we could recognize a referential use of a definite description 'the F' by the fact that the speaker could thereby refer to something which is not F. | |
| From: report of Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966]) by Mark Sainsbury - The Essence of Reference 18.5 | |
| A reaction: If the expression employed achieved reference whether the speaker wanted it to or not, it would certainly look as if the expression was inherently referring. |
| 10451 | Donnellan is unclear whether the referential-attributive distinction is semantic or pragmatic [Bach on Donnellan] |
| Full Idea: Donnellan seems to be unsure whether to regard his referential-attributive distinction as indicating a semantic ambiguity or merely a pragmatic one. | |
| From: comment on Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966]) by Kent Bach - What Does It Take to Refer? 22.2 L1 | |
| A reaction: I vote for pragmatic. In a single brief conversation a definite description could start as attributive and end as referential, but it seems unlikely that its semantics changed in mid-paragraph. |
| 5813 | A description can successfully refer, even if its application to the subject is not believed [Donnellan] |
| Full Idea: If I think the king is a usurper, "Is the king in his counting house?" succeeds in referring to the right man, even though I do not believe that he fits the description. | |
| From: Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966], §IV) | |
| A reaction: This seems undeniable. If I point at someone, I can refer successfully with almost any description. "Oy! Adolf! Get me a drink!" Reference is an essential aspect of language, and it is not entirely linguistic. |
| 5815 | Whether a definite description is referential or attributive depends on the speaker's intention [Donnellan] |
| Full Idea: Whether or not a definite description is used referentially or attributively is a function of the speaker's intentions in a particular case. | |
| From: Keith Donnellan (Reference and Definite Descriptions [1966], §VII) | |
| A reaction: Donnellan's distinction, and his claim here, seem to me right. However words on a notice could refer on one occasion, and just describe on another. "Anyone entering this cage is mad". |
| 9105 | Some concepts for propositions exist only in the mind, and in no language [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: Conceptual terms and the propositions formed by them are those mental words which do not belong to any language; they remain only in the mind and cannot be uttered exteriorly, though signs subordinated to these can be exteriorly uttered. | |
| From: William of Ockham (Summa totius logicae [1323], I.c.i) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Augustine] A glimmer of the idea of Mentalese, and is probably an integral part of any commitment to propositions. Quine would hate it, but I like it. Logicians seem to dislike anything that cannot be articulated, but brains are like that. |
| 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'). |