14 ideas
| 18009 | Chomsky established the view that category mistakes are well-formed but meaningless [Chomsky, by Magidor] |
| Full Idea: The view of Chomsky in 1957 that category mistakes are syntactically well-formed but meaningless is a very standard one. | |
| From: report of Noam Chomsky (Syntactic Structure [1957]) by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 1.3 | |
| A reaction: I'm going off the idea that they are meaningless, largely because I am beginning to sympathise with the view that any composition of meaningful components is meaningful (even if blatantly false). |
| 8915 | How we refer to abstractions is much less clear than how we refer to other things [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: It is unclear how we manage to refer determinately to abstract entities in a sense in which it is not unclear how we manage to refer determinately to other things. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (Abstract Objects [2001], 'Way of Ex') | |
| A reaction: This is where problems of abstraction overlap with problems about reference in language. Can we have a 'baptism' account of each abstraction (even very large numbers)? Will descriptions do it? Do abstractions collapse into particulars when we refer? |
| 19722 | We could know the evidence for our belief without knowing why it is such evidence [Mittag] |
| Full Idea: While one might understand the proposition entailed by one's evidence, one might have no idea how or why one's evidence entails it. This seems to imply one is not justified in believing the proposition on the basis of one's evidence. | |
| From: Daniel M. Mittag (Evidentialism [2011], 'Evidential') | |
| A reaction: An example might be seen if a layman tours a physics lab. This looks like a serious problem for evidentialism. Once you see why the evidence entails the proposition, you are getting closer to understanding than to knowledge. Explanation. |
| 19723 | Evidentialism can't explain that we accept knowledge claims if the evidence is forgotten [Mittag] |
| Full Idea: If one came to believe p with good evidence, but has since forgotten that evidence, we might think one can continue to believe justifiably, but evidentialism appears unable to account for this. | |
| From: Daniel M. Mittag (Evidentialism [2011], 'Forgotten') | |
| A reaction: We would still think that the evidence was important, and we would need to trust the knower's claim that the forgotten evidence was good. So it doesn't seem to destroy the evidentialist thesis. |
| 19720 | Evidentialism concerns the evidence for the proposition, not for someone to believe it [Mittag] |
| Full Idea: Evidentialism is not a theory about when one's believing is justified; it is a theory about what makes one justified in believing a proposition. It is a thesis regarding 'propositional justification', not 'doxastic justification'. | |
| From: Daniel M. Mittag (Evidentialism [2011], 'Preliminary') | |
| A reaction: Thus it is entirely about whether the evidence supports the proposition, and has no interest in who believes it or why. Knowledge is when you believe a true proposition which has good support. This could be internalist or externalist? |
| 19721 | Coherence theories struggle with the role of experience [Mittag] |
| Full Idea: Traditional coherence theories seem unable to account for the role experience plays in justification. | |
| From: Daniel M. Mittag (Evidentialism [2011], 'Evidence') | |
| A reaction: I'm inclined to say that experience only becomes a justification when it has taken propositional (though not necessarily lingistic) form. That is, when you see it 'as' something. Uninterpreted shape and colour can justify virtually nothing. |
| 8917 | The Way of Abstraction used to say an abstraction is an idea that was formed by abstracting [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: The simplest version of the Way of Abstraction would be to say that an object is abstract if it is a referent of an idea that was formed by abstraction, but this is wedded to an outmoded philosophy of mind. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (Abstract Objects [2001], 'Way of Abs') | |
| A reaction: This presumably refers to Locke, who wields the highly ambiguous term 'idea'. But if we sort out that ambiguity (by using modern talk of mental events, concepts and content?) we might reclaim the view. But do we have a 'genetic fallacy' here? |
| 8912 | Nowadays abstractions are defined as non-spatial, causally inert things [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: If any characterization of the abstract deserves to be regarded as the modern standard one, it is this: an abstract entity is a non-spatial (or non-spatiotemporal) causally inert thing. This view presents a number of perplexities... | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (Abstract Objects [2001], 'Non-spat') | |
| A reaction: As indicated in other ideas, the problem is that some abstractions do seem to be located somewhere in space-time, and to have come into existence, and to pass away. I like 'to exist is to have causal powers'. See Ideas 5992 and 8300. |
| 8913 | Chess may be abstract, but it has existed in specific space and time [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: The natural view of chess is not that it is a non-spatiotemporal mathematical object, but that it was invented at a certain time and place, that it has changed over the years, and so on. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (Abstract Objects [2001], 'Non-spat') | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as being undeniable, and being an incredibly important point. Logicians seem to want to subsume things like games into the highly abstract world of logic and numbers. In fact the direction of explanation should be reversed. |
| 8914 | Sets are said to be abstract and non-spatial, but a set of books can be on a shelf [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: It is thought that sets are abstract, abstract objects do not exist in space, so sets must not exist in space. But it is not unnatural to say that a set of books is located on a certain shelf in the library. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (Abstract Objects [2001], 'Non-spat') | |
| A reaction: The arguments against non-spatiality of abstractions seem to me to be conclusive. Not being able to assign a location to the cosine function is on a par with not knowing where my thoughts are located in my brain. |
| 8916 | Conflating abstractions with either sets or universals is a big claim, needing a big defence [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: The Way of Conflation account of abstractions (identifying them sets or with universals) is now relatively rare. The claim sets or universals are the only abstract objects would amount to a substantive metaphysical thesis, in need of defence. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (Abstract Objects [2001], 'Way of Con') | |
| A reaction: If you produce a concept like 'mammal' by psychological abstraction, you do seem to end up with a set of things with shared properties, so this approach is not silly. I can't think of any examples of abstractions which are not sets or universals. |
| 8918 | Functional terms can pick out abstractions by asserting an equivalence relation [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: On Frege's suggestion, functional terms that pick out abstract expressions (such as 'direction' or 'equinumeral') have a typical form of f(a) = f(b) iff aRb, where R is an equivalence relation, a relation which is reflexive, symmetric and transitive. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (Abstract Objects [2001], 'Way of Abs') | |
| A reaction: [Wright and Hale are credited with the details] This has become the modern orthodoxy among the logically-minded. Examples of R are 'parallel' or 'just as many as'. It picks out an 'aspect', which isn't far from the old view. |
| 8919 | Abstraction by equivalence relationships might prove that a train is an abstract entity [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: It seems possible to define a train in terms of its carriages and the connection relationship, which would meet the equivalence account of abstraction, but demonstrate that trains are actually abstract. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (Abstract Objects [2001], 'Way of Abs') | |
| A reaction: [Compressed. See article for more detail] A tricky example, but a suggestive line of criticism. If you find two physical objects which relate to one another reflexively, symmetrically and transitively, they may turn out to be abstract. |
| 18007 | Syntax is independent of semantics; sentences can be well formed but meaningless [Chomsky, by Magidor] |
| Full Idea: In 1957 Chomsky argues that syntax is an independent field from semantics. …To support this claim he argues that the now-famous category mistake 'Colourless green ideas sleep furiously' is grammatical but meaningless. | |
| From: report of Noam Chomsky (Syntactic Structure [1957]) by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 1.3 | |
| A reaction: I'm tempted by the thought that this famous sentence actually is meaningful, although the meaning is fragmentary, and any proposition which can be assembled from it appears to be blatantly false. |