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8865
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If 'the number of Democrats is on the rise', does that mean that 50 million is on the rise? [Yablo]
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Full Idea:
If someone says 'the number of Democrats is on the rise', he or she wants to focus on Democrats, not numbers. If the number is 50 million, is 50 million really on the rise?
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From:
Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §14)
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A reaction:
This is a very nice warning from Yablo, against easy platonism, or any sort of platonism at all. We routinely say that numbers are 'increasing', but the real meaning needs entangling. Here it refers to people joining a party.
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8864
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We quantify over events, worlds, etc. in order to make logical possibilities clearer [Yablo]
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Full Idea:
It is not that the contents of sentences are inexpressible without quantifying over events, worlds, etc. (they aren't). But the logical relations become much more tractable if we represent them quantificationally.
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From:
Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §13)
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A reaction:
Yablo is explaining why we find ourselves committed to abstract objects. It is essentially, as I am beginning to suspect, a conspiracy of logicians. What on earth is 'the empty set' when it is at home? What's it made of?
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8858
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Philosophers keep finding unexpected objects, like models, worlds, functions, numbers, events, sets, properties [Yablo]
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Full Idea:
There's a tradition in philosophy of finding 'unexpected objects' in truth-conditions, such as countermodels, possible worlds, functions, numbers, events, sets and properties.
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From:
Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §02)
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A reaction:
This is a very nice perspective on the whole matter of abstract objects. If we find ourselves reluctantly committed to the existence of something which is ontologically peculiar, we should go back to the philosophical drawing-board.
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7519
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Many mental phenomena are totally unexplained by folk psychology [Churchland,PM]
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Full Idea:
Folk psychology fails utterly to explain a considerable variety of central psychological phenomena: mental illness, sleep, creativity, memory, intelligence differences, and many forms of learning, to cite just a few.
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From:
Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], III)
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A reaction:
If folk psychology is a theory, it will have been developed to predict behaviour, rather than as a full-blown psychological map. The odd thing is that some people seem to be very bad at folk psychology.
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7520
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Folk psychology never makes any progress, and is marginalised by modern science [Churchland,PM]
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Full Idea:
Folk psychology has not progressed significantly in the last 2500 years; if anything, it has been steadily in retreat during this period; it does not integrate with modern science, and its emerging wallflower status bodes ill for its future.
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From:
Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], III)
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A reaction:
[compressed] However, while shares in alchemy and astrology have totally collapsed, folk psychology shows not the slightest sign of going away, and it is unclear how it ever could. See Idea 3177.
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5467
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Euler said nature is instrinsically passive, and minds cause change [Euler, by Ellis]
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Full Idea:
Euler thought the powers necessary for the maintenance of the changing universe would turn out to be just the passive ones of inertia and impenetrability. There are no active powers, he urged, other than those of God and living beings.
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From:
report of Leonhard Euler (Letters to a German Princess [1765]) by Brian Ellis - The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism Ch.4
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A reaction:
Very significant, I think, for revealing the religious framework behind early theories of natural laws. If there is nothing external to impose powers and movements on nature, the source must be sought within - hence essentialism.
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