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9455
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Maybe proper names have the content of fixing a thing's category [Bealer]
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Full Idea:
Some say that proper names have no descriptive content, but others think that although a name does not have the right sort of descriptive content which fixes a unique referent, it has a content which fixes the sort or category to which it belongs.
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From:
George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §7)
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A reaction:
Presumably 'Mary', and 'Felix', and 'Rover', and 'Smallville' are cases in point. There is a well known journalist called 'Manchester', a famous man called 'Hilary', a village in Hertfordshire called 'Matching Tie'... Interesting, though.
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9454
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The four leading theories of definite descriptions are Frege's, Russell's, Evans's, and Prior's [Bealer]
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Full Idea:
The four leading theories of definite descriptions are Frege's, Russell's, Evans's, and Prior's, ...of which to many Frege's is the most intuitive of the four. Frege says they refer to the unique item (if it exists) which satisfies the predicate.
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From:
George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §5)
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A reaction:
He doesn't expound the other three, but I record this a corrective to the view that Russell has the only game in town.
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9452
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Propositions might be reduced to functions (worlds to truth values), or ordered sets of properties and relations [Bealer]
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Full Idea:
The reductionist view of propositions sees them as either extensional functions from possible worlds to truth values, or as ordered sets of properties, relations, and perhaps particulars.
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From:
George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §1)
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A reaction:
The usual problem of all functional accounts is 'what is it about x that enables it to have that function?' And if they are sets, where does the ordering come in? A proposition isn't just a list of items in some particular order. Both wrong.
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9451
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Modal logic and brain science have reaffirmed traditional belief in propositions [Bealer]
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Full Idea:
Philosophers have been skeptical about abstract objects, and so have been skeptical about propositions,..but with the rise of modal logic and metaphysics, and cognitive science's realism about intentional states, traditional propositions are now dominant.
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From:
George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §1)
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A reaction:
I personally strongly favour belief in propositions as brain states, which don't need a bizarre ontological status, but are essential to explain language, reasoning and communication.
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6866
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It is disturbing if we become unreal when we die, but if time is unreal, then we remain real after death [Le Poidevin]
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Full Idea:
For the A-theorists called 'presentists' the past is as unreal as the future, and reality leaves us behind once we die, which is disturbing; but B-theorists, who see time as unreal, say we are just as real after our deaths as we were beforehand.
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From:
Robin Le Poidevin (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.174)
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A reaction:
See Idea 6865 for A and B theories. I wonder if this problem is only superficially 'disturbing'. Becoming unreal may sound more drastic than becoming dead, but they both sound pretty terminal to me.
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22489
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'Good' is an attributive adjective like 'large', not predicative like 'red' [Geach, by Foot]
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Full Idea:
Geach puts 'good' in the class of attributive adjectives, such as 'large' and 'small', contrasting such adjectives with 'predicative' adjectives such as 'red'.
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From:
report of Peter Geach (Good and Evil [1956]) by Philippa Foot - Natural Goodness Intro
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A reaction:
[In Analysis 17, and 'Theories of Ethics' ed Foot] Thus any object can simply be red, but something can only be large or small 'for a rat' or 'for a car'. Hence nothing is just good, but always a good so-and-so. This is Aristotelian, and Foot loves it.
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6865
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A-theory says past, present, future and flow exist; B-theory says this just reports our perspective [Le Poidevin]
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Full Idea:
The A-theory regards our intuitive distinction of time into past, present and future as objective, and takes seriously the idea that time flows; the B-theory says this just reflects our perspective, like the spatial distinction between here and there.
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From:
Robin Le Poidevin (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.174)
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A reaction:
The distinction comes from McTaggart. Physics seems to be built on an objective view of time, and yet Einstein makes time relative. What possible evidence could decide between the two theories?
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