11 ideas
| 8859 | The main modal logics disagree over three key formulae [Yablo] |
| Full Idea: Lewis's different systems of modal logic differed about such formulae as □P implies □□P; ◊□P implies □P; and ◊S implies □◊S | |
| From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §06) | |
| A reaction: Yablo's point is that the various version don't seem to make much difference to our practices in logic, mathematics and science. The problem, says Yablo, is deciding exactly what you mean by 'necessarily' and 'possibly'. |
| 8865 | If 'the number of Democrats is on the rise', does that mean that 50 million is on the rise? [Yablo] |
| 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? | |
| From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §14) | |
| 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. |
| 8863 | We must treat numbers as existing in order to express ourselves about the arrangement of planets [Yablo] |
| Full Idea: It is only by making as if to countenance numbers that one can give expression in English to a fact having nothing to do with numbers, a fact about stars and planets and how they are numerically proportioned. | |
| From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §13) | |
| A reaction: To avoid the phrase 'numerically proportioned', he might have alluded to the 'pattern' of the stars and planets. I'm not sure which -ism this is, but it seems to me a good approach. The application is likely to precede the theory. |
| 8862 | Platonic objects are really created as existential metaphors [Yablo] |
| Full Idea: The means by which platonic objects are simulated is existential metaphor. Numbers are conjured up as metaphorical measures of cardinality. | |
| From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §12) | |
| A reaction: 'Fictional' might be a better word than 'metaphorical', since the latter usually implies some sort of comparison. |
| 8864 | We quantify over events, worlds, etc. in order to make logical possibilities clearer [Yablo] |
| 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. | |
| From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §13) | |
| 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? |
| 8858 | Philosophers keep finding unexpected objects, like models, worlds, functions, numbers, events, sets, properties [Yablo] |
| 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. | |
| From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §02) | |
| 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. |
| 20363 | Leaves are unequal, but we form the concept 'leaf' by discarding their individual differences [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Every concept arises through the setting equal of the unequal. Just as it is certain that one leaf is never wholly equal to another, so it is certain that the concept leaf is formed by arbitrarily discarding these individual differences. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense [1872]), quoted by John Richardson - Nietzsche's System 2.1.1 n28 | |
| A reaction: Nietzsche adds an interesting aspect to psychological abstraction, of abstracting away the differences between things, which we might label as the (further) capacity for Equalisation. If two cars differ only in a blemish, we abstract away the blemish. |
| 22371 | Determinism threatens free will if actions can be causally traced to external factors [Foot] |
| Full Idea: The determinism which worries the defender of free will is that if human action is subject to a universal law of causation, there will be for any action a set of sufficient conditions which can be traced back to factors outside the control of the agent. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Free Will as Involving Determinism [1957], p.63) | |
| A reaction: She draws on Russell for this, but neither of them mention whether the causation is physical. Free will seems to imply non-physical causation. |
| 8861 | Hardly a word in the language is devoid of metaphorical potential [Yablo] |
| Full Idea: There is hardly a word in the language - be it an adverb, preposition, conjunction, or what have you - that is devoid of metaphorical potential. | |
| From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §12) | |
| A reaction: Yablo goes on to claim that metaphor is at the heart of all of our abstract thinking. 'Dead metaphors' (like the "mouth" of a river) sink totally into literal language. I think Yablo is on the right lines. |
| 22372 | Not all actions need motives, but it is irrational to perform troublesome actions with no motive [Foot] |
| Full Idea: We do not expect that everything a rational man does should be done with a motive, ...but we do expect a man to have a motive for many things that he does, and would count anyone who constantly performed troublesome actions without a motive as irrational. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Free Will as Involving Determinism [1957], p.66) | |
| A reaction: Interestng, because the assessment of whether someone is 'rational' therefore needs a criterion for when a motive seems required and when not. 'Significant' actions need a motive? |
| 22373 | People can act out of vanity without being vain, or even vain about this kind of thing [Foot] |
| Full Idea: It makes sense to say that a man acts out of vanity on a particular occasion although he is not in general vain, or even vain about this kind of thing. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Free Will as Involving Determinism [1957], p.69) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle tells us that virtues and vices are habits, and also have an intellectual component, implying that the person believes in that sort of behaviour. Anyone can have 'a little moment of vanity'. |