16 ideas
11064 | Classes can be reduced to propositional functions [Russell, by Hanna] |
Full Idea: Russell held that classes can be reduced to propositional functions. | |
From: report of Bertrand Russell (Mathematical logic and theory of types [1908]) by Robert Hanna - Rationality and Logic 2.4 | |
A reaction: The exact nature of a propositional function is disputed amongst Russell scholars (though it is roughly an open sentence of the form 'x is red'). |
6407 | The class of classes which lack self-membership leads to a contradiction [Russell, by Grayling] |
Full Idea: The class of teaspoons isn't a teaspoon, so isn't a member of itself; but the class of non-teaspoons is a member of itself. The class of all classes which are not members of themselves is a member of itself if it isn't a member of itself! Paradox. | |
From: report of Bertrand Russell (Mathematical logic and theory of types [1908]) by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2 | |
A reaction: A very compressed version of Russell's famous paradox, often known as the 'barber' paradox. Russell developed his Theory of Types in an attempt to counter the paradox. Frege's response was to despair of his own theory. |
10418 | Type theory seems an extreme reaction, since self-exemplification is often innocuous [Swoyer on Russell] |
Full Idea: Russell's reaction to his paradox (by creating his theory of types) seems extreme, because many cases of self-exemplification are innocuous. The property of being a property is itself a property. | |
From: comment on Bertrand Russell (Mathematical logic and theory of types [1908]) by Chris Swoyer - Properties 7.5 | |
A reaction: Perhaps it is not enough that 'many cases' are innocuous. We are starting from philosophy of mathematics, where precision is essentially. General views about properties come later. |
10047 | Russell's improvements blocked mathematics as well as paradoxes, and needed further axioms [Russell, by Musgrave] |
Full Idea: Unfortunately, Russell's new logic, as well as preventing the deduction of paradoxes, also prevented the deduction of mathematics, so he supplemented it with additional axioms, of Infinity, of Choice, and of Reducibility. | |
From: report of Bertrand Russell (Mathematical logic and theory of types [1908]) by Alan Musgrave - Logicism Revisited §2 | |
A reaction: The first axiom seems to be an empirical hypothesis, and the second has turned out to be independent of logic and set theory. |
23478 | Type theory means that features shared by different levels cannot be expressed [Morris,M on Russell] |
Full Idea: Russell's theory of types avoided the paradoxes, but it had the result that features common to different levels of the hierarchy become uncapturable (since any attempt to capture them would involve a predicate which disobeyed the hierarchy restrictions). | |
From: comment on Bertrand Russell (Mathematical logic and theory of types [1908]) by Michael Morris - Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus 2H |
21718 | Ramified types can be defended as a system of intensional logic, with a 'no class' view of sets [Russell, by Linsky,B] |
Full Idea: A defence of the ramified theory of types comes in seeing it as a system of intensional logic which includes the 'no class' account of sets, and indeed the whole development of mathematics, as just a part. | |
From: report of Bertrand Russell (Mathematical logic and theory of types [1908]) by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 6.1 | |
A reaction: So Linsky's basic project is to save logicism, by resting on intensional logic (rather than extensional logic and set theory). I'm not aware that Linsky has acquired followers for this. Maybe Crispin Wright has commented? |
18126 | A set does not exist unless at least one of its specifications is predicative [Russell, by Bostock] |
Full Idea: The idea is that the same set may well have different canonical specifications, i.e. there may be different ways of stating its membership conditions, and so long as one of these is predicative all is well. If none are, the supposed set does not exist. | |
From: report of Bertrand Russell (Mathematical logic and theory of types [1908]) by David Bostock - Philosophy of Mathematics 8.1 |
18128 | Russell is a conceptualist here, saying some abstracta only exist because definitions create them [Russell, by Bostock] |
Full Idea: It is a conceptualist approach that Russell is relying on. ...The view is that some abstract objects ...exist only because they are definable. It is the definition that would (if permitted) somehow bring them into existence. | |
From: report of Bertrand Russell (Mathematical logic and theory of types [1908]) by David Bostock - Philosophy of Mathematics 8.1 | |
A reaction: I'm suddenly thinking that predicativism is rather interesting. Being of an anti-platonist persuasion about abstract 'objects', I take some story about how we generate them to be needed. Psychological abstraction seems right, but a bit vague. |
18124 | Vicious Circle says if it is expressed using the whole collection, it can't be in the collection [Russell, by Bostock] |
Full Idea: The Vicious Circle Principle says, roughly, that whatever involves, or presupposes, or is only definable in terms of, all of a collection cannot itself be one of the collection. | |
From: report of Bertrand Russell (Mathematical logic and theory of types [1908], p.63,75) by David Bostock - Philosophy of Mathematics 8.1 | |
A reaction: This is Bostock's paraphrase of Russell, because Russell never quite puts it clearly. The response is the requirement to be 'predicative'. Bostock emphasises that it mainly concerns definitions. The Principle 'always leads to hierarchies'. |
15148 | Powers give explanations, without being necessary for some class membership [Chakravartty] |
Full Idea: Powers explain behaviours regardless of whether they are necessary for membership in a particular class of things. | |
From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 3) | |
A reaction: This seems right, and is important for driving a wedge between powers and essences. If there are essences, they are not simply some bunch of powers. |
15145 | A kind essence is the necessary and sufficient properties for membership of a class [Chakravartty] |
Full Idea: The modern concept of a kind essence is a set of intrinsic properties that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for the membership of something in a class of things, or 'kind'. | |
From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 2) | |
A reaction: I am always struck by the problem that the kind itself is constructed from the individuals, so circularity always seems to loom. |
15147 | Cluster kinds are explained simply by sharing some properties, not by an 'essence' [Chakravartty] |
Full Idea: The fact that members of some cluster kinds are subjects of causal generalizations reflects the degree to which they share causally efficacious properties, not the fact that they may be composed of essence kinds per se. | |
From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 2) | |
A reaction: I think this is right. I am a fan of individual essences, but not of kind essences. I take kinds, and kind explanations, to be straightforward inductive generalisations from individuals. Extreme stabilities give the illusion of a kind essence. |
15144 | Explanation of causal phenomena concerns essential kinds - but also lack of them [Chakravartty] |
Full Idea: Scientific practices such as prediction and explanation regarding causal phenomena are concerned not merely with kinds having essences, but also with kinds lacking them. | |
From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 1) | |
A reaction: Not quite clear what he has in mind, but explanation should certainly involve a coherent picture, and not just the citation of some underlying causal mechanism. |
6017 | Nomos is king [Pindar] |
Full Idea: Nomos is king. | |
From: Pindar (poems [c.478 BCE], S 169), quoted by Thomas Nagel - The Philosophical Culture | |
A reaction: This seems to be the earliest recorded shot in the nomos-physis wars (the debate among sophists about moral relativism). It sounds as if it carries the full relativist burden - that all that matters is what has been locally decreed. |
15146 | Some kinds, such as electrons, have essences, but 'cluster kinds' do not [Chakravartty] |
Full Idea: Many of the kinds we theorize about and experiment on today simply do not have essences. We can distinguish 'essence kinds', such as electrons, and 'cluster kinds', such as biological species. | |
From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 2) | |
A reaction: This is an important point for essentialists. He offers a strict criterion, in Idea 15145, for mind membership, but we might allow species to have essences by just relaxing the criteria a bit, and acknowledging some vagueness, especially over time. |
15151 | Many causal laws do not refer to kinds, but only to properties [Chakravartty] |
Full Idea: Causal laws often do not make reference to kinds of objects at all, but rather summarize relations between quantitative, causally efficacious properties of objects. | |
From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 3) | |
A reaction: This would only be a serious challenge if it was not possible to translate talk of properties into talk of kinds, and vice versa. |