30 ideas
| 16877 | A 'constructive' (as opposed to 'analytic') definition creates a new sign [Frege] |
| Full Idea: We construct a sense out of its constituents and introduce an entirely new sign to express this sense. This may be called a 'constructive definition', but we prefer to call it a 'definition' tout court. It contrasts with an 'analytic' definition. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.210) | |
| A reaction: An analytic definition is evidently a deconstruction of a past constructive definition. Fregean definition is a creative activity. |
| 11219 | Frege suggested that mathematics should only accept stipulative definitions [Frege, by Gupta] |
| Full Idea: Frege has defended the austere view that, in mathematics at least, only stipulative definitions should be countenanced. | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914]) by Anil Gupta - Definitions 1.3 | |
| A reaction: This sounds intriguingly at odds with Frege's well-known platonism about numbers (as sets of equinumerous sets). It makes sense for other mathematical concepts. |
| 16878 | We must be clear about every premise and every law used in a proof [Frege] |
| Full Idea: It is so important, if we are to have a clear insight into what is going on, for us to be able to recognise the premises of every inference which occurs in a proof and the law of inference in accordance with which it takes place. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.212) | |
| A reaction: Teachers of logic like natural deduction, because it reduces everything to a few clear laws, which can be stated at each step. |
| 17325 | Truth-maker theory can't cope with non-causal dependence [Liggins] |
| Full Idea: My charge is that truth-maker theory cannot be integrated into an attractive general account of non-causal dependence. | |
| From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.6) | |
| A reaction: [You'll have to read Liggins to see why] |
| 17318 | Truthmakers for existence is fine; otherwise maybe restrict it to synthetic truths? [Liggins] |
| Full Idea: Many philosophers agree that true existential propositions have a truth-maker, but some go further, claiming that every true proposition has a truth-maker. More cautious theorists specify a class of truths, such as synthetic propositions. | |
| From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.1) | |
| A reaction: [compressed; Armstrong is the ambitious one, and Rodriguez-Pereyra proposes the synthetic propositions] Presumably synthetic propositions can make negative assertions, which are problematic for truth-makers. |
| 16867 | Logic not only proves things, but also reveals logical relations between them [Frege] |
| Full Idea: A proof does not only serve to convince us of the truth of what is proved: it also serves to reveal logical relations between truths. Hence we find in Euclid proofs of truths that appear to stand in no need of proof because they are obvious without one. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.204) | |
| A reaction: This is a key idea in Frege's philosophy, and a reason why he is the founder of modern analytic philosophy, with logic placed at the centre of the subject. I take the value of proofs to be raising questions, more than giving answers. |
| 16863 | Does some mathematical reasoning (such as mathematical induction) not belong to logic? [Frege] |
| Full Idea: Are there perhaps modes of inference peculiar to mathematics which …do not belong to logic? Here one may point to inference by mathematical induction from n to n+1. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.203) | |
| A reaction: He replies that it looks as if induction can be reduced to general laws, and those can be reduced to logic. |
| 16862 | The closest subject to logic is mathematics, which does little apart from drawing inferences [Frege] |
| Full Idea: Mathematics has closer ties with logic than does almost any other discipline; for almost the entire activity of the mathematician consists in drawing inferences. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.203) | |
| A reaction: The interesting question is who is in charge - the mathematician or the logician? |
| 16865 | 'Theorems' are both proved, and used in proofs [Frege] |
| Full Idea: Usually a truth is only called a 'theorem' when it has not merely been obtained by inference, but is used in turn as a premise for a number of inferences in the science. ….Proofs use non-theorems, which only occur in that proof. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.204) |
| 16866 | Tracing inference backwards closes in on a small set of axioms and postulates [Frege] |
| Full Idea: We can trace the chains of inference backwards, …and the circle of theorems closes in more and more. ..We must eventually come to an end by arriving at truths can cannot be inferred, …which are the axioms and postulates. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.204) | |
| A reaction: The rival (more modern) view is that that all theorems are equal in status, and axioms are selected for convenience. |
| 16868 | The essence of mathematics is the kernel of primitive truths on which it rests [Frege] |
| Full Idea: Science must endeavour to make the circle of unprovable primitive truths as small as possible, for the whole of mathematics is contained in this kernel. The essence of mathematics has to be defined by this kernel of truths. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.204-5) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] I will make use of this thought, by arguing that mathematics may be 'explained' by this kernel. |
| 16871 | A truth can be an axiom in one system and not in another [Frege] |
| Full Idea: It is possible for a truth to be an axiom in one system and not in another. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.205) | |
| A reaction: Frege aspired to one huge single system, so this is a begrudging concession, one which modern thinkers would probably take for granted. |
| 16870 | Axioms are truths which cannot be doubted, and for which no proof is needed [Frege] |
| Full Idea: The axioms are theorems, but truths for which no proof can be given in our system, and no proof is needed. It follows from this that there are no false axioms, and we cannot accept a thought as an axiom if we are in doubt about its truth. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.205) | |
| A reaction: He struggles to be as objective as possible, but has to concede that whether we can 'doubt' the axiom is one of the criteria. |
| 16869 | To create order in mathematics we need a full system, guided by patterns of inference [Frege] |
| Full Idea: We cannot long remain content with the present fragmentation [of mathematics]. Order can be created only by a system. But to construct a system it is necessary that in any step forward we take we should be aware of the logical inferences involved. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.205) |
| 16864 | If principles are provable, they are theorems; if not, they are axioms [Frege] |
| Full Idea: If the law [of induction] can be proved, it will be included amongst the theorems of mathematics; if it cannot, it will be included amongst the axioms. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.203) | |
| A reaction: This links Frege with the traditional Euclidean view of axioms. The question, then, is how do we know them, given that we can't prove them. |
| 17320 | Either p is true or not-p is true, so something is true, so something exists [Liggins] |
| Full Idea: Either p or not-p. If p, then the proposition 'p' is true. If not p, then the proposition 'not p' is true. Either way, something is true. Thus something exists. | |
| From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.3 n5) | |
| A reaction: Liggins offers this dodgy argument as an objection to conceptual truths having truth-makers. |
| 17326 | The dependence of {Socrates} on Socrates involves a set and a philosopher, not facts [Liggins] |
| Full Idea: The dependence of {Socrates} on Socrates appears to involve a set and a philosopher, neither of which is a fact. | |
| From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.6) | |
| A reaction: He points out that defenders of facts as the basis of dependence could find a suitable factual paraphrase here. Socrates is just Socrates, but the singleton has to be understood in a particular way to generate the dependence. |
| 17327 | Non-causal dependence is at present only dimly understood [Liggins] |
| Full Idea: Non-causal dependence is at present only dimly understood. | |
| From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.8) | |
| A reaction: Not very helpful, you may be thinking, but it is always helpful to know where we have got to in the enquiry. |
| 17322 | Necessities supervene on everything, but don't depend on everything [Liggins] |
| Full Idea: Necessities supervene upon everything, but they do not depend on everything. | |
| From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure if merely existing together counts as sufficiently close to be 'supervenience'. If 2+2 necessitates 4, that hardly seems to 'supervene' on the Eiffel Tower. If so, how close must things be to qualify for supervenience? |
| 9388 | Every concept must have a sharp boundary; we cannot allow an indeterminate third case [Frege] |
| Full Idea: Of any concept, we must require that it have a sharp boundary. Of any object it must hold either that it falls under the concept or it does not. We may not allow a third case in which it is somehow indeterminate whether an object falls under a concept. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.229), quoted by Ian Rumfitt - The Logic of Boundaryless Concepts p.1 n1 | |
| A reaction: This is the voice of the classical logician, which has echoed by Russell. I'm with them, I think, in the sense that logic can only work with precise concepts. The jury is still out. Maybe we can 'precisify', without achieving total precision. |
| 17324 | 'Because' can signal an inference rather than an explanation [Liggins] |
| Full Idea: 'Because' can signal an inference rather than an explanation. | |
| From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.5) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle starts from words like 'why?', but it can be a deceptive approach to explanation. |
| 17321 | Value, constitution and realisation are non-causal dependences that explain [Liggins] |
| Full Idea: 'It is wrong because it produces pain for fun', and 'these constitute a table because they are arranged tablewise', and 'tea is poisonous because it contains arsenic' are clearly non-causal uses of 'because', and neither are they conceptual. | |
| From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: The general line seems to be that any form of determination will underwrite an explanation. He talks later of the 'wrongmaker' and 'poisonmaker' relationships to add to the 'truthmaker'. The table example is the 'object-maker' dependence relation. |
| 17323 | If explanations track dependence, then 'determinative' explanations seem to exist [Liggins] |
| Full Idea: If explanation often tracks dependence, then we have a theoretical reason to expect such explanations to exist. Let us call such explanations 'determinative'. | |
| From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: There seems to be an emerging understanding that this 'determination' relation is central to all of explanation - with causal explanations, for example, being a particular instance of it. I like it. These are real, not conventional, explanations. |
| 16876 | We need definitions to cram retrievable sense into a signed receptacle [Frege] |
| Full Idea: If we need such signs, we also need definitions so that we can cram this sense into the receptacle and also take it out again. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.209) | |
| A reaction: Has anyone noticed that Frege is the originator of the idea of the mental file? Has anyone noticed the role that definition plays in his account? |
| 16875 | We use signs to mark receptacles for complex senses [Frege] |
| Full Idea: We often need to use a sign with which we associate a very complex sense. Such a sign seems a receptacle for the sense, so that we can carry it with us, while being always aware that we can open this receptacle should we need what it contains. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.209) | |
| A reaction: This exactly the concept of a mental file, which I enthusiastically endorse. Frege even talks of 'opening the receptacle'. For Frege a definition (which he has been discussing) is the assigment of a label (the 'definiendum') to the file (the 'definiens'). |
| 16879 | A sign won't gain sense just from being used in sentences with familiar components [Frege] |
| Full Idea: No sense accrues to a sign by the mere fact that it is used in one or more sentences, the other constituents of which are known. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.213) | |
| A reaction: Music to my ears. I've never grasped how meaning could be grasped entirely through use. |
| 16873 | Thoughts are not subjective or psychological, because some thoughts are the same for us all [Frege] |
| Full Idea: A thought is not something subjective, is not the product of any form of mental activity; for the thought that we have in Pythagoras's theorem is the same for everybody. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.206) | |
| A reaction: When such thoughts are treated as if the have objective (platonic) existence, I become bewildered. I take a thought (or proposition) to be entirely psychological, but that doesn't stop two people from having the same thought. |
| 16872 | A thought is the sense expressed by a sentence, and is what we prove [Frege] |
| Full Idea: The sentence is of value to us because of the sense that we grasp in it, which is recognisably the same in a translation. I call this sense the thought. What we prove is not a sentence, but a thought. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.206) | |
| A reaction: The 'sense' is presumably the German 'sinn', and a 'thought' in Frege is what we normally call a 'proposition'. So the sense of a sentence is a proposition, and logic proves propositions. I'm happy with that. |
| 16874 | The parts of a thought map onto the parts of a sentence [Frege] |
| Full Idea: A sentence is generally a complex sign, so the thought expressed by it is complex too: in fact it is put together in such a way that parts of a thought correspond to parts of the sentence. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.207) | |
| A reaction: This is the compositional view of propositions, as opposed to the holistic view. |
| 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. |