Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Isagoge ('Introduction')', 'Inventing Logical Necessity' and 'Introduction to 'Modality''

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4 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 1. Universals

15034	Are genera and species real or conceptual? bodies or incorporeal? in sensibles or separate from them? [Porphyry]
	Full Idea: I shall beg off talking of a) whether genera and species are real or situated in bare thoughts alone, b) whether as real they are bodies or incorporeals, and c) whether they are separated or in sensibles and have their reality in connection with them.
	From: Porphyry (Isagoge ('Introduction') [c.295], (2))
	A reaction: This passage, picking up on Aristotle, seems to be the original source that grew into the medievel debate about universals. It seems to rather neatly lay out the agenda for the universals debate which is still with us.

10. Modality / A. Necessity / 1. Types of Modality

14528	Maybe modal thought is unavoidable, as a priori recognition of necessary truth-preservation in reasoning [Hale/Hoffmann,A]
	Full Idea: There are 'transcendental' arguments saying that modal thought is unavoidable - recognition, a priori, of the necessarily truth-preserving character of some forms of inference is a precondition for rational thought in general, and scientific theorizing.
	From: Bob Hale/ Aviv Hoffmann (Introduction to 'Modality' [2010], 1)
	A reaction: So the debate about the status of logical truths and valid inference, are partly debates about whether out thought has to involve modality, or whether it could just be about the actual world. I take possibilities and necssities to be features of nature.

10. Modality / A. Necessity / 6. Logical Necessity

12189	Logical necessity involves a decision about usage, and is non-realist and non-cognitive [Wright,C, by McFetridge]
	Full Idea: Wright espouses a non-realist, indeed non-cognitive account of logical necessity. Crucial to this is the idea that acceptance of a statement as necessary always involves an element of decision (to use it in a necessary way).
	From: report of Crispin Wright (Inventing Logical Necessity [1986]) by Ian McFetridge - Logical Necessity: Some Issues §3
	A reaction: This has little appeal to me, as I take (unfashionably) the view that that logical necessity is rooted in the behaviour of the actual physical world, with which you can't argue. We test simple logic by making up examples.

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / b. Language holism

7320	Holism cannot give a coherent account of scientific methodology [Wright,C, by Miller,A]
	Full Idea: Crispin Wright has argued that Quine's holism is implausible because it is actually incoherent: he claims that Quine's holism cannot provide us with a coherent account of scientific methodology.
	From: report of Crispin Wright (Inventing Logical Necessity [1986]) by Alexander Miller - Philosophy of Language 4.5
	A reaction: This sounds promising, given my intuitive aversion to linguistic holism, and almost everything to do with Quine. Scientific methodology is not isolated, but spreads into our ordinary (experimental) interactions with the world (e.g. Idea 2461).