11 ideas
| 22246 | A train of reasoning must be treated as all happening simultaneously [Recanati] |
| Full Idea: For logic purposes, a train of reasoning has to be construed as synchronic. | |
| From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: If we are looking for a gulf between logic and the real world this is a factor to be considered, along with Nietzsche's observation about necessary simplification. [ref to Kaplan 'Afterthoughts' 1989, 584-5] |
| 10855 | Actual infinities are not allowed in mathematics - only limits which may increase without bound [Gauss] |
| Full Idea: I protest against the use of an infinite quantity as an actual entity; this is never allowed in mathematics. The infinite is only a manner of speaking, in which one properly speaks of limits ...which are permitted to increase without bound. | |
| From: Carl Friedrich Gauss (Letter to Shumacher [1831]), quoted by Brian Clegg - Infinity: Quest to Think the Unthinkable Ch.7 |
| 22247 | Indexicality is not just a feature of language; examples show it also occurs in thought [Recanati] |
| Full Idea: People once took indexicality to be exclusively a property of language, ....but a series of examples seemed to establish that the thought expressed by uttering an indexical sentence is itself indexical (and is thus 'essential'). | |
| From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: Perry's example of not realising it is him leaking the sugar in a supermarket is the best known example. Was this a key moment for realising that philosophy of thought is (pace Dummett) more important than philosophy of language? |
| 22248 | How can we communicate indexical thoughts to people not in the right context? [Recanati] |
| Full Idea: Indexical thoughts create an obvious problem with regard to communication. How can we manage to communicate such thoughts to those who are not in the right context? | |
| From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 7.1) | |
| A reaction: One answer is that you often cannot communicate them. If I write on a wall 'I am here now', that doesn't tell the next passer-by very much. But 'it's raining here' said in a telephone call works fine - if you know the location of the caller. |
| 22242 | Mental files are concepts, which are either collections or (better) containers [Recanati] |
| Full Idea: Mental files are entries in the mental encyclopedia, that is, concepts. Some, following Grice, say they are information collections, but I think of them as containers. Collections are determined by their elements, but containers have independent identity. | |
| From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], Pref) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] [Grice reference is 'Vacuous Names' (1969)] I agree with Recanati. The point is that you can invoke a file by a label, even when you don't know what the content is. |
| 22243 | The Frege case of believing a thing is both F and not-F is explained by separate mental files [Recanati] |
| Full Idea: Frege's Constraint says if a subject believes an object is both F and not-F (as in 'Frege cases'), then the subject thinks of that object under distinct modes of presentation. Having distinct mental files of the object is sufficient to generate this. | |
| From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], Pref) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] When you look at how many semantic puzzles (notably from Frege and Kripke) are solved by the existence of labelled mental files, the case for them is overwhelming. |
| 22245 | A linguistic expression refers to what its associated mental file refers to [Recanati] |
| Full Idea: Mental files determine the reference of linguistic expressions: an expression refers to what the mental file associated with it refers to (at the time of tokening). | |
| From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 5) | |
| A reaction: Invites the question of how mental files manage to refer, prior to the arrival of a linguistic expression. A mental file is usually fully of descriptions, but it might be no more than a label. |
| 22250 | There are speakers' thoughts and hearers' thoughts, but no further thought attached to the utterance [Recanati] |
| Full Idea: There is the speaker's thought and the thought formed by the hearer. That is all there is. We don't need an additional entity, the thought expressed by the utterance. | |
| From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 7.2) | |
| A reaction: This fits my view of propositions nicely. They are the two 'thoughts'. The notion of some further abstract 'proposition' with its own mode of independent existence strikes me as ontologically absurd. |
| 22249 | The Naive view of communication is that hearers acquire exactly the thoughts of the speaker [Recanati] |
| Full Idea: The Naive Conception of Communication rests on the idea that communication is the replication of thoughts: the thought the hearer entertains when he understands what the speaker is saying is the very thought which the speaker expressed. | |
| From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 7.1) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to believe that any modern thinker would believe such a view, given holistic views of language etc. |
| 13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
| Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes. | |
| From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078 | |
| A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book. |
| 20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
| Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness. | |
| From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42 | |
| A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them. |