9 ideas
| 21560 | Any linguistic expression may lack meaning when taken out of context [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Any sentence, a single word, or a single component phrase, may often be quite devoid of meaning when separated from its context. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Substitutional Classes and Relations [1906], p.165) | |
| A reaction: Contextualism is now extremely fashionable, in philosophy of language and in epistemology. Here Russell is looking for a contextual way to define classes [so says Lackey, the editor]. |
| 21561 | 'The number one is bald' or 'the number one is fond of cream cheese' are meaningless [Russell] |
| Full Idea: 'The number one is bald' or 'the number one is fond of cream cheese' are, I maintain, not merely silly remarks, but totally devoid of meaning. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Substitutional Classes and Relations [1906], p.166) | |
| A reaction: He connects this to paradoxes in set theory, such as the assertion that 'the class of human beings is a human being' (which is the fallacy of composition). |
| 9470 | Modal logic is not an extensional language [Parsons,C] |
| Full Idea: Modal logic is not an extensional language. | |
| From: Charles Parsons (A Plea for Substitutional Quantification [1971], p.159 n8) | |
| A reaction: [I record this for investigation. Possible worlds seem to contain objects] |
| 18130 | Axiom of Reducibility: there is always a function of the lowest possible order in a given level [Russell, by Bostock] |
| Full Idea: Russell's Axiom of Reducibility states that to any propositional function of any order in a given level, there corresponds another which is of the lowest possible order in the level. There corresponds what he calls a 'predicative' function of that level. | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (Substitutional Classes and Relations [1906]) by David Bostock - Philosophy of Mathematics 8.2 |
| 9469 | Substitutional existential quantifier may explain the existence of linguistic entities [Parsons,C] |
| Full Idea: I argue (against Quine) that the existential quantifier substitutionally interpreted has a genuine claim to express a concept of existence, which may give the best account of linguistic abstract entities such as propositions, attributes, and classes. | |
| From: Charles Parsons (A Plea for Substitutional Quantification [1971], p.156) | |
| A reaction: Intuitively I have my doubts about this, since the whole thing sounds like a verbal and conventional game, rather than anything with a proper ontology. Ruth Marcus and Quine disagree over this one. |
| 9468 | On the substitutional interpretation, '(∃x) Fx' is true iff a closed term 't' makes Ft true [Parsons,C] |
| Full Idea: For the substitutional interpretation of quantifiers, a sentence of the form '(∃x) Fx' is true iff there is some closed term 't' of the language such that 'Ft' is true. For the objectual interpretation some object x must exist such that Fx is true. | |
| From: Charles Parsons (A Plea for Substitutional Quantification [1971], p.156) | |
| A reaction: How could you decide if it was true for 't' if you didn't know what object 't' referred to? |
| 21562 | There is no complexity without relations, so no propositions, and no truth [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Relations in intension are of the utmost importance to philosophy and philosophical logic, since they are essential to complexity, and thence to propositions, and thence to the possibility of truth and falsehood. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Substitutional Classes and Relations [1906], p.174) | |
| A reaction: Should we able to specify the whole of reality, if we have available to us objects, properties and relations? There remains indeterminate 'stuff', when it does not compose objects. There are relations between pure ideas. |
| 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. |