Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Beitrage' and 'The Problem of Counterfactual Conditionals'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

4 ideas

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 9. Counterfactuals

12191	Counterfactuals are true if logical or natural laws imply the consequence [Goodman, by McFetridge]
	Full Idea: Goodman's central idea was: 'If that match had been scratched, it would have lighted' is true if there are suitable truths from which, with the antecedent, the consequent can be inferred by means of a logical, or more typically natural, law.
	From: report of Nelson Goodman (The Problem of Counterfactual Conditionals [1947]) by Ian McFetridge - Logical Necessity: Some Issues §4
	A reaction: Goodman then discusses the problem of identifying the natural laws, and identifying the suitable truths. I'm inclined to think counterfactuals are vaguer than that; they are plausible if coherent reasons can be offered for the inference.

18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 2. Abstracta by Selection

9145	We form the image of a cardinal number by a double abstraction, from the elements and from their order [Cantor]
	Full Idea: We call 'cardinal number' the general concept which, by means of our active faculty of thought, arises when we make abstraction from an aggregate of its various elements, and of their order. From this double abstraction the number is an image in our mind.
	From: George Cantor (Beitrage [1915], §1), quoted by Kit Fine - Cantorian Abstraction: Recon. and Defence Intro
	A reaction: [compressed] This is the great Cantor, creator of set theory, endorsing the traditional abstractionism which Frege and his followers so despise. Fine offers a defence of it. The Frege view is platonist, because it refuses to connect numbers to the world.

25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles

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.

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / d. Time as measure

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.