9455
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Maybe proper names have the content of fixing a thing's category [Bealer]
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Full Idea:
Some say that proper names have no descriptive content, but others think that although a name does not have the right sort of descriptive content which fixes a unique referent, it has a content which fixes the sort or category to which it belongs.
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From:
George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §7)
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A reaction:
Presumably 'Mary', and 'Felix', and 'Rover', and 'Smallville' are cases in point. There is a well known journalist called 'Manchester', a famous man called 'Hilary', a village in Hertfordshire called 'Matching Tie'... Interesting, though.
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9454
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The four leading theories of definite descriptions are Frege's, Russell's, Evans's, and Prior's [Bealer]
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Full Idea:
The four leading theories of definite descriptions are Frege's, Russell's, Evans's, and Prior's, ...of which to many Frege's is the most intuitive of the four. Frege says they refer to the unique item (if it exists) which satisfies the predicate.
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From:
George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §5)
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A reaction:
He doesn't expound the other three, but I record this a corrective to the view that Russell has the only game in town.
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5060
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All substances analyse down to simple substances, which are souls, or 'monads' [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
What (in the analysis of substances) exist ultimately are simple substances - namely, souls, or, if you prefer a more general terms, 'monads', which are without parts.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Metaphysical conseqs of principle of reason [1712], §7)
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A reaction:
This seems to me to be atomistic panpsychism. He is opposed to physical atomism, because infinite divisibility seems obvious, but unity is claimed to be equally obvious in the world of the mental. Does this mean bricks are made of souls? Odd.
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9452
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Propositions might be reduced to functions (worlds to truth values), or ordered sets of properties and relations [Bealer]
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Full Idea:
The reductionist view of propositions sees them as either extensional functions from possible worlds to truth values, or as ordered sets of properties, relations, and perhaps particulars.
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From:
George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §1)
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A reaction:
The usual problem of all functional accounts is 'what is it about x that enables it to have that function?' And if they are sets, where does the ordering come in? A proposition isn't just a list of items in some particular order. Both wrong.
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9451
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Modal logic and brain science have reaffirmed traditional belief in propositions [Bealer]
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Full Idea:
Philosophers have been skeptical about abstract objects, and so have been skeptical about propositions,..but with the rise of modal logic and metaphysics, and cognitive science's realism about intentional states, traditional propositions are now dominant.
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From:
George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §1)
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A reaction:
I personally strongly favour belief in propositions as brain states, which don't need a bizarre ontological status, but are essential to explain language, reasoning and communication.
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5059
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Power rules in efficient causes, but wisdom rules in connecting them to final causes [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
In all of nature efficient causes correspond to final causes, because everything proceeds from a cause which is not only powerful, but wise; and with the rule of power through efficient causes, there is involved the rule of wisdom through final causes.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Metaphysical conseqs of principle of reason [1712], §5)
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A reaction:
Nowadays this carrot-and-stick view of causation is unfashionable, but I won't rule it out. The deepest 'why?' we can ask won't just go away. This unity by a divine mind strikes me as too simple, but Leibniz is right to try to unify Aristotelian causes.
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