Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'On the Reality of Accidents' and 'The Web of Belief'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 1. Nature of Analysis

8460	Philosophers have given precise senses to deduction, probability, computability etc [Quine/Ullian]
	Full Idea: Successful explications (giving a precise sense to a term) have been found for the concepts of deduction, probability and computability, to name just three.
	From: W Quine / J Ullian (The Web of Belief [1970], 65), quoted by Alex Orenstein - W.V. Quine Ch.3
	A reaction: Quine also cites the concept of an 'ordered pair'. Orenstein adds Tarski's definition of truth, Russell's definite descriptions, and the explication of existence in terms of quantifications. Cf. Idea 2958.

8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 4. Concept Nominalism

19382	Abstracta are abbreviated ways of talking; there are just substances, and truths about them [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: I consider abstracta not as real things but as abbreviated ways of talking ...and to that extent I am a nominalist, at least provisionally ...It suffices to posit only substances as real things, and, to assert truths about these.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (On the Reality of Accidents [1688]), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz
	A reaction: I am a modern nominalist, in my hostility to a serious ontological commitment to abstracta. You get into trouble, though, if you say there are only objects or substances. Physics says reality may all be 'fields', or something.... 'Truths' is good.

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.