33 ideas
10455 | Free logic at least allows empty names, but struggles to express non-existence [Bach] |
Full Idea: Unlike standard first-order logic, free logic can allow empty names, but still has to deny existence by either representing it as a predicate, or invoke some dubious distinction such as between existence and being. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L1) |
10454 | In first-order we can't just assert existence, and it is very hard to deny something's existence [Bach] |
Full Idea: In standard logic we can't straightforwardly say that n exists. We have to resort to using a formula like '∃x(x=n)', but we can't deny n's existence by negating that formula, because standard first-order logic disallows empty names. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L1) |
10453 | In logic constants play the role of proper names [Bach] |
Full Idea: In standard first-order logic the role of proper names is played by individual constants. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L1) |
10452 | Proper names can be non-referential - even predicate as well as attributive uses [Bach] |
Full Idea: Like it or not, proper names have non-referential uses, including not only attributive but even predicate uses. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L1) | |
A reaction: 'He's a right little Hitler'. 'You're doing a George Bush again'. 'Try to live up to the name of Churchill'. |
10456 | Millian names struggle with existence, empty names, identities and attitude ascription [Bach] |
Full Idea: The familiar problems with the Millian view of names are the problem of positive and negative existential statements, empty names, identity sentences, and propositional attitude ascription. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L1) | |
A reaction: I take this combination of problems to make an overwhelming case against the daft idea that the semantics of a name amounts to the actual object it picks out. It is a category mistake to attempt to insert a person into a sentence. |
10440 | An object can be described without being referred to [Bach] |
Full Idea: An object can be described without being referred to. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], Intro) | |
A reaction: I'm not clear how this is possible for a well-known object, though it is clearly possible for a speculative object, such as a gadget I would like to buy. In the former case reference seems to occur even if the speaker is trying to avoid it. |
10444 | Definite descriptions can be used to refer, but are not semantically referential [Bach] |
Full Idea: If Russell is, as I believe, basically right, then definite descriptions are the paradigm of singular terms that can be used to refer but are not linguistically (semantically) referential. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1 s5) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure that we can decide what is 'semantically referential'. Most of the things we refer to don't have names. We don't then 'use' definite descriptions (I'm thinking) - they actually DO the job. If we use them, we can 'use' names too? |
23634 | Accepting the existence of anything presupposes the notion of existence [Reid] |
Full Idea: The belief of the existence of anything seems to suppose a notion of existence - a notion too abstract, perhaps, to enter into the mind of an infant. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785], 05) | |
A reaction: But even a small infant has to cope with the experience of waking up from a dream. I don't see how existence can be anything other than a primitive concept in any system of ontology. |
23635 | Truths are self-evident to sensible persons who understand them clearly without prejudice [Reid] |
Full Idea: Self-evident propositions are those which appear evident to every man of sound understanding who apprehends the meaning of them distinctly, and attends to them without prejudice. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785], 10) | |
A reaction: I suspect that there are some truths which are self-evident to dogs. There are also truths which are self-evident to experts, but not to ordinary persons of good understanding. Self-evidence is somewhat contextual. Self-evidence can be empirical. |
7631 | Sensation is not committed to any external object, but perception is [Reid] |
Full Idea: Sensation, by itself, implies neither the conception nor belief of any external object. ...Perception implies a conviction and belief of something external. ...Things so different in their nature ought to be distinguished. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785], II.16), quoted by Barry Maund - Perception | |
A reaction: Maund sees this as the origin of the two-stage view of perception, followed by Chisholm, Evans, Dretske and Lowe. It implies that 'looks', 'tastes', 'sounds' etc. are ambiguous words, having either phenomenal or realist meanings. I like it. |
23637 | Primary qualities are the object of mathematics [Reid] |
Full Idea: The primary qualities are the object of the mathematical sciences. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785], 17) | |
A reaction: He spells out this crucial point, which is not so obvious in Locke. The sciences totally rely on the primary qualities, so it is ridiculous to reject the distinction (which Reid accepts). |
23638 | Secondary qualities conjure up, and are confused with, the sensations which produce them [Reid] |
Full Idea: The thought of a secondary quality always carries us back to the sensation which it produces.We give the same name to both, and are apt to confound them. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785], 17) | |
A reaction: 'Redness', for example. Reid puts the point very nicely. Secondary qualities are not entirely mental; they pick out features of the world, but are much harder to understand than the primary qualities. The qualia question lurks. |
23639 | It is unclear whether a toothache is in the mind or in the tooth, but the word has a single meaning [Reid] |
Full Idea: If it be made a question whether the toothache be in the mind that feels it, or in tooth that is affected, much might be said on both sides, while it is not observed that the word has two meanings. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785], 18) | |
A reaction: I'm glad Reid was struck by the weird phenomenon of the brain apparently 'projecting' a pain into a tooth. Presumably before the brain's role was known, people were unaware of this puzzle. There certainly are not two distinct experiences. |
6492 | Reid is seen as the main direct realist of the eighteenth century [Reid, by Robinson,H] |
Full Idea: Reid is often represented by modern opponents of the empiricists as the outstanding protagonist of direct or naïve realism and common sense in the eighteenth century. | |
From: report of Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785]) by Howard Robinson - Perception 1.6 | |
A reaction: Robinson does not deny that this is Reid's view. Keith Lehrer is a great fan of Reid. Personally I think direct realism is quite clearly false, so I find myself losing interest in Reid's so-called 'common sense'. |
23641 | People dislike believing without evidence, and try to avoid it [Reid] |
Full Idea: To believe without evidence is a weakness which every man is concerned to avoid, and which every man wishes to avoid. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785], 20) | |
A reaction: It seems to be very common, though, for people to believe things on incredibly flimsy evidence, if they find the belief appealing. This is close to Clifford's Principle, but not quite as dogmatic. |
23642 | If non-rational evidence reaches us, it is reason which then makes use of it [Reid] |
Full Idea: If Nature gives us information of things that concern us, by other means that by reasoning, reason itself will direct us to receive that information with thankfulness, and to make the best use of it. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785], 20) | |
A reaction: This is more of a claim than an argument, but it is hard to see how anything could even be seen as evidence if some sort of rational judgement has not been made. The clever detective sees which facts are evidence. |
23640 | Only mature minds can distinguish the qualities of a body [Reid] |
Full Idea: I think it requires some ripeness of understanding to distinguish the qualities of a body from the body; perhaps this distinction is not made by brutes, or by infants. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785], 19) | |
A reaction: I'm glad the brutes get a mention in his assessment of these questions. I take such thinking to arise from what can be labelled the faculty of abstraction, which presumably only appears in a mature brain. It is second-level thinking. |
10447 | We can refer to fictional entities if they are abstract objects [Bach] |
Full Idea: If fictional entities, such as characters in a play, are real, albeit abstract entities, then we can genuinely refer to them. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1) | |
A reaction: [He cites Nathan Salmon 1998] Personally I would prefer to say that abstract entities are fictions. Fictional characters have uncertain identity conditions. Do they all have a pancreas, if this is never mentioned? |
10443 | You 'allude to', not 'refer to', an individual if you keep their identity vague [Bach] |
Full Idea: If you say 'a special person is coming to visit', you are not referring to but merely 'alluding to' that individual. This does not count as referring because you are not expressing a singular proposition about it. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1 s2) | |
A reaction: If you add 'I hope he doesn't wear his red suit, but I hope he plays his tuba', you seem to be expressing singular propositions about the person. Bach seems to want a very strict notion of reference, as really attaching listeners to individuals. |
10446 | Fictional reference is different inside and outside the fiction [Bach] |
Full Idea: We must distinguish 'reference' in a fiction from reference outside the fiction to fictional entities. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1) | |
A reaction: This may be more semantically than ontologically significant. It is perhaps best explicated by Coleridge's distinction over whether or not I am 'suspending my disbelief' when I am discussing a character. |
10439 | What refers: indefinite or definite or demonstrative descriptions, names, indexicals, demonstratives? [Bach] |
Full Idea: Philosophers agree that some expressions refer, but disagree over which ones. Few include indefinite descriptions, but some include definite descriptions, or only demonstrative descriptions. Some like proper names, some only indexicals and demonstratives. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], Intro) | |
A reaction: My initial prejudice is rather Strawsonian - that people refer, not language, and it can be done in all sorts of ways. But Bach argues well that only language intrinsically does it. Even pointing fails without linguistic support. |
10441 | If we can refer to things which change, we can't be obliged to single out their properties [Bach] |
Full Idea: We can refer to things which change over time, which suggests that in thinking of and in referring to an individual we are not constrained to represent it as that which has certain properties. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1) | |
A reaction: This seems a good argument against the descriptive theory of reference which is not (I think) in Kripke. Problems like vagueness and the Ship of Theseus rear their heads. |
10442 | We can think of an individual without have a uniquely characterizing description [Bach] |
Full Idea: Being able to think of an individual does not require being able to identify that individual by means of a uniquely characterizing description. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1 s1) | |
A reaction: There is a bit of an equivocation over 'recognise' here. His example is 'the first child born in the 4th century'. We can't visually recognise such people, but the description does fix them, and a records office might give us 'recognition'. |
10445 | It can't be real reference if it could refer to some other thing that satisfies the description [Bach] |
Full Idea: If one is referring to whatever happens to satisfy a description, and one would be referring to something else were it to have satisfied the description instead, this is known as 'weak' reference,...but surely this is not reference at all. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1 s7) | |
A reaction: Bach wants a precise notion of reference, as success in getting the audience to focus on the correct object. He talks of this case as 'singling out' some unfixed thing, and he also has 'alluding to' an unstated thing. Plausible view. |
10457 | Since most expressions can be used non-referentially, none of them are inherently referential [Bach] |
Full Idea: An embarrassingly simple argument is that most expressions can be used literally but not referentially, no variation in meaning explains this fact, so its meaning is compatible with being non-referential, so no expression is inherently referential. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L2) | |
A reaction: I think I have decided that no expression is 'inherently referential', and that it is all pragmatics. |
10463 | Just alluding to or describing an object is not the same as referring to it [Bach] |
Full Idea: Much of what speakers do that passes for referring is merely alluding or describing. ...It is one thing for a speaker to express a thought about a certain object using an expression, and quite another for the expression to stand for that object. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.3) | |
A reaction: Bach builds up a persuasive case for this view. If the question, though, is 'what are you talking about?', then saying what is being alluded to or singled out or described seems fine. Bach is being rather stipulative. |
10459 | Context does not create reference; it is just something speakers can exploit [Bach] |
Full Idea: Context does not determine or constitute reference; rather, it is something for the speaker to exploit to enable the listener to determine the intended reference. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L3) | |
A reaction: Bach thinks linguistic reference is a matter of speaker's intentions, and I think he is right. And this idea is right too. The domain of quantification constantly shifts in a conversation, and good speakers and listeners are sensitive to this. |
10460 | 'That duck' may not refer to the most obvious one in the group [Bach] |
Full Idea: If one ducks starts quacking furiously, and you say 'that duck is excited', it isn't context that makes me take it that you are referring to the quacking duck. You could be referring to a quiet duck you recognise by its distinctive colour. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L3) | |
A reaction: A persuasive example to make his point against the significance of context in conversational reference. Speaker's intended reference must always trump any apparent reference suggested by context. |
10461 | What a pronoun like 'he' refers back to is usually a matter of speaker's intentions [Bach] |
Full Idea: To illustrate speakers' intentions, consider the anaphoric reference using pronouns in these: "A cop arrested a robber; he was wearing a badge", and "A cop arrested a robber; he was wearing a mask". The natural supposition is not the inevitable one. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L4) | |
A reaction: I am a convert to speakers' intentions as the source of all reference, and this example seems to illustrate it very well. 'He said..' 'Who said?' |
10462 | Information comes from knowing who is speaking, not just from interpretation of the utterance [Bach] |
Full Idea: It is a fallacy that all the information in an utterance must come from its interpretation, which ignores the essentially pragmatic fact that the speaker is making the utterance. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L4) | |
A reaction: [He cites Barwise and Perry 1983:34] This is blatantly obvious in indexical remarks like 'I am tired', where the words don't tell you who is tired. But also 'the car has broken down, dear'. |
10458 | People slide from contextual variability all the way to contextual determination [Bach] |
Full Idea: People slide from contextual variability to context relativity to context sensitivity to context dependence to contextual determination. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L3) | |
A reaction: This is reminiscent of the epistemological slide from cultural or individual relativity of some observed things, to a huge metaphysical denial of truth. Bach's warning applies to me, as I have been drifting down his slope lately. Nice. |
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. |