6 ideas
| 12220 | Is it the sentence-token or the sentence-type that has a logical form? [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Do we attribute a logical form to a sentence token because it is a token of a type with that form, or do we attribute a logical form to a sentence type because it is a type of a token with that form? | |
| From: Kit Fine (Quine on Quantifying In [1990], p.110) | |
| A reaction: Since I believe in propositions (as the unambiguous thought that lies behind a sentence), I take it that logical form concerns propositions, though strict logicians don't like this, for fear that logic spills into psychology. |
| 12222 | Substitutional quantification is referential quantification over expressions [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Substitutional quantification may be regarded as referential quantification over expressions. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Quine on Quantifying In [1990], p.124) | |
| A reaction: This is an illuminating gloss. Does such quantification involve some ontological commitment to expressions? I feel an infinite regress looming. |
| 20795 | Some things are their own criterion, such as straightness, a set of scales, or light [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: Dogmatists say something can be its own criterion. The straight is the standard of itself, and a set of scales establishes the equality of other things and of itself, and light seems to reveal not just other things but also itself. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Mathematicians [c.180], 442) | |
| A reaction: Each of these may be a bit dubious, but deserves careful discussion. |
| 20794 | How can sceptics show there is no criterion? Weak without, contradiction with [Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: The dogmatists ask how the sceptic can show there is no criterion. If without a criterion, he is untrustworthy; with a criterion he is turned upside down. He says there is no criterion, but accepts a criterion to establish this. | |
| From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Mathematicians [c.180], 440) | |
| A reaction: This is also the classic difficulty for foundationalist views of knowledge. Is the foundation justified, or not? |
| 2957 | Brain bisection suggests unity of mind isn't all-or-nothing [Nagel, by Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: Nagel argues (because of brain bisection experiments) that we should jettison our commonsense assumption that the unity of consciousness is an all-or-nothing affair. | |
| From: report of Thomas Nagel (Brain Bisection and Unity of Consciousness [1971]) by Michael Lockwood - Mind, Brain and the Quantum p.84 | |
| A reaction: It seems wrong to call it 'commonsense'. It is an assumption that precedes any judgement, but if you rapidly grasp that your mind is in your brain, it becomes common sense that you can cut lumps out of your mind. |
| 3285 | We may be unable to abandon personal identity, even when split-brains have undermined it [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: As a result of the evidence of split-brains, it is possible that the ordinary, simple idea of a single person will come to seem quaint some day, …but we may be unable to abandon the idea, no matter what we discover. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Brain Bisection and Unity of Consciousness [1971], p.164) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure what grounds you can have for a claim that we can't abandon our current view of selves, even when the new reality will be utterly different. Rather conservative? I would expect future concepts to roughly match future reality. |