9 ideas
18889 | Ostensive definitions needn't involve pointing, but must refer to something specific [Salmon,N] |
Full Idea: So-called ostensive definitions need not literally involve ostension, e.g. pointing, but they must involve genuine reference of some sort (in this case reference to a sample of water). | |
From: Nathan Salmon (Reference and Essence (1st edn) [1981], 4.11.2) |
14627 | S4, and therefore S5, are invalid for metaphysical modality [Salmon,N, by Williamson] |
Full Idea: Salmon argues that S4 and therefore S5 are invalid for metaphysical modality. | |
From: report of Nathan Salmon (Reference and Essence (1st edn) [1981], 238-40) by Timothy Williamson - Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic 4 | |
A reaction: [He gives references for Salmon, and for his own reply] Salmon's view seems to be opposed my most modern logicians (such as Ian Rumfitt). |
18888 | Essentialism says some properties must be possessed, if a thing is to exist [Salmon,N] |
Full Idea: The metaphysical doctrine of essentialism says that certain properties of things are properties that those things could not fail to have, except by not existing. | |
From: Nathan Salmon (Reference and Essence (1st edn) [1981], 3.8.2) | |
A reaction: A bad account of essentialism, and a long way from Aristotle. It arises from the logicians' tendency to fix objects entirely in terms of a 'flat' list of predicates (called 'properties'!), which ignore structure, constitution, history etc. |
9212 | Possible states of affairs are not propositions; a proposition can't be a state of affairs! [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: Possible states of affairs have often been taken to be propositions, but this cannot be correct, since any possible state of affairs is possibly a state of affairs, but no proposition is possibly a state of affairs. | |
From: Kit Fine (The Problem of Possibilia [2003], 2) | |
A reaction: The point is, presumably, that the state of affairs cannot be the proposition itself, but (at least) what the proposition refers to. I can't see any objection to that. |
9213 | The actual world is a possible world, so we can't define possible worlds as 'what might have been' [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: A possible world can't be defined (by Stalnaker and Plantinga) as a way the world might have been, because a possible world is possibly the world, yet no way the world might have been is possibly the world. | |
From: Kit Fine (The Problem of Possibilia [2003], 2) | |
A reaction: His point is that any definition of a possible world must cover the actual world, because that is one of them. 'Might have been' is not applicable to the actual world. It seems a fairly important starting point for discussion of possible worlds. |
18886 | Frege's 'sense' solves four tricky puzzles [Salmon,N] |
Full Idea: Reference via sense solves Frege's four puzzles, of the informativeness of identity statements, the failure of substitutivity in attitude contexts, of negative existentials, and the truth-value of statements using nondenoting singular terms. | |
From: Nathan Salmon (Reference and Essence (1st edn) [1981], 1.1.1) | |
A reaction: These must then be compared with Kripke's three puzzles about referring via sense, and the whole debate is then spread before us. |
18887 | The perfect case of direct reference is a variable which has been assigned a value [Salmon,N] |
Full Idea: The paradigm of a nondescriptional, directly referential, singular term is an individual variable. …The denotation of a variable… is semantically determined directly by the assignment of values. | |
From: Nathan Salmon (Reference and Essence (1st edn) [1981], 1.1.2) | |
A reaction: This cuts both ways. Maybe we are muddling ordinary reference with the simplicities of logical assignments, or maybe we make logical assignments because that is the natural way our linguistic thinking works. |
19216 | Propositions (such as 'that dog is barking') only exist if their items exist [Williamson] |
Full Idea: A proposition about an item exists only if that item exists... how could something be the proposition that that dog is barking in circumstances in which that dog does not exist? | |
From: Timothy Williamson (Necessary Existents [2002], p.240), quoted by Trenton Merricks - Propositions | |
A reaction: This is a view of propositions I can't make sense of. If I'm under an illusion that there is a dog barking nearby, when there isn't one, can I not say 'that dog is barking'? If I haven't expressed a proposition, what have I done? |
18891 | Nothing in the direct theory of reference blocks anti-essentialism; water structure might have been different [Salmon,N] |
Full Idea: There seems to be nothing in the theory of direct reference to block the anti-essentialist assertion that the substance water might have been the very same entity and yet have had a different chemical structure. | |
From: Nathan Salmon (Reference and Essence (1st edn) [1981], 6.23.1) | |
A reaction: Indeed, water could be continuously changing its inner structure, while retaining the surface appearance that gets baptised as 'water'. We make the reasonable empirical assumption, though, that structure-change implies surface-change. |