Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Introduction to Russell's Theory of Types', 'Confessio naturae contra atheistas' and 'Assertion'

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4 ideas

4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 4. Axioms for Sets / p. Axiom of Reducibility
18170 The Axiom of Reducibility is self-effacing: if true, it isn't needed [Quine]
     Full Idea: The Axiom of Reducibility is self-effacing: if it is true, the ramification it is meant to cope with was pointless to begin with.
     From: Willard Quine (Introduction to Russell's Theory of Types [1967], p.152), quoted by Penelope Maddy - Naturalism in Mathematics I.1
     A reaction: Maddy says the rejection of Reducibility collapsed the ramified theory of types into the simple theory.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / c. Individuation by location
12693 A body is that which exists in space [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: A body is defined as that which exists in space.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Confessio naturae contra atheistas [1669], A6.1.490), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 1
     A reaction: A very early view. Leibniz notes that this tells you nothing about shape and motion.
19. Language / F. Communication / 2. Assertion
18052 An assertion aims to add to the content of a context [Stalnaker, by Magidor]
     Full Idea: Stalnaker starts with the general thesis that the role of a successful assertion of s is to update the context by adding to it the content of s.
     From: report of Robert C. Stalnaker (Assertion [1978]) by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 5.3.2
     A reaction: This is to be compared with criteria of meaningfulness, such as verificationism, and with Grice's rules of conversational implicature. Presumably if you assert what the context presupposes, you fail to assert, without being meaningless.
19. Language / F. Communication / 5. Pragmatics / b. Implicature
14718 An assertion is an attempt to rule out certain possibilities, narrowing things down for good planning [Stalnaker, by Schroeter]
     Full Idea: Stalnaker's guiding idea is that in making an assertion the speaker is trying to get the audience to rule out certain possibilities. ....If all goes well, further planning will proceed on the basis of a smaller and more accurate range of possibilities.
     From: report of Robert C. Stalnaker (Assertion [1978]) by Laura Schroeter - Two-Dimensional Semantics
     A reaction: This sounds intuitively rather plausible, and is a nice original thought. This is what we pay clever chaps like Stalnaker to come up with. It seems to imply some notion of verisimilitude (qv. under 'truth'), depending on how much narrowing happens.