Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Summa totius logicae', 'Consilience' and 'Does Consciousness Exist?'

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12 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 3. Non-Contradiction
9108 From an impossibility anything follows [William of Ockham]
     Full Idea: From an impossibility anything follows ('quod ex impossibili sequitur quodlibet').
     From: William of Ockham (Summa totius logicae [1323], III.c.xxxvi)
     A reaction: The hallmark of a true logician, I suspect, is that this opinion is really meaningful and important to them. They yearn to follow the logic wherever it leads. Common sense would seem to say that absolutely nothing follows from an impossibility.
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 1. Correspondence Truth
9107 A proposition is true if its subject and predicate stand for the same thing [William of Ockham]
     Full Idea: If in the proposition 'This is an angel' subject and predicate stand for the same thing, the proposition is true.
     From: William of Ockham (Summa totius logicae [1323], II.c.ii)
     A reaction: An interesting statement of what looks like a correspondence theory, employing the idea that both the subject and the predicate have a reference. I think Frege would say that 'x is an angel' is unsaturated, and so lacks reference.
3. Truth / G. Axiomatic Truth / 1. Axiomatic Truth
16300 Ockham had an early axiomatic account of truth [William of Ockham, by Halbach]
     Full Idea: Theories structurally very similar to axiomatic compositional theories of truth can be found in Ockham's 'Summa Logicae'.
     From: report of William of Ockham (Summa totius logicae [1323]) by Volker Halbach - Axiomatic Theories of Truth 3
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 1. Quantification
9106 The word 'every' only signifies when added to a term such as 'man', referring to all men [William of Ockham]
     Full Idea: The syncategorematic word 'every' does not signify any fixed thing, but when added to 'man' it makes the term 'man' stand for all men actually.
     From: William of Ockham (Summa totius logicae [1323], I.c.iv)
     A reaction: Although quantifiers may have become a part of formal logic with Frege, their importance is seen from Aristotle onwards, and it is clearly a key part of William's understanding of logic.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 5. Numbers as Adjectival
9113 Just as unity is not a property of a single thing, so numbers are not properties of many things [William of Ockham]
     Full Idea: Number is nothing but the actual numbered things themselves. Hence just as unity is not an accident added to the thing which is one, so number is not an accident of the things which are numbered.
     From: William of Ockham (Summa totius logicae [1323], I.c.xliv)
     A reaction: [William does not necessarily agree with this view] It strikes me as a key point here that any account of the numbers had better work for 'one', though 'zero' might be treated differently. Some people seem to think unity is a property of things.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / g. Particular being
9110 The words 'thing' and 'to be' assert the same idea, as a noun and as a verb [William of Ockham]
     Full Idea: The words 'thing' and 'to be' (esse) signify one and the same thing, but the one in the manner of a noun and the other in the manner of a verb.
     From: William of Ockham (Summa totius logicae [1323], III,II,c,xxvii)
     A reaction: Well said - as you would expect from a thoroughgoing nominalist. I would have thought that this was the last word on the subject of Being, thus rendering any need for me to read Heidegger quite superfluous. Or am I missing something?
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 1. Nominalism / b. Nominalism about universals
15388 Universals are single things, and only universal in what they signify [William of Ockham]
     Full Idea: Every universal is one particular thing and it is not a universal except in its signification, in its signifying many thing.
     From: William of Ockham (Summa totius logicae [1323]), quoted by Claude Panaccio - Medieval Problem of Universals 'William'
     A reaction: Sounds as if William might have liked tropes. It seems to leave the problem unanswered (the 'ostrich' problem?). How are they able to signify in this universal way, if each thing is just distinct and particular?
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 6. Essence as Unifier
9109 If essence and existence were two things, one could exist without the other, which is impossible [William of Ockham]
     Full Idea: If essence and existence were two things, then no contradiction would be involved if God preserved the essence of a thing in the world without its existence, or vice versa, its existence without its essence; both of which are impossible.
     From: William of Ockham (Summa totius logicae [1323], III,II,c,xxvii)
     A reaction: Not that William is using the concept of a supreme mind as a tool in argument. His denial of essence as something separable is presumably his denial of the Aristotelian view of universals, as well as of the Platonic view.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / e. Cause of consciousness
9286 Consciousness is not a stuff, but is explained by the relations between experiences [James]
     Full Idea: Consciousness connotes a kind of external relation, and not a special stuff or way of being. The peculiarity of our experiences, that they not only are, but are known, is best explained by their relations to one another, the relations being experiences.
     From: William James (Does Consciousness Exist? [1904], §3)
     A reaction: This view has suddenly caught people's interest. It might be better than the higher/lower relationship, which seems to leave the basic problem untouched. Does a whole network of relations between experiences gradually 'add up' to consciousness?
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism
9285 'Consciousness' is a nonentity, a mere echo of the disappearing 'soul' [James]
     Full Idea: 'Consciousness' is the name of a nonentity. ..Those who cling to it are clinging to a mere echo, the faint rumour left behind by the disappearing 'soul' upon the air of philosophy. ..I deny that it stands for an entity, but it does stand for a function.
     From: William James (Does Consciousness Exist? [1904], Intro)
     A reaction: This kind of view is often treated as being preposterous, but I think it is correct. No one is denying the phenomenology, but it is the ontology which is at stake. Either you are a substance dualist, or mind must be eliminated as an 'entity'.
19. Language / D. Propositions / 4. Mental Propositions
9105 Some concepts for propositions exist only in the mind, and in no language [William of Ockham]
     Full Idea: Conceptual terms and the propositions formed by them are those mental words which do not belong to any language; they remain only in the mind and cannot be uttered exteriorly, though signs subordinated to these can be exteriorly uttered.
     From: William of Ockham (Summa totius logicae [1323], I.c.i)
     A reaction: [He cites Augustine] A glimmer of the idea of Mentalese, and is probably an integral part of any commitment to propositions. Quine would hate it, but I like it. Logicians seem to dislike anything that cannot be articulated, but brains are like that.
24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 1. A People / c. A unified people
20662 The biology of societies: kin selection, parenting, mating; status, territory, contracts [Wilson,EO]
     Full Idea: Societies are ordered around six sociobiological principles: kin selection; parental investment; mating strategy; status; territorial expansion and defence; contractual agreement.
     From: Edmund O. Wilson (Consilience [1998], 19 'Intro'), quoted by Peter Watson - Convergence
     A reaction: I'm not sure I trust such a precise list. Personally I'm in society because I'm too frightend to drop out. So where is 'defence'? Still, I like attempts at assembling such a list. Politics needs grounding.