40 ideas
| 2352 | The job of the philosopher is to distinguish facts about the world from conventions [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: It is the job of the philosopher to distinguish what is fact and what is convention in our theorising about the world. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §7 p.112) | |
| A reaction: This may well be the entire truth about philosophy. It begins with the Nomos-Physis debate in ancient Athens, and it turns out to be the key issue in almost every area of metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics and morality. |
| 6118 | Philosophy is logical analysis, followed by synthesis [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The business of philosophy, as I conceive it, is essentially that of logical analysis, followed by logical synthesis. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.162) | |
| A reaction: I am uneasy about Russell's hopes for the contribution that logic could make, but I totally agree that analysis is the route to wisdom, and I take Aristotle as my role model of an analytical philosopher, rather than the modern philosophers of logic. |
| 6116 | A logical language would show up the fallacy of inferring reality from ordinary language [Russell] |
| Full Idea: We are trying to create a perfectly logical language to prevent inferences from the nature of language to the nature of the world, which are fallacious because they depend upon the logical defects of language. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.159) | |
| A reaction: Wittgenstein seems to have rebelled against this idea, so that one strand of his later philosophy leads to 'ordinary language' philosophy, which is exactly what Russell is criticising. Wittgenstein seems to have seen 'logical language' as an oxymoron. |
| 6117 | Philosophy should be built on science, to reduce error [Russell] |
| Full Idea: We would be wise to build our philosophy upon science, because the risk of error in philosophy is pretty sure to be greater than in science. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.160) | |
| A reaction: If you do very little, it reduces the 'risk of error'. I agree that philosophers should start from the facts, and be responsive to new facts, and that science is excellent at discovering facts. But I don't think cognitive science is the new epistemology. |
| 2345 | Semantic notions do not occur in Tarski's definitions, but assessing their correctness involves translation [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Although no semantic notions are used in Tarski's truth definitions themselves, they are used in deciding when such a definition is correct, namely the notion of translation. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §4 p.66) |
| 2347 | Asserting the truth of an indexical statement is not the same as uttering the statement [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: If you say "I am going to drive this car", and I say "That's true", that is very different from my saying "I am going to drive this car". | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §4 p.68) |
| 6110 | Subject-predicate logic (and substance-attribute metaphysics) arise from Aryan languages [Russell] |
| Full Idea: It is doubtful whether the subject-predicate logic, with the substance-attribute metaphysic, would have been invented by people speaking a non-Aryan language. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.151) | |
| A reaction: This is not far off the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (e.g. Idea 3917), which Russell would never accept. I presume that Russell would see true logic as running deeper, and the 'Aryan' approach as just one possible way to describe it. |
| 11211 | If a sound conclusion comes from two errors that cancel out, the path of the argument must matter [Rumfitt] |
| Full Idea: If a designated conclusion follows from the premisses, but the argument involves two howlers which cancel each other out, then the moral is that the path an argument takes from premisses to conclusion does matter to its logical evaluation. | |
| From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], II) | |
| A reaction: The drift of this is that our view of logic should be a little closer to the reasoning of ordinary language, and we should rely a little less on purely formal accounts. |
| 6107 | It is logic, not metaphysics, that is fundamental to philosophy [Russell] |
| Full Idea: I hold that logic is what is fundamental in philosophy, and that schools should be characterised rather by their logic than by their metaphysics. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.143) | |
| A reaction: Personally I disagree. Russell seems to have been most interested in the logical form underlying language, but that seems to be because he was interested in the ontological implications of what we say, which is metaphysics. |
| 6115 | Vagueness, and simples being beyond experience, are obstacles to a logical language [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The fact that we do not experience simples is one obstacle to the actual creation of a correct logical language, and vagueness is another. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.159) | |
| A reaction: The dream of creating a perfect logical language looks doomed from the start, but it is a very interesting project to try to pinpoint why it is unlikely to be possible. I say a perfect language cuts nature exactly at the joints, so find the joints. |
| 11212 | The sense of a connective comes from primitively obvious rules of inference [Rumfitt] |
| Full Idea: A connective will possess the sense that it has by virtue of its competent users' finding certain rules of inference involving it to be primitively obvious. | |
| From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], III) | |
| A reaction: Rumfitt cites Peacocke as endorsing this view, which characterises the logical connectives by their rules of usage rather than by their pure semantic value. |
| 11210 | Standardly 'and' and 'but' are held to have the same sense by having the same truth table [Rumfitt] |
| Full Idea: If 'and' and 'but' really are alike in sense, in what might that likeness consist? Some philosophers of classical logic will reply that they share a sense by virtue of sharing a truth table. | |
| From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000]) | |
| A reaction: This is the standard view which Rumfitt sets out to challenge. |
| 6109 | Some axioms may only become accepted when they lead to obvious conclusions [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Some of the premisses (of my logicist theory) are much less obvious than some of their consequences, and are believed chiefly because of their consequences. This will be found to be always the case when a science is arranged as a deductive system. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.145) | |
| A reaction: We shouldn't assume the model of self-evident axioms leading to surprising conclusions, which is something like the standard model for rationalist foundationalists. Russell nicely points out that the situation could be just the opposite |
| 6108 | Maths can be deduced from logical axioms and the logic of relations [Russell] |
| Full Idea: I think that no one will dispute that from certain ideas and axioms of formal logic, but with the help of the logic of relations, all pure mathematics can be deduced. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.145) | |
| A reaction: It has been said for a long time that Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems of 1930 disproved this claim, though recently there have been defenders of logicism. Beginning with 'certain ideas' sounds like begging the question. |
| 10968 | Russell gave up logical atomism because of negative, general and belief propositions [Russell, by Read] |
| Full Idea: Russell preceded Wittgenstein in deciding that the reduction of all propositions to atomic propositions could not be achieved. The problem cases were negative propositions, general propositions, and belief propositions. | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924]) by Stephen Read - Thinking About Logic Ch.1 |
| 6113 | To mean facts we assert them; to mean simples we name them [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The way to mean a fact is to assert it; the way to mean a simple is to name it. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.156) | |
| A reaction: Thus logical atomism is a linguistic programme, of reducing our language to a foundation of pure names. The recent thought of McDowell and others is aimed at undermining any possibility of a 'simple' in perception. The myth of 'The Given'. |
| 6114 | 'Simples' are not experienced, but are inferred at the limits of analysis [Russell] |
| Full Idea: When I speak of 'simples' I am speaking of something not experienced as such, but known only inferentially as the limits of analysis. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.158) | |
| A reaction: He claims that the simples are 'known', so he does not mean purely theoretical entities. They have something like the status of quarks in physics, whose existence is inferred from experience. |
| 21722 | Better to construct from what is known, than to infer what is unknown [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Whenever possible, substitute constructions out of known entities for inferences to unknown entities. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.161), quoted by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 7 | |
| A reaction: In 1919 he said that the alternative, of 'postulating' new entities, has 'all the advantages of theft over honest toil' [IMP p.71]. This is Russell's commitment to 'constructing' everything, even his concept of matter. Arithmetic as PA is postulation. |
| 2349 | Realists believe truth is correspondence, independent of humans, is bivalent, and is unique [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysical realism about truth is a bundle of ideas: that it is a matter of Correspondence, that it exhibits Independence (of humans), Bivalence, and Uniqueness (there is only one ultimate truth). | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §7 p.107) |
| 6111 | As propositions can be put in subject-predicate form, we wrongly infer that facts have substance-quality form [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Since any proposition can be put into a form with a subject and a predicate, united by a copula, it is natural to infer that every fact consists in the possession of a quality by a substance, which seems to me a mistake. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.152) | |
| A reaction: This disagrees with McGinn on facts (Idea 6075). I approve of this warning from Russell, which is a recognition that we can't just infer our metaphysics from our language. I think of this as the 'Frege Fallacy', which ensnared Quine and others. |
| 2351 | Aristotle says an object (e.g. a lamp) has identity if its parts stay together when it is moved [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: The parts of a lamp stay together when it is moved (which is one of Aristotle's criteria for objecthood). | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §7 p.110) | |
| A reaction: Metaphysics 1052a26 (just after the cross-reference) says a thing may be unified 'if its movement is single'. |
| 2331 | Functionalism says robots and people are the same at one level of abstraction [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: My "functionalism" insisted that a robot, a human being, a silicon creature and a disembodied spirit could all work much the same way when described at the relevant level of abstraction, and it is wrong to think the essence of mind is hardware. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], Int p.xii) | |
| A reaction: This is the key point about the theory - that it is an abstract theory of mind, saying nothing about substances. It drew, however, some misguided criticisms suggesting silly implementations. |
| 2071 | If concepts have external meaning, computational states won't explain psychology [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Computational models of the brain/mind will not suffice for cognitive psychology. We cannot individuate concepts and beliefs without reference to the environment. Meanings aren't "in the head". | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], p.73) | |
| A reaction: Mr Functionalism quits! |
| 2332 | Functionalism can't explain reference and truth, which are needed for logic [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Functionalism has as much trouble with physical accounts of reference as of meaning. Reference is the main tool used in formal theories of truth. But 'truth' isn't folk psychology, it is central to logic, which everyone wants. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], Int p.xiv) | |
| A reaction: All logic is defined in terms of truth and falsehood resulting from reasoning, but it could be that 'true' and 'false' have no more content that 1 and 0 in binary electronics. They are distinct, but empty. |
| 2348 | Is there just one computational state for each specific belief? [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: The idea that there is one computational state that every being who believes that there are lots of cats in the neighbourhood is in must be false. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §5 p.84) | |
| A reaction: It is tempting to say that the mental states of such people must have SOMETHING in common, until you realise that all you can specify is that all their states are about cats. |
| 2344 | If we are going to eliminate folk psychology, we must also eliminate folk logic [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Why don't the eliminationists speak of "folk logic" as well as "folk psychology"? | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §4 p.60) | |
| A reaction: I think Putnam considers that if you can prove 'truth' to be a necessary feature of mental life, that connects mind and world, but marking a sentence as 'T' doesn't make any connections. |
| 2074 | Can we give a scientific, computational account of folk psychology? [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: The desire that grips Fodor, as it once gripped me, is the desire to make belief-desire psychology "scientific" by simply identifying it outright with computational psychology. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], p.7) | |
| A reaction: An "outright" identification looks very implausible. It seems that we should accept that belief-desire psychology is a very good guide to normal brain events, but a bad guide to unusual brain events. See Ideas 2987 and 7519. |
| 2343 | Reference may be different while mental representation is the same [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: The 'mental representations' of Earth speakers and Twin Earth speakers were not in any way different; the reference was different because the substances were different. Reference is fixed by the environment itself. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §2 p.32) | |
| A reaction: There seems to be an elementary distinction here between what you think you are referring to, and what you are in fact referring to. "That man is the Prince of Wales" (pointing at the butler). |
| 6112 | Meaning takes many different forms, depending on different logical types [Russell] |
| Full Idea: There is not one relation of meaning between words and what they stand for, but as many relations of meaning, each of a different logical type, as there are logical types among the objects for which there are words. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.153) | |
| A reaction: This might be a good warning for those engaged in the externalist/internalist debate over the meaning of concepts such as natural kind terms like 'water'. I could have an external meaning for 'elms', but an internal meaning for 'ferns'. |
| 2346 | Meaning and translation (which are needed to define truth) both presuppose the notion of reference [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: The notion of meaning, and hence of translation (needed to define truth), presupposes the notion of reference. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §4 p.67) | |
| A reaction: It is plausible to see reference as the fundamental notion of language. With no anchors in reality, language would be 'private', in LW's sense. |
| 2354 | "Meaning is use" is not a definition of meaning [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: "Meaning is use" is not a definition of meaning. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §7 p.119) | |
| A reaction: I agree. It probably fails to define meaning because it is false. A corkscrew is not the action of opening a wine bottle. |
| 2336 | Holism seems to make fixed definition more or less impossible [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Holism immediately suggests that most terms cannot be defined, at least not in a way that is fixed once and for all. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §1 p.09) | |
| A reaction: Perhaps there exists a single perfect definition for each holistic system, only graspable by a transcendent intellect. Or why can't there be a matching holistic system of definitions? |
| 2334 | Meaning holism tried to show that you can't get fixed meanings built out of observation terms [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine of Quine called "meaning holism" offered arguments refuting logical positivist attempts to show that every term we can understand can be defined using a limited group of "observation terms". | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §1 p.08) | |
| A reaction: To seems a rather large jump from saying that sentences come in groups to full-blown 'holism' (involving every sentence). |
| 2335 | Understanding a sentence involves background knowledge and can't be done in isolation [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: If I say "Hawks fly", I do not intend my hearer to deduce that a hawk with a broken wing will fly. What we expect depends on the whole network of belief. Language describes experience as a network, not sentence by sentence. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §1 p.09) | |
| A reaction: The shortcut through this is 'exactly what did you mean when you said "Hawks fly"?'. That is, get me closer to your proposition. |
| 2340 | We should separate how the reference of 'gold' is fixed from its conceptual content [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: The effect of my account, as of Kripke's, is to separate the question of how the reference of terms such as 'gold' is fixed from the question of their conceptual content. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §2 p.38) | |
| A reaction: Too simple. 'Gold' isn't a proper name, like 'Hilary', which needs no more content than a serial number. Baptising a gold sample needs much more information than baptising a person. |
| 2341 | Like names, natural kind terms have their meaning fixed by extension and reference [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: It seems that the dominant "component" of natural kind words is the extension. The referential factor does almost all the work, and natural kind terms resemble names. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §3 p.49) | |
| A reaction: My concept of 'tiger' does not mainly consist of the tigers. Does the concept contract as the tiger population dwindles? Prototypes, exemplars etc. See 'Concepts' |
| 2339 | Aristotle implies that we have the complete concepts of a language in our heads, but we don't [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: What is wrong with the Aristotelian picture (of meaning and reference based on concepts) is that it suggest that everything that is necessary for the use of language is stored in each individual mind, but no individual language works this way. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §2 p.25) | |
| A reaction: Languages must partly work that way. You can't talk without a conceptual storehouse. In a small society I would expect every adult to know the full vocabulary. |
| 2338 | Reference (say to 'elms') is a social phenomenon which we can leave to experts [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Reference is a social phenomenon. Individual speakers do not have to know how to distinguish robins, or elms, or aluminium. They can always rely on experts to do this for them. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §2 p.22) | |
| A reaction: It can't just be a social phenomenon. The experts don't just enquire about standard usage, or defer to Hilary Putnam. |
| 11214 | We learn 'not' along with affirmation, by learning to either affirm or deny a sentence [Rumfitt] |
| Full Idea: The standard view is that affirming not-A is more complex than affirming the atomic sentence A itself, with the latter determining its sense. But we could learn 'not' directly, by learning at once how to either affirm A or reject A. | |
| From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], IV) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This seems fairly anti-Fregean in spirit, because it looks at the psychology of how we learn 'not' as a way of clarifying what we mean by it, rather than just looking at its logical behaviour (and thus giving it a secondary role). |
| 2342 | "Water" is a natural kind term, but "H2O" is a description [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: "Water" functions as a natural kind term, but "H2O" is a description, synonymous with an account of its atoms. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §3 p.50) |