7 ideas
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. |
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. |
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. |
18948 | There is an object for every set of properties (some of which exist, and others don't) [Parsons,T, by Sawyer] |
Full Idea: According to Terence Parsons, there is an object corresponding to every set of properties. To some of those sets of properties there corresponds an object that exists, and to others there corresponds an object that does not exist (a nonexistent object). | |
From: report of Terence Parsons (Nonexistent Objects [1980]) by Sarah Sawyer - Empty Names 5 | |
A reaction: This I take to be the main source of the modern revival of Meinong's notorious view of objects (attacked by Russell). I always find the thought 'a round square is square' to be true, and in need of a truthmaker. But must a round square be non-triangular? |
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). |
22405 | Negative utilitarianism implies that the world should be destroyed, to avoid future misery [Smart] |
Full Idea: The doctrine of negative utilitarianism (that we should concern ourselves with the minimisation of suffering, rather than the maximisation of happiness) ...means we should support a tyrant who explodes the world, to prevent infinite future misery. | |
From: J.J.C. Smart (Outline of a System of Utilitarianism [1973], 5) | |
A reaction: That only seems to imply that the negative utilitarian rule needs supplementary rules. We are too fond of looking for one single moral rule that guides everything. |
22404 | Any group interested in ethics must surely have a sentiment of generalised benevolence [Smart] |
Full Idea: A utilitarian can appeal to the sentiment of generalised benevolence, which is surely present in any group with whom it is profitable to discuss ethical questions. | |
From: J.J.C. Smart (Outline of a System of Utilitarianism [1973], I) | |
A reaction: But ethics is not intended only for those who are interested in ethics. If this is the basics of ethics, then we must leave the mafia to pursue its sordid activities without criticism. Their lack of sympathy seems to be their good fortune. |