16776
|
Substance is an intrinsic thing, so parts of substances can't also be intrinsic things [Duns Scotus]
|
|
Full Idea:
Substance ...is an ens per se. No part of a substance is an ens per se when it is part of a substance, because then it would be a particular thing, and one substance would be a particular thing from many things, which does not seem to be true.
|
|
From:
John Duns Scotus (In Praed. [1300], 15.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 26.1
|
|
A reaction:
The tricky bit is 'when it is a part of a substance', meaning a substance must cease to be a substance when it is subsumed into some greater substance. Maybe. Drops of water? Molecules? Bricks? Cells?
|
13857
|
Truth-functional possibilities include the irrelevant, which is a mistake [Edgington]
|
|
Full Idea:
How likely is a fair die landing on an even number to land six? My approach is, assume an even number, so three possibilities, one a six, so 'one third'; the truth-functional approach is it's true if it is not-even or six, so 'two-thirds'.
|
|
From:
Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 3)
|
|
A reaction:
The point is that in the truth-functional approach, if the die lands not-even, then the conditional comes out as true, when she says it should be irrelevant. She seems to be right about this.
|
13853
|
It is a mistake to think that conditionals are statements about how the world is [Edgington]
|
|
Full Idea:
The mistake philosophers have made, in trying to understand the conditional, is to assume that its function is to make a statement about how the world is (or how other possible worlds are related to it), true or false, as the case may be.
|
|
From:
Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 1)
|
|
A reaction:
'If pigs could fly we would never catch them' may not be about the world, but 'if you press this switch the light comes on' seems to be. Actually even the first one is about the world. I've an inkling that Edgington is wrong about this. Powers!
|
13854
|
Conditionals express what would be the outcome, given some supposition [Edgington]
|
|
Full Idea:
It is often necessary to suppose (or assume) that some epistemic possibility is true, and to consider what else would be the case, or would be likely to be the case, given this supposition. The conditional expresses the outcome of such thought processes.
|
|
From:
Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 1)
|
|
A reaction:
This is the basic Edgington view. It seems to involve an active thought process, and imagination, rather than being the static semantic relations offered by possible worlds analyses. True conditionals state relationships in the world.
|
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).
|