15 ideas
2626 | A philosopher is outside any community of ideas [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: The philosopher is not a citizen of any community of ideas; that is what makes him a philosopher. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Zettel [1950], 455) | |
A reaction: A bit surprising from the man who gave us 'language games' and 'private language argument'. |
13838 | A decent modern definition should always imply a semantics [Hacking] |
Full Idea: Today we expect that anything worth calling a definition should imply a semantics. | |
From: Ian Hacking (What is Logic? [1979], §10) | |
A reaction: He compares this with Gentzen 1935, who was attempting purely syntactic definitions of the logical connectives. |
13833 | 'Thinning' ('dilution') is the key difference between deduction (which allows it) and induction [Hacking] |
Full Idea: 'Dilution' (or 'Thinning') provides an essential contrast between deductive and inductive reasoning; for the introduction of new premises may spoil an inductive inference. | |
From: Ian Hacking (What is Logic? [1979], §06.2) | |
A reaction: That is, inductive logic (if there is such a thing) is clearly non-monotonic, whereas classical inductive logic is monotonic. |
13834 | Gentzen's Cut Rule (or transitivity of deduction) is 'If A |- B and B |- C, then A |- C' [Hacking] |
Full Idea: If A |- B and B |- C, then A |- C. This generalises to: If Γ|-A,Θ and Γ,A |- Θ, then Γ |- Θ. Gentzen called this 'cut'. It is the transitivity of a deduction. | |
From: Ian Hacking (What is Logic? [1979], §06.3) | |
A reaction: I read the generalisation as 'If A can be either a premise or a conclusion, you can bypass it'. The first version is just transitivity (which by-passes the middle step). |
13835 | Only Cut reduces complexity, so logic is constructive without it, and it can be dispensed with [Hacking] |
Full Idea: Only the cut rule can have a conclusion that is less complex than its premises. Hence when cut is not used, a derivation is quite literally constructive, building up from components. Any theorem obtained by cut can be obtained without it. | |
From: Ian Hacking (What is Logic? [1979], §08) |
13845 | The various logics are abstractions made from terms like 'if...then' in English [Hacking] |
Full Idea: I don't believe English is by nature classical or intuitionistic etc. These are abstractions made by logicians. Logicians attend to numerous different objects that might be served by 'If...then', like material conditional, strict or relevant implication. | |
From: Ian Hacking (What is Logic? [1979], §15) | |
A reaction: The idea that they are 'abstractions' is close to my heart. Abstractions from what? Surely 'if...then' has a standard character when employed in normal conversation? |
13840 | First-order logic is the strongest complete compact theory with Löwenheim-Skolem [Hacking] |
Full Idea: First-order logic is the strongest complete compact theory with a Löwenheim-Skolem theorem. | |
From: Ian Hacking (What is Logic? [1979], §13) |
13844 | A limitation of first-order logic is that it cannot handle branching quantifiers [Hacking] |
Full Idea: Henkin proved that there is no first-order treatment of branching quantifiers, which do not seem to involve any idea that is fundamentally different from ordinary quantification. | |
From: Ian Hacking (What is Logic? [1979], §13) | |
A reaction: See Hacking for an example of branching quantifiers. Hacking is impressed by this as a real limitation of the first-order logic which he generally favours. |
13842 | Second-order completeness seems to need intensional entities and possible worlds [Hacking] |
Full Idea: Second-order logic has no chance of a completeness theorem unless one ventures into intensional entities and possible worlds. | |
From: Ian Hacking (What is Logic? [1979], §13) |
13837 | With a pure notion of truth and consequence, the meanings of connectives are fixed syntactically [Hacking] |
Full Idea: My doctrine is that the peculiarity of the logical constants resides precisely in that given a certain pure notion of truth and consequence, all the desirable semantic properties of the constants are determined by their syntactic properties. | |
From: Ian Hacking (What is Logic? [1979], §09) | |
A reaction: He opposes this to Peacocke 1976, who claims that the logical connectives are essentially semantic in character, concerned with the preservation of truth. |
13839 | Perhaps variables could be dispensed with, by arrows joining places in the scope of quantifiers [Hacking] |
Full Idea: For some purposes the variables of first-order logic can be regarded as prepositions and place-holders that could in principle be dispensed with, say by a system of arrows indicating what places fall in the scope of which quantifier. | |
From: Ian Hacking (What is Logic? [1979], §11) | |
A reaction: I tend to think of variables as either pronouns, or as definite descriptions, or as temporary names, but not as prepositions. Must address this new idea... |
13843 | If it is a logic, the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem holds for it [Hacking] |
Full Idea: A Löwenheim-Skolem theorem holds for anything which, on my delineation, is a logic. | |
From: Ian Hacking (What is Logic? [1979], §13) | |
A reaction: I take this to be an unusually conservative view. Shapiro is the chap who can give you an alternative view of these things, or Boolos. |
6569 | 'This sentence is false' sends us in a looping search for its proposition [Wittgenstein, by Fogelin] |
Full Idea: According to Wittgenstein, 'this sentence is false' sends us off on an endless, looping search for the proposition to be evaluated. | |
From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Zettel [1950], §691) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.2 | |
A reaction: Fogelin quotes this as one possible strategy for dealing with the Liar Paradox. It doesn't sound like much of a solution to the paradox, merely an account of why it is so annoying. Wittgenstein's challenge is that the Cretan can't state his problem. |
18431 | Internal relations combine some tropes into a nucleus, which bears the non-essential tropes [Simons, by Edwards] |
Full Idea: Simons's 'nuclear' option blends features of the substratum and bundle theories. First we have tropes collected by virtue of their internal relations, forming the essential kernel or nucleus. This nucleus then bears the non-essential tropes. | |
From: report of Peter Simons (Particulars in Particular Clothing [1994], p.567) by Douglas Edwards - Properties 3.5 | |
A reaction: [compression of Edwards's summary] This strikes me as being a remarkably good theory. I am not sure of the ontological status of properties, such that they can (unaided) combine to make part of an object. What binds the non-essentials? |
3790 | Causes of beliefs are irrelevant to their contents [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: The causes of our belief in a proposition are indeed irrelevant to the question of what we believe. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Zettel [1950], i.437) | |
A reaction: This should have nipped the causal theory of knowledge in the bud before it got started. Everyone has a different cause for their belief that 'it sometimes rains'. Cause is not justification. |