19090
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If we can't check our language against experience, philosophy is just comparing beliefs and words [Rorty]
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Full Idea:
If we cannot check our language against non-linguistic awareness, then philosophy can never be more than a discussion of the utility and compatibility of beliefs - and, more particularly, of the various vocabularies in which those beliefs are formulated.
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From:
Richard Rorty (Brandom on Social Practices and Representations [1998], iii.127), quoted by Danielle Macbeth - Pragmatism and Objective Truth p.178
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A reaction:
I'm amazed at how many people I encounter in philosophy circles (compared with none at all outside those circles) who seem to think that we cannot check our language against our non-linguistic awareness. Rorty is their guru. Weird.
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8511
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Stout first explicitly proposed that properties and relations are particulars [Stout,GF, by Campbell,K]
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Full Idea:
In modern times, it was G.F. Stout who first explicitly made the proposal that properties and relations are as particular as the substances that they qualify.
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From:
report of G.F. Stout (The Nature of Universals and Propositions [1923]) by Keith Campbell - The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars §1
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A reaction:
Note that relations will have to be tropes, as well as properties. Williams wants tropes to be parts of objects, but that will be tricky with relations. If you place two objects on a table, how does the 'to the left of' trope come into existence?
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11214
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We learn 'not' along with affirmation, by learning to either affirm or deny a sentence [Rumfitt]
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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.
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From:
Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], IV)
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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).
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