26 ideas
| 13939 | No possible evidence could decide the reality of numbers, so it is a pseudo-question [Carnap] |
| 10928 | Maybe we can quantify modally if the objects are intensional, but it seems unlikely [Quine] |
| 9406 | A class is natural when everybody can spot further members of it [Quinton] |
| 10925 | Failure of substitutivity shows that a personal name is not purely referential [Quine] |
| 10926 | Quantifying into referentially opaque contexts often produces nonsense [Quine] |
| 13936 | Questions about numbers are answered by analysis, and are analytic, and hence logically true [Carnap] |
| 8748 | Logical positivists incorporated geometry into logicism, saying axioms are just definitions [Carnap, by Shapiro] |
| 8960 | Internal questions about abstractions are trivial, and external ones deeply problematic [Carnap, by Szabó] |
| 13933 | Existence questions are 'internal' (within a framework) or 'external' (concerning the whole framework) [Carnap] |
| 13934 | To be 'real' is to be an element of a system, so we cannot ask reality questions about the system itself [Carnap] |
| 13938 | A linguistic framework involves commitment to entities, so only commitment to the framework is in question [Carnap] |
| 15730 | Extreme nominalists say all classification is arbitrary convention [Quinton] |
| 15728 | The naturalness of a class depends as much on the observers as on the objects [Quinton] |
| 9407 | Properties imply natural classes which can be picked out by everybody [Quinton] |
| 15729 | Uninstantiated properties must be defined using the instantiated ones [Quinton] |
| 8520 | An individual is a union of a group of qualities and a position [Quinton, by Campbell,K] |
| 13935 | We only accept 'things' within a language with formation, testing and acceptance rules [Carnap] |
| 10930 | Quantification into modal contexts requires objects to have an essence [Quine] |
| 14645 | To be necessarily greater than 7 is not a trait of 7, but depends on how 7 is referred to [Quine] |
| 9201 | Whether 9 is necessarily greater than 7 depends on how '9' is described [Quine, by Fine,K] |
| 10927 | Necessity only applies to objects if they are distinctively specified [Quine] |
| 9203 | We can't quantify in modal contexts, because the modality depends on descriptions, not objects [Quine, by Fine,K] |
| 13932 | Empiricists tend to reject abstract entities, and to feel sympathy with nominalism [Carnap] |
| 13937 | New linguistic claims about entities are not true or false, but just expedient, fruitful or successful [Carnap] |
| 13940 | All linguistic forms in science are merely judged by their efficiency as instruments [Carnap] |
| 10931 | We can't say 'necessarily if x is in water then x dissolves' if we can't quantify modally [Quine] |