20 ideas
22438 | Philosophy is largely concerned with finding the minimum that science could get by with [Quine] |
22436 | Logicians don't paraphrase logic into language, because they think in the symbolic language [Quine] |
22431 | Good algorithms and theories need many occurrences of just a few elements [Quine] |
22435 | The logician's '→' does not mean the English if-then [Quine] |
22433 | It is important that the quantification over temporal entities is timeless [Quine] |
22437 | Logical languages are rooted in ordinary language, and that connection must be kept [Quine] |
22434 | Reduction to logical forms first simplifies idioms and grammar, then finds a single reading of it [Quine] |
7760 | Russell only uses descriptions attributively, and Strawson only referentially [Donnellan, by Lycan] |
5811 | A definite description can have a non-referential use [Donnellan] |
5812 | Definite descriptions are 'attributive' if they say something about x, and 'referential' if they pick x out [Donnellan] |
5814 | 'The x is F' only presumes that x exists; it does not actually entail the existence [Donnellan] |
22432 | Normally conditionals have no truth value; it is the consequent which has a conditional truth value [Quine] |
22430 | If we understand a statement, we know the circumstances of its truth [Quine] |
10435 | A definite description 'the F' is referential if the speaker could thereby be referring to something not-F [Donnellan, by Sainsbury] |
10451 | Donnellan is unclear whether the referential-attributive distinction is semantic or pragmatic [Bach on Donnellan] |
5813 | A description can successfully refer, even if its application to the subject is not believed [Donnellan] |
5815 | Whether a definite description is referential or attributive depends on the speaker's intention [Donnellan] |
1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
13713 | Quine holds time to be 'space-like': past objects are as real as spatially remote ones [Quine, by Sider] |
5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |