79 ideas
| 19767 | Reason leads to prudent selfishness, which overrules natural compassion [Rousseau] |
| 8187 | Frege was strongly in favour of taking truth to attach to propositions [Frege, by Dummett] |
| 10365 | We might use 'facta' to refer to the truth-makers for facts [Mellor, by Schaffer,J] |
| 18772 | We can treat designation by a few words as a proper name [Frege] |
| 14075 | Proper name in modal contexts refer obliquely, to their usual sense [Frege, by Gibbard] |
| 10424 | A Fregean proper name has a sense determining an object, instead of a concept [Frege, by Sainsbury] |
| 18773 | People may have different senses for 'Aristotle', like 'pupil of Plato' or 'teacher of Alexander' [Frege] |
| 4978 | The meaning of a proper name is the designated object [Frege] |
| 10510 | Frege ascribes reference to incomplete expressions, as well as to singular terms [Frege, by Hale] |
| 18937 | If sentences have a 'sense', empty name sentences can be understood that way [Frege, by Sawyer] |
| 18940 | It is a weakness of natural languages to contain non-denoting names [Frege] |
| 18939 | In a logically perfect language every well-formed proper name designates an object [Frege] |
| 9462 | Frege is intensionalist about reference, as it is determined by sense; identity of objects comes first [Frege, by Jacquette] |
| 18936 | Frege moved from extensional to intensional semantics when he added the idea of 'sense' [Frege, by Sawyer] |
| 10533 | We can't get a semantics from nouns and predicates referring to the same thing [Frege, by Dummett] |
| 4893 | Frege was asking how identities could be informative [Frege, by Perry] |
| 19757 | No one would bother to reason, and try to know things, without a desire for enjoyment [Rousseau] |
| 19760 | General ideas are purely intellectual; imagining them is immediately particular [Rousseau] |
| 19759 | Only words can introduce general ideas into the mind [Rousseau] |
| 18752 | 'The concept "horse"' denotes a concept, yet seems also to denote an object [Frege, by McGee] |
| 19758 | Language may aid thinking, but powerful thought was needed to produce language [Rousseau] |
| 22318 | Frege failed to show when two sets of truth-conditions are equivalent [Frege, by Potter] |
| 4980 | The meaning (reference) of a sentence is its truth value - the circumstance of it being true or false [Frege] |
| 9180 | Holism says all language use is also a change in the rules of language [Frege, by Dummett] |
| 4981 | The reference of a word should be understood as part of the reference of the sentence [Frege] |
| 15597 | Frege's Puzzle: from different semantics we infer different reference for two names with the same reference [Frege, by Fine,K] |
| 17002 | Frege's 'sense' is ambiguous, between the meaning of a designator, and how it fixes reference [Kripke on Frege] |
| 18778 | Every descriptive name has a sense, but may not have a reference [Frege] |
| 7805 | Frege started as anti-realist, but the sense/reference distinction led him to realism [Frege, by Benardete,JA] |
| 4976 | The meaning (reference) of 'evening star' is the same as that of 'morning star', but not the sense [Frege] |
| 4977 | In maths, there are phrases with a clear sense, but no actual reference [Frege] |
| 4979 | We are driven from sense to reference by our desire for truth [Frege] |
| 15155 | Expressions always give ways of thinking of referents, rather than the referents themselves [Frege, by Soames] |
| 11126 | 'Sense' gives meaning to non-referring names, and to two expressions for one referent [Frege, by Margolis/Laurence] |
| 8164 | Frege was the first to construct a plausible theory of meaning [Frege, by Dummett] |
| 9817 | Earlier Frege focuses on content itself; later he became interested in understanding content [Frege, by Dummett] |
| 8171 | Frege divided the meaning of a sentence into sense, force and tone [Frege, by Dummett] |
| 4954 | Frege uses 'sense' to mean both a designator's meaning, and the way its reference is determined [Kripke on Frege] |
| 7304 | Frege explained meaning as sense, semantic value, reference, force and tone [Frege, by Miller,A] |
| 19773 | Without love, what use is beauty? [Rousseau] |
| 19769 | Rational morality is OK for brainy people, but ordinary life can't rely on that [Rousseau] |
| 19752 | If we should not mistreat humans, it is mainly because of sentience, not rationality [Rousseau] |
| 19768 | The better Golden Rule is 'do good for yourself without harming others' [Rousseau] |
| 19766 | The fact that we weep (e.g. in theatres) shows that we are naturally compassionate [Rousseau] |
| 19756 | Humans are less distinguished from other animals by understanding, than by being free agents [Rousseau] |
| 19755 | Most human ills are self-inflicted; the simple, solitary, regular natural life is good [Rousseau] |
| 19762 | Is language a pre-requisite for society, or might it emerge afterwards? [Rousseau] |
| 19763 | I doubt whether a savage person ever complains of life, or considers suicide [Rousseau] |
| 19778 | Leisure led to envy, inequality, vice and revenge, which we now see in savages [Rousseau] |
| 19779 | Primitive man was very gentle [Rousseau] |
| 19751 | Our two starting principles are concern for self-interest, and compassion for others [Rousseau] |
| 19765 | Savages avoid evil because they are calm, and never think of it (not because they know goodness) [Rousseau] |
| 19771 | Savage men quietly pursue desires, without the havoc of modern frenzied imagination [Rousseau] |
| 19774 | A savage can steal fruit or a home, but there is no means of achieving obedience [Rousseau] |
| 19772 | In a state of nature people are much more equal; it is society which increases inequalities [Rousseau] |
| 19789 | It is against nature for children to rule old men, fools to rule the wise, and the rich to hog resources [Rousseau] |
| 19787 | People accept the right to be commanded, because they themselves wish to command [Rousseau] |
| 19780 | We seem to have made individual progress since savagery, but actually the species has decayed [Rousseau] |
| 19747 | Revolutionaries usually confuse liberty with total freedom, and end up with heavier chains [Rousseau] |
| 19748 | Plebiscites are bad, because they exclude the leaders from crucial decisions [Rousseau] |
| 19749 | In a direct democracy, only the leaders should be able to propose new laws [Rousseau] |
| 19784 | Enslaved peoples often boast of their condition, calling it a state of 'peace' [Rousseau] |
| 19785 | If the child of a slave woman is born a slave, then a man is not born a man [Rousseau] |
| 19775 | People must be made dependent before they can be enslaved [Rousseau] |
| 19746 | Like rich food, liberty can ruin people who are too weak to cope with it [Rousseau] |
| 19786 | Three stages of the state produce inequalities of wealth, power, and enslavement [Rousseau] |
| 19788 | The pleasure of wealth and power is largely seeing others deprived of them [Rousseau] |
| 19777 | Persuading other people that some land was 'owned' was the beginning of society [Rousseau] |
| 19782 | What else could property arise from, but the labour people add to it? [Rousseau] |
| 19781 | Land cultivation led to a general right of ownership, administered justly [Rousseau] |
| 19754 | If we have a natural right to property, what exactly does 'belonging to' mean? [Rousseau] |
| 19750 | Writers just propose natural law as the likely useful agreements among people [Rousseau] |
| 19770 | Primitive people simply redressed the evil caused by violence, without thought of punishing [Rousseau] |
| 19783 | A state of war remains after a conquest, if the losers don't accept the winners [Rousseau] |
| 19753 | Both men and animals are sentient, which should give the latter the right not to be mistreated [Rousseau] |
| 19761 | Men started with too few particular names, but later had too few natural kind names [Rousseau] |
| 4785 | Causal statements relate facts (which are whatever true propositions express) [Mellor, by Psillos] |
| 8408 | Probabilistic causation says C is a cause of E if it increases the chances of E occurring [Mellor, by Tooley] |
| 19776 | Small uninterrupted causes can have big effects [Rousseau] |