Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Subjectivist's Guide to Objective Chance', 'The Language of Thought' and 'Ontological Relativity'

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10 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 4. Substitutional Quantification
If quantification is all substitutional, there is no ontology [Quine]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
Absolute ontological questions are meaningless, because the answers are circular definitions [Quine]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / d. Commitment of theories
Ontology is relative to both a background theory and a translation manual [Quine]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 1. Concept of Identity
We know what things are by distinguishing them, so identity is part of ontology [Quine]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 5. Language Relativism
Two things are relative - the background theory, and translating the object theory into the background theory [Quine]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 4. Language of Thought
Since the language of thought is the same for all, it must be something like logical form [Fodor, by Devlin]
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 2. Origin of Concepts / c. Nativist concepts
If concept-learning is hypothesis-testing, that needs innate concepts to get started [Fodor, by Margolis/Laurence]
19. Language / B. Reference / 1. Reference theories
Reference is inscrutable, because we cannot choose between theories of numbers [Quine, by Orenstein]
19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / b. Indeterminate translation
Indeterminacy translating 'rabbit' depends on translating individuation terms [Quine]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 4. Regularities / b. Best system theory
Lewis later proposed the axioms at the intersection of the best theories (which may be few) [Mumford on Lewis]