58 ideas
| 6891 | Quine's naturalistic and empirical view is based entirely on first-order logic and set theory [Quine, by Mautner] |
| 6310 | Enquiry needs a conceptual scheme, so we should retain the best available [Quine] |
| 22317 | Truth does not admit of more and less [Frege] |
| 13455 | Frege did not think of himself as working with sets [Frege, by Hart,WD] |
| 16895 | The null set is indefensible, because it collects nothing [Frege, by Burge] |
| 3328 | Frege proposed a realist concept of a set, as the extension of a predicate or concept or function [Frege, by Benardete,JA] |
| 9179 | Frege frequently expressed a contempt for language [Frege, by Dummett] |
| 13473 | Frege thinks there is an independent logical order of the truths, which we must try to discover [Frege, by Hart,WD] |
| 6076 | For Frege, predicates are names of functions that map objects onto the True and False [Frege, by McGinn] |
| 3319 | Frege gives a functional account of predication so that we can dispense with predicates [Frege, by Benardete,JA] |
| 9871 | Frege always, and fatally, neglected the domain of quantification [Dummett on Frege] |
| 12798 | Plurals can in principle be paraphrased away altogether [Quine] |
| 16884 | Basic truths of logic are not proved, but seen as true when they are understood [Frege, by Burge] |
| 17905 | Any progression will do nicely for numbers; they can all then be used to measure multiplicity [Quine] |
| 3331 | If '5' is the set of all sets with five members, that may be circular, and you can know a priori if the set has content [Benardete,JA on Frege] |
| 9556 | Nearly all of mathematics has to quantify over abstract objects [Quine] |
| 16880 | Frege aimed to discover the logical foundations which justify arithmetical judgements [Frege, by Burge] |
| 8689 | Eventually Frege tried to found arithmetic in geometry instead of in logic [Frege, by Friend] |
| 5657 | Frege's logic showed that there is no concept of being [Frege, by Scruton] |
| 16462 | The quest for ultimate categories is the quest for a simple clear pattern of notation [Quine] |
| 15723 | Either dispositions rest on structures, or we keep saying 'all things being equal' [Quine] |
| 15490 | Explain unmanifested dispositions as structural similarities to objects which have manifested them [Quine, by Martin,CB] |
| 10197 | An immanent universal is wholly present in more than one place [Zimmerman,DW] |
| 8504 | Quine aims to deal with properties by the use of eternal open sentences, or classes [Quine, by Devitt] |
| 7924 | The notion of a physical object is by far the most useful one for science [Quine] |
| 8464 | Physical objects in space-time are just events or processes, no matter how disconnected [Quine] |
| 8482 | Mathematicians must be rational but not two-legged, cyclists the opposite. So a mathematical cyclist? [Quine] |
| 12136 | Cyclist are not actually essentially two-legged [Brody on Quine] |
| 17594 | We can paraphrase 'x=y' as a sequence of the form 'if Fx then Fy' [Quine] |
| 3318 | Frege made identity a logical notion, enshrined above all in the formula 'for all x, x=x' [Frege, by Benardete,JA] |
| 10198 | If only two indiscernible electrons exist, future differences must still be possible [Zimmerman,DW] |
| 10199 | Discernible differences at different times may just be in counterparts [Zimmerman,DW] |
| 15725 | Normal conditionals have a truth-value gap when the antecedent is false. [Quine] |
| 15722 | Conditionals are pointless if the truth value of the antecedent is known [Quine] |
| 15719 | We feign belief in counterfactual antecedents, and assess how convincing the consequent is [Quine] |
| 15721 | Counterfactuals are plausible when dispositions are involved, as they imply structures [Quine] |
| 15724 | Counterfactuals have no place in a strict account of science [Quine] |
| 15720 | What stays the same in assessing a counterfactual antecedent depends on context [Quine] |
| 16885 | To understand a thought, understand its inferential connections to other thoughts [Frege, by Burge] |
| 16887 | Frege's concept of 'self-evident' makes no reference to minds [Frege, by Burge] |
| 16894 | An apriori truth is grounded in generality, which is universal quantification [Frege, by Burge] |
| 16882 | The building blocks contain the whole contents of a discipline [Frege] |
| 4630 | Two theories can be internally consistent and match all the facts, yet be inconsistent with one another [Quine, by Baggini /Fosl] |
| 3131 | Quine expresses the instrumental version of eliminativism [Quine, by Rey] |
| 5816 | Frege said concepts were abstract entities, not mental entities [Frege, by Putnam] |
| 7307 | A thought is not psychological, but a condition of the world that makes a sentence true [Frege, by Miller,A] |
| 7309 | Frege's 'sense' is the strict and literal meaning, stripped of tone [Frege, by Miller,A] |
| 7312 | 'Sense' solves the problems of bearerless names, substitution in beliefs, and informativeness [Frege, by Miller,A] |
| 7725 | 'P or not-p' seems to be analytic, but does not fit Kant's account, lacking clear subject or predicate [Frege, by Weiner] |
| 7316 | Analytic truths are those that can be demonstrated using only logic and definitions [Frege, by Miller,A] |
| 3988 | Indeterminacy of translation also implies indeterminacy in interpreting people's mental states [Dennett on Quine] |
| 6311 | The firmer the links between sentences and stimuli, the less translations can diverge [Quine] |
| 6312 | We can never precisely pin down how to translate the native word 'Gavagai' [Quine] |
| 6313 | Stimulus synonymy of 'Gavagai' and 'Rabbit' does not even guarantee they are coextensive [Quine] |
| 6317 | Dispositions to speech behaviour, and actual speech, are never enough to fix any one translation [Quine] |
| 6315 | We should be suspicious of a translation which implies that a people have very strange beliefs [Quine] |
| 6314 | Weird translations are always possible, but they improve if we impose our own logic on them [Quine] |
| 3307 | Frege put forward an ontological argument for the existence of numbers [Frege, by Benardete,JA] |