Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Letters to Jourdain', 'A Subject with No Object' and 'Substitutional Classes and Relations'

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23 ideas

2. Reason / D. Definition / 7. Contextual Definition
Any linguistic expression may lack meaning when taken out of context [Russell]
2. Reason / F. Fallacies / 8. Category Mistake / a. Category mistakes
'The number one is bald' or 'the number one is fond of cream cheese' are meaningless [Russell]
3. Truth / H. Deflationary Truth / 2. Deflationary Truth
'True' is only occasionally useful, as in 'everything Fermat believed was true' [Burgess/Rosen]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 1. Modal Logic
Modal logic gives an account of metalogical possibility, not metaphysical possibility [Burgess/Rosen]
4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 4. Axioms for Sets / p. Axiom of Reducibility
Axiom of Reducibility: there is always a function of the lowest possible order in a given level [Russell, by Bostock]
4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 5. Conceptions of Set / d. Naïve logical sets
The paradoxes are only a problem for Frege; Cantor didn't assume every condition determines a set [Burgess/Rosen]
4. Formal Logic / G. Formal Mereology / 1. Mereology
Mereology implies that acceptance of entities entails acceptance of conglomerates [Burgess/Rosen]
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 6. Relations in Logic
A relation is either a set of sets of sets, or a set of sets [Burgess/Rosen]
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / a. Names
In 'Etna is higher than Vesuvius' the whole of Etna, including all the lava, can't be the reference [Frege]
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / b. Names as descriptive
Any object can have many different names, each with a distinct sense [Frege]
5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 5. Paradoxes in Set Theory / a. Set theory paradoxes
The paradoxes no longer seem crucial in critiques of set theory [Burgess/Rosen]
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / a. Numbers
We should talk about possible existence, rather than actual existence, of numbers [Burgess/Rosen]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 7. Mathematical Structuralism / c. Nominalist structuralism
Structuralism and nominalism are normally rivals, but might work together [Burgess/Rosen]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 1. Mathematical Platonism / b. Against mathematical platonism
Number words became nouns around the time of Plato [Burgess/Rosen]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 7. Abstract/Concrete / a. Abstract/concrete
Abstract/concrete is a distinction of kind, not degree [Burgess/Rosen]
Much of what science says about concrete entities is 'abstraction-laden' [Burgess/Rosen]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 7. Abstract/Concrete / b. Levels of abstraction
Mathematics has ascended to higher and higher levels of abstraction [Burgess/Rosen]
Abstraction is on a scale, of sets, to attributes, to type-formulas, to token-formulas [Burgess/Rosen]
8. Modes of Existence / A. Relations / 1. Nature of Relations
There is no complexity without relations, so no propositions, and no truth [Russell]
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 2. Abstracta by Selection
The old debate classified representations as abstract, not entities [Burgess/Rosen]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / a. Sentence meaning
We understand new propositions by constructing their sense from the words [Frege]
19. Language / B. Reference / 4. Descriptive Reference / a. Sense and reference
Senses can't be subjective, because propositions would be private, and disagreement impossible [Frege]
27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 2. Space
If space is really just a force-field, then it is a physical entity [Burgess/Rosen]