36 ideas
21548 | The null class is the class with all the non-existents as its members [MacColl, by Lackey] |
9912 | There are no such things as numbers [Benacerraf] |
9901 | Numbers can't be sets if there is no agreement on which sets they are [Benacerraf] |
9151 | Benacerraf says numbers are defined by their natural ordering [Benacerraf, by Fine,K] |
13891 | To understand finite cardinals, it is necessary and sufficient to understand progressions [Benacerraf, by Wright,C] |
17904 | A set has k members if it one-one corresponds with the numbers less than or equal to k [Benacerraf] |
17906 | To explain numbers you must also explain cardinality, the counting of things [Benacerraf] |
9898 | We can count intransitively (reciting numbers) without understanding transitive counting of items [Benacerraf] |
17903 | Someone can recite numbers but not know how to count things; but not vice versa [Benacerraf] |
9897 | The application of a system of numbers is counting and measurement [Benacerraf] |
9899 | The successor of x is either x and all its members, or just the unit set of x [Benacerraf] |
9900 | For Zermelo 3 belongs to 17, but for Von Neumann it does not [Benacerraf] |
8697 | Disputes about mathematical objects seem irrelevant, and mathematicians cannot resolve them [Benacerraf, by Friend] |
8304 | No particular pair of sets can tell us what 'two' is, just by one-to-one correlation [Benacerraf, by Lowe] |
9906 | If ordinal numbers are 'reducible to' some set-theory, then which is which? [Benacerraf] |
9908 | The job is done by the whole system of numbers, so numbers are not objects [Benacerraf] |
9907 | If any recursive sequence will explain ordinals, then it seems to be the structure which matters [Benacerraf] |
9909 | The number 3 defines the role of being third in a progression [Benacerraf] |
9911 | Number words no more have referents than do the parts of a ruler [Benacerraf] |
8925 | Mathematical objects only have properties relating them to other 'elements' of the same structure [Benacerraf] |
9938 | How can numbers be objects if order is their only property? [Benacerraf, by Putnam] |
9910 | Number-as-objects works wholesale, but fails utterly object by object [Benacerraf] |
9903 | Number words are not predicates, as they function very differently from adjectives [Benacerraf] |
9904 | The set-theory paradoxes mean that 17 can't be the class of all classes with 17 members [Benacerraf] |
16435 | Plantinga proposes necessary existent essences as surrogates for the nonexistent things [Plantinga, by Stalnaker] |
14655 | The 'identity criteria' of a name are a group of essential and established facts [Plantinga] |
14658 | 'Being Socrates' and 'being identical with Socrates' characterise Socrates, so they are among his properties [Plantinga] |
14656 | Does Socrates have essential properties, plus a unique essence (or 'haecceity') which entails them? [Plantinga] |
14654 | Properties are 'trivially essential' if they are instantiated by every object in every possible world [Plantinga] |
14653 | X is essentially P if it is P in every world, or in every X-world, or in the actual world (and not ¬P elsewhere) [Plantinga] |
14660 | If a property is ever essential, can it only ever be an essential property? [Plantinga] |
14661 | Essences are instantiated, and are what entails a thing's properties and lack of properties [Plantinga] |
14657 | Does 'being identical with Socrates' name a property? I can think of no objections to it [Plantinga] |
9905 | Identity statements make sense only if there are possible individuating conditions [Benacerraf] |
14652 | 'De re' modality is as clear as 'de dicto' modality, because they are logically equivalent [Plantinga] |
14659 | We can imagine being beetles or alligators, so it is possible we might have such bodies [Plantinga] |