22 ideas
13939 | No possible evidence could decide the reality of numbers, so it is a pseudo-question [Carnap] |
16014 | It is controversial whether only 'numerical identity' allows two things to be counted as one [Noonan] |
13936 | Questions about numbers are answered by analysis, and are analytic, and hence logically true [Carnap] |
8748 | Logical positivists incorporated geometry into logicism, saying axioms are just definitions [Carnap, by Shapiro] |
8960 | Internal questions about abstractions are trivial, and external ones deeply problematic [Carnap, by Szabó] |
13933 | Existence questions are 'internal' (within a framework) or 'external' (concerning the whole framework) [Carnap] |
13934 | To be 'real' is to be an element of a system, so we cannot ask reality questions about the system itself [Carnap] |
13938 | A linguistic framework involves commitment to entities, so only commitment to the framework is in question [Carnap] |
13935 | We only accept 'things' within a language with formation, testing and acceptance rules [Carnap] |
16024 | I could have died at five, but the summation of my adult stages could not [Noonan] |
16023 | Stage theorists accept four-dimensionalism, but call each stage a whole object [Noonan] |
16015 | Problems about identity can't even be formulated without the concept of identity [Noonan] |
16017 | Identity is usually defined as the equivalence relation satisfying Leibniz's Law [Noonan] |
16016 | Identity definitions (such as self-identity, or the smallest equivalence relation) are usually circular [Noonan] |
16020 | Identity can only be characterised in a second-order language [Noonan] |
16018 | Indiscernibility is basic to our understanding of identity and distinctness [Noonan] |
16019 | Leibniz's Law must be kept separate from the substitutivity principle [Noonan] |
13932 | Empiricists tend to reject abstract entities, and to feel sympathy with nominalism [Carnap] |
13937 | New linguistic claims about entities are not true or false, but just expedient, fruitful or successful [Carnap] |
13940 | All linguistic forms in science are merely judged by their efficiency as instruments [Carnap] |
13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |